'People need help now': Greens leader Adam Bandt lukewarm on Labor's tax cuts
In a sit-down with Capital Brief, the Greens leader also warned that Donald Trump would “leave us in the lurch” as he renewed calls for AUKUS to be scrapped.
Greens leader Adam Bandt has slammed the federal budget as a “missed opportunity”, warning that when left-leaning governments fail to address the root causes of economic anxiety, voters are pushed toward populist figures like US President Donald Trump.
The Greens revealed they would back Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ $17 billion tax cut package, the centrepiece of Tuesday’s budget, after it was put to parliament on Wednesday.
While announcing a ban on non-compete clauses, Chalmers stopped short of introducing sweeping tax reform in the lead-up to the election, instead unveiling a suite of “modest” cost-of-living relief measures, including an extension of the energy rebate.
In a post-budget interview with Capital Brief, Bandt warned that centre-left governments which fail to meaningfully tackle structural inequality create space for the “hard right [to] come in and feed off the discontent”.
