STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (13:54): Every day in this place, politicians talk about the cost-of-living crisis, but it is outside these walls that the crisis takes on human form. It is the delivery driver working endless hours just to scrape together rent. It is the aged-care worker who travels hours on public transport to reach a job that pays barely enough to cover the bills.

It is the university graduate who is watching the money that could have been a house deposit go into spiralling student debt repayments. It is the young family, with working parents, still struggling to cover medical bills. There is no doubt that this is a crisis, but it is not by accident; it is the product of a system working exactly as it was designed, with wealth continuing to flow upwards while working people struggle.

Things don't have to be like this. Big, bold change is possible—indeed, it is necessary—and it looks like taxing the obscene profits of gas giants to fund and expand public services. It looks like ending price gouging and breaking up duopolies so people can have cheaper groceries, cheaper power and the services that they need.

It looks like taxing wealth to invest back into the workers who created it. It looks like bringing about genuine redistribution; building public housing; making child care, universities, TAFE and public transport free; and properly funding our schools, hospitals and aged care. Neither Labor nor the Liberals nor One Nation are ever going to do these things.

Let's be very clear about that. They are bought and sold by the same billionaires, the same corporations and the same media that benefit from the status quo. But we are not.

The Greens are fighting for you. We believe politics should be for the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent.