The Greens condemn the Morrison Government for failing to include a gender lens in the Budget, instead leaving it to a non-profit women's organisation to do their homework for them. 

"Women are once again mopping up after the Morrison Government by applying a gender lens to the Budget, something which should have been done by government itself," said Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Women, Senator Larissa Waters.

Cutting 20,000 places from Australia's humanitarian intake is cruel and unnecessary, Greens Immigration spokesperson Nick McKim says.

"The Liberals' decision to reduce Australia's humanitarian intake from 18,750 to 13,750 for the next four years is devastating to displaced people around the world and the millions of Australians who want a compassionate refugee policy," Senator McKim said.

"That is 20,000 men, women and children who will remain displaced because of deliberate decisions taken by this Government."

The long overdue announcement of the Safe Places Emergency Accommodation grants is welcome, but falls critically short of national demand and is no substitute for adequate funding in next week's Budget, Greens Senate Leader Larissa Waters said.  
 
“This funding is a fraction of the money needed to ensure women and children fleeing family violence have somewhere to go and get the support services they need,” Senator Waters, Greens spokesperson on Women, said.
 

This budget is a cynical attempt to buy votes instead of planning for the nation’s looming challenges. What we needed was a plan to tackle the climate emergency through a real investment in renewables and a managed transition away from coal and other fossil fuels. What we needed was a plan to tackle growing inequality and to fund our essential services. Instead Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have stuck their heads in the sand and delivered a few election bribes.

“Rarely do budgets give us such stark choices about what kind of future we want for our country, but this one surely does. We have a clear choice between the Liberals’ selfish, dog-eat-dog worldview or a more caring society where we look after each other,” Dr Richard Di Natale said.

“Under the Government’s radical US-style tax plan, a hedge fund manager on $200,000 gets 10 times the tax cut as the person who trims the hedges around his mansion. 

“We have a progressive tax system in Australia but now we have a fight ahead of us to keep it.

The Turnbull Government's end-of-year mini budget is mean-spirited, wringing savings out of young people, struggling families and newly arrived migrants in order to keep funding tax cuts to their wealthy mates from the big end of town.

“The Turnbull Government has got just that little bit meaner with today’s budget, which unfairly targets young people, struggling families and newly arrived migrants with $6 billion in cuts,” said leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.

“If you’re under the age of 35, you’ve been screwed over in this budget - whether it’s the gouging of higher education, the lack of action on climate change or the refusal to tackle housing affordability,” Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale said.

“It’s clear that the Government finally understands you can’t just keep cutting spending without raising revenue. But this is a budget with no vision or direction for the country. It isn’t a roadmap for the future, it’s a highway to nowhere,” Dr Di Natale said. 

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, says that the quarterly economic figures show that the Government needs to urgently walk away from its austerity drive and to ‘borrow to build’ for productive public infrastructure.

Senator Whish-Wilson, “Scott Morrison’s policy prescription is delivering nothing but bad medicine for the Australian economy.

“The Government’s austerity measures are hurting poorer people and they are actually now harming the wider economy.

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, says that Scott Morrison’s supply-side economics response to his worsening budget deficit will do nothing to address the budget position and will only exacerbate inequality.