Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, is calling on Scott Morrison to bring forward the account portability measures in the budget, to make it harder for the big banks to pass on costs to customers.

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “The Greens took full bank account portability as a policy to the 2016 election. Bringing this in would allow customers to change bank accounts with a couple of mouse clicks.

“If we brought forward bank account portability, then the first bank to put up fees would be faced with an immediate exodus of customers.

Greens Treasury Spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, has called upon Labor to stop fiddling at the edges with top-end tax rorts and adopt a proper Buffett rule to get serious about addressing inequality.

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “What Labor proposed last night was the version of the Buffett Rule you adopt when Chris Bowen won’t let you have a Buffett Rule. A proper Buffett Rule would raise nearly $39 billion over the medium term, not a measly $1.3 billion.

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, is calling on the Parliament to implement a Buffett Rule to make sure that executive fat cats don’t rort the tax rules so they pay less than the average wage earner.

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “If we were to make the deficit levy permanent and were to undo the $315 tax cut to the top 20% of income earners we would have a much more progressive income tax system and raise almost three-quarters of the amount that a flat increase to the Medicare Levy would raise.

“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 spokesperson for Healthy Oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, is calling on the federal Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, to break his silence on Macquarie Harbour and to publicly release the audit report sitting on his desk.

Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said, “Is it too much to ask to have a federal Environment Minister who actually wants to protect the environment? There is ongoing damage to the World Heritage Area in Macquarie Harbour from overstocking of fish farms and the Minister has remained silent.

Today the Government has seemingly adopted the Greens economic policy of seperating out recurrent spending from capital in the budget.

Here is a small selection of the Greens policies in this area and the times we pushed the Government to adopt them. They include:

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, provides the following comments on the release of the report by the Senate Inquiry into Carbon Risk Disclosure. This inquiry was instigated by Senator Whish-Wilson in October 2016 following moves by the G20 Financial Stability Board to investigate the issue.

Greens spokesperson for Healthy Oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson responds to the media blitz from Tassal today about the health of Macquarie Harbour.

Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said,  “It is ironic the ‘good news’ released by Tassal today on the supposed ‘rapid recovery’  of Macquarie Harbour, based on its own internal research, comes just days before the release of the second IMAS report into environmental conditions in Macquarie Harbour.