When Morrison’s Treasurer announced the Budget on Tuesday, it was not a plan – instead, what we heard was a last ditch plea for votes in the dying days of a shambolic Government, writes Yamatji Noongar Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia Dorinda Cox.
As a woman, a single mother, and a First Nations woman, this Budget hurts.
Morrison and his cronies are hell bent on destroying Country – land, skies and waters that First Nations people have cared for and sustained for generations. Right now, as we face a climate crisis and growing inequality, now is not the time to pour fuel on the climate fire. Yet that’s what this Budget delivers.
I was proud this week to deliver the Greens’ Budget reply in the Senate – as the first First Nations woman to do so in the Australian Parliament.
Decisions being made in this Budget will be felt for years – for generations – to come.
Right now, there’s over three million people living in poverty in this country. There are millions of people trapped in insecure work, on low wages and in unaffordable housing.
It is unconscionable that, at a time of climate crisis, this Budget would deliver some $37.6 billion taxpayer dollars to massive fossil fuel corporations – when coal, oil and gas are the leading causes of climate change, it’s outrageous.
Instead, think of what this level of investment in women, and in women’s services, could achieve. For example, the $100 million promised for crisis, transition and affordable housing is pitifully small compared to the $7.6 billion investment the sector says is needed to provide emergency and permanent housing for women, particularly older women at risk of homelessness.
It is unconscionable to underfund services which stop women being killed in this epidemic of domestic violence. First Nations women in this country experience violence at rates that far outstrip other groups. Yet instead of a dedicated, standalone National Plan to End Violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women, they’re saying there will be a First Nations ‘action plan’ sitting under the overarching National Plan. That is clearly not what First Nations groups have called for. They’ve also baked in real cuts to community controlled First Nations family violence services over the forward estimates, and delivered no funding at all for the sector’s peak body.
This Budget will not close the gender pay gap. Childcare is still not free, care work is still undervalued, and the minimum wage and income support payments, which more women than men receive, are still too low. In my home state of WA, the gender pay gap is 29% – the largest in the country. It’s 2022 – this is crazy! And yet this Government just doesn’t seem to care.
The issues of climate change and sustainability have had and will continue to have, severe and lasting impacts on our environment, economic and social development. Those who are amongst the most vulnerable and marginalized experience the deepest impacts. While women are increasingly being recognized as more vulnerable to climate change impacts than men, as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent on the natural resources which climate change threatens the most.
It is difficult to describe the heartbreak that comes with the destruction of our environment – of Country. In the mere 240 years since colonisation, our people have watched in horror and dismay as governments of this country – one after another – have acted in their short term interests. This Government fails to see the full picture. They are failing our women, our children, and generations to come.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. Where this Government has let us down, the Greens will keep up the fight for our communities – for our climate – and for a safer future, for all of us.