Left Right Centre

LRC 90.3

1. It’s federal election season, so go on - give us your associated party’s elevator pitch. What 3 things will you do for young people / students and Australia as a whole? 2. Do you think poverty and wealth inequality is increasing or decreasing? Why do you think that is? 3. With the recent spike in gas/petrol prices and rumours on the ‘inevitable’ spike in prices of coffee and wheat, what demands should Australians be having from their government to address this issue?

Greens Club 1. The global pandemic presented Australia with a chance to solve long-term problems. Instead, inequality has skyrocketed and the climate crisis has gotten worse. As Australians struggled to keep their head above water, billionaires and big corporations received massive taxpayer handouts and made record profits. Billionaires and big corporations have too much power, and the Liberal and Labor parties can’t tackle these long-term problems because they rely on millions in donations from them. The Greens offer real progressive politics by refusing to take dirty money from oligarchical corporations and bringing real action to issues the Liberal and Labor parties refuse to adequately address. We need urgent action to address the rampant crises in Australia such as the housing and inequality crises, the climate crises, and the increasingly inaccessible right to education. These policies represent Greens values of equality, the public interest and services for everyone. 2. In a wealthy country like ours, everyone who wants a decent job should get one and no one should live in poverty. Instead, unemployment is high, insecure work is out of control, around 20% of our population are receiving payments that aren’t enough to survive on, and 1 in 6 kids are living in poverty. Meanwhile, 1 in 3 big corporations pay no tax, and Australia’s top ten billionaires increased their wealth by 68% during the pandemic. Corporations received billions of dollars of public money and some funnelled it into profits and executive bonuses. It is time to make the billionaires and the big corporations pay their fair share. Through this, we can give a job to everyone who wants one on nation-building, planet-saving government projects. By adopting a national job and a liveable income guarantee, raising every income support payment above the poverty line to $88 a day and abolishing mutual obligations, our wages will begin to rise again, further boosting economic recovery. 3. Where fuel for vehicles is concerned, we now have no choice. Over the next decade, we need to rapidly transition to renewable vehicles instead of hindering their research and adoption. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity to take the Greens plan for 700% renewables seriously. This would mean not only replacing coal and gas power stations but switching transport and industry to clean energy too, as well as becoming a renewables superpower, exporting our renewable energy to the rest of the world through renewable hydrogen, solar electricity and green metals. This clean energy revolution will create hundreds of thousands of well-paid, long-term jobs, enabling workers in fossil fuel industries to transition and farmers to be paid to farm carbon and protect the land. Liberal and Labor are holding back this brighter future because they want to protect their political donations from the billionaires and big corporations that mine and burn coal and gas. But with the Greens in shared power, we will be able to set a goal of 700% renewable energy and have a government-led clean energy revolution over the next decade to fight the climate emergency.

Socialist Alternative

1. Despite living in a representative democracy, the parliamentary system does not give the vast majority of people the ability to enact large-scale positive change, especially when it comes to crises like war, disease or environmental catastrophe.

The Liberals are the party of the rich and powerful of Australia but the Labor party provides no meaningful alternative. It is only through mass collective action

that we have won things like the eight hour work day and the ability to vote in said parliamentary system. Large socialist organisation is the only definite answer in challenging the rich and powerful and ensuring a more egalitarian society. 2. Wealth inequality is not only increasing but increasing exponentially, especially in the last few years. During the pandemic Australia’s billionaires increased their fortunes to the tune of $255 billion, more than that of the poorest 7.7 million people in the country. Yet, wages have stagnated for a decade. Despite there being an abundance of resources for everyone, decades of austerity measures and the quashing of radical collective action in workplaces means that there must always be an army of the unemployed, the starving and the homeless. People forced into exploiting themselves at the behest of the super rich under a system that promotes ruthless competition. 3. We should demand the government introduce price controls and if necessary subsidise the cost of essential goods such as bread. The government should halt stoking the flames of international war. The invasion of Ukraine has caused the disruption of wheat production of which Ukraine and Russia both produce 30 percent of the global supply. The government’s continued investment into military expansion, and its preparations for a future conflict with China, will continue to make the lives of working class people harder. Australians should also demand that the government directly address the fact coffee price increases are directly tied to unprecedented droughts in countries like Brazil or Columbia that are responsible for more than a third of the world’s coffee production. Conditions brought

Labor Club

on by a refusal by corporations and governments to cease the continued destruction of the planet causing climate change of which Australia’s corporations and governments are culpable. Working class people should not have to pay for the crises caused by capitalism and its drive towards war and environmental catastrophe.

1. Labor has made commitments to improve mental health services for students, create more social housing, and reduce emissions 43% by 2030. Malinauskas’ victory in the state election also brings Labor closer to realising their ambition of breathing life back into the healthcare sector. In stark contrast, Scott Morrison is faced with a policy wasteland littered with the victims of Robodebt, “stop the boats”, COVID mismanagement, and piddling natural disaster relief. If you’re reading this and thinking ‘that’s a bit much, isn’t it?’, don’t forget which party spent $3.5 billion on new tanks in February while hundreds were denied hospital beds due to overcrowding. 2. Prior to the pandemic, only one person on Earth was worth $100 billion. Now there are nine, and they’re increasing their wealth at a daily rate of $1.3 billion. Central banks pump trillions of our tax dollars into financial markets to “save the economy” just for it to end up lining the pockets of billionaires. Last year’s Jobseeker cuts pushed a further 155,000 people into poverty— including 20,000 children. These same people were likely among the halfmillion lifted out of poverty by the 2020 COVID supplement. Poverty is a government choice. 3. The government hoards $20.8 billion in the petrol and diesel excise—worth about 44 cents per litre—while the war in Ukraine drives up global prices for everything from medicine to groceries. This, after years of wages flatlining and inflation pegged to rise about 5%. It’s not like the government is helpless to introduce counter-inflationary measures—John Howard froze the excise at 38 cents per litre in 2001. Let’s stop governments from collecting legal bribes from fossil fuel corporations to look the other way while they cling to millions in Russian assets, and transition to clean energy ASAP.

Liberal Club The Liberal Club failed to provide a response.