STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (13:34): How much tax did you pay last year? If you're Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the answer is none. News Corp just announced a record increase in revenue, yet they paid no tax.

In fact, News Corp is one of 79 companies that have never paid a cent in tax over the 11 years that corporate tax data has been publicly released—$0 tax on almost $25 billion in revenue. News Corp are emblematic of a new breed of big corporate bludgers leeching off the public purse and giving nothing back. Their stock market announcement of this record revenue also informed shareholders that subscribers to their flagship newspapers are down.

So where is the money coming from? Well, News Corp, despite their name, are essentially a property business that is subsidising unprofitable right-wing newspapers and 24-hour outrage opinion channels. It turns out that having a near monopoly on clipping the ticket on property sales via realestate.com is very profitable.

It's understandable that people are losing faith in a system in which our largest media organisation is propped up by real estate advertising. I'm sure that's had no effect on the housing crisis! But it doesn't have to be this way.

If Labor had the guts to take on the one per cent and make big corporations like News Corp pay their fair share, we could invest in affordable housing and more free and affordable public services, and take on corporate price gouging. They won't, though, because Labor, like the Liberals and One Nation, are funded by big corporations and the one per cent, and they're making decisions that make them richer at your expense.