Greens: Budget bereft of humanity

BY ALISON DELLIT

Federal Greens politicians have condemned the government's federal budget, Greens Senator Bob Brown describing it as "bereft of humanity and environmental responsibility".

Brown said that the budget would deepen the divide between rich and poor, while attempting to mask the damage with $4-a-week tax cuts. He criticised " the under-spending on Greenhouse and the national strategy for salinity".

Cunningham Greens MP Michael Organ described the tax cuts as a "sham". "This is not tax reform in any meaningful way for ordinary Australians, it is simply throwing away money which would be better invested in welfare, aged care, Medicare, job creation, or higher education", Organ argued in a March 14 press statement.

"The government has effectively introduced a two-tier health care system to prop up bulk-billing, rather than addressing the problem by increasing the rebate to general practitioners, particularly the more than 2000 non-vocationally registered GPs, whose rebate has been pegged at $17.85 since 1989.", Organ concluded.

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle argued that the budget would return Australia to "an era of elitism for our universities". "The Greens will seek to block any changes to the Higher Education Funding Act or other legislation that shifts costs from government to the student and their families", she said in a March 14 press statement.

Nettle clarified that the Greens would oppose deregulation of HECS, more full fee places for domestic students, attempts to force staff onto individual agreements, "voluntary student unionism" and performance based research funding.

From Green Left Weekly, May 21, 2003.

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From GLW issue 538