ADJOURNMENT
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (19:55): Since coming to office four years ago, the Albanese government has delivered a range of policies to ease cost-of-living pressures, including: tax cuts for all taxpayers; cheaper medicines; increased GP rebates, which have seen bulk-billing rates rise to 84 per cent; opening 137 bulk-billing Medicare urgent care clinics; providing free TAFE to over 800,000 people; supporting wage rises for aged-care and childcare workers; bringing in paid track for eligible health professionals, teaching and social work students; temporarily reducing the fuel excise; cutting student debt by 20 per cent; and backing an increase to the minimum wage.
All of these measures are welcome and make a real difference to living costs. Yet I acknowledge that too many Australians are still struggling to make ends meet. It's a similar story in most other parts of the world, with people in so many places living from day to day.
We live in a troubled world filled with unrest. Global conflicts both within nations and between nations, extreme weather events or natural disasters such as the devastating earthquakes in South America, climate change, rising populations, dwindling resources and widespread disease are all contributing to a world in turmoil. For too many, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
In the midst of all these adverse conditions, the gap between rich and poor widens. Inequality worsens as the super rich profit from the struggles and misery of the masses. According to one report here in Australia over the past decade, Australia's 200 richest people increased their wealth by well over 300 per cent from $197 billion to $707 billion.
Only today the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced an all-time record profit of $10.9 billion for the 2025-26 financial year, a period when most Australians were under cost-of-living pressures. I await with interest to see the profits of the other three major banks. In another recent example, in the second quarter of this year, whilst the world struggled through higher fuel costs arising from the US strike on Iran, eight oil multinationals reportedly made a $93 billion profit.
Major defence companies and Wall Street banks have also been huge beneficiaries of the Iranian conflict. Across the world, including in Australia, inequality is rising and the calls for the super rich to pay their fair share of tax and to stop using transnational tax evasion schemes are growing louder. Today, one in seven Australians are living below the poverty line, and welfare agencies and charitable institutions are seeing record numbers of people turning up for food and basic needs.
It's unacceptable that in Australia, a relatively rich country, around 3.7 million Australians struggle through life living below the poverty line. Globally, inequality has always existed. But it is not only getting worse.
It is also becoming the cause of so much human conflict and disillusionment in governments everywhere. It is not reasonable that, across the world, the richest 10 per cent own around 74 per cent of all global wealth and the richest one per cent own about 50 per cent of all global wealth. Just a slight adjustment of those statistics alone could be life-changing for so many people.
I note with interest that this week the UN is hosting the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, where a proposal to tax entities at the source country of their revenue, instead of the country where their domiciled headquarters are located, is being negotiated. Yet, regrettably, I also note that a number of Western countries are resisting that proposal.
The practice of global entities avoiding legitimate tax obligations in Australia by declaring their profits in low tax countries must end. But that will only happen when like-minded countries come together and apply uniform tax laws on multinational entities. As I speak to people across the community, two grievances are regularly raised with me.
Firstly, how is it that so many large corporations that turn over billions of dollars and make massive profits pay so little tax? Secondly, why is it that, unlike other countries, Australia raises so little tax revenue from Australian mineral and gas resources? We have made some good progress on these two issues, but there is much more to do if we are to provide more help to people in need and create a much more equal society.
The House of Representatives transcript was published up to 20:01 . The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed. Federation Chamber Wednesday, 12 August 2026 The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Lawrence ) took the chair at 09:30.