STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (13:33): Here are the latest hits on how you're getting screwed over while corporate CEOs are living it up. You're hearing the Greens talk a lot about big corporations and billionaires ripping us off, and here's why. Last week, it was reported that Tesla paid Elon Musk 2.5 million times the average worker in 2025.

Australia's top earning exec took home $48 million last financial year. This is almost 500 times the full-time average wage. Telstra has been in the news recently.

A national outage wrought havoc on public transport, small business and triple zero communications. You might expect some consequences for the person in charge, but, no—the CEO still managed to take home a tidy $6.8 million, a $700,000 increase on the previous year. Over the same time, Telstra told workers they needed to tighten the purse strings and got rid of 1,200 employees.

When cuts come, they're sure as hell not coming for those on top. After posting an $11 billion profit, CommBank had the audacity to offer employees a wage increase below CPI. Meanwhile, their CEO's annual pay jumped to over $9 million last year, up 30 per cent from the year before.

This isn't by accident. This isn't a fluke. This is a system that flourishes because Labor, the Liberals and One Nation are looking out for their billionaire and corporate donors.

The Greens are the only party not beholden to corporations, and we will always put people before profits.