Greens to unveil ‘Robin Hood’ election plan to tax major Australian companies
The Greens want to slug Coles, Woolworths, the big four banks and other major companies making billions in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis with a 40 per cent tax on ‘excessive profits’.
National
Don't miss out on the headlines from National. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A plan by the Greens to slug mining giants, supermarkets, banks and other major companies with a 40 per cent tax on “excessive profits” has been slammed as “destructive” and damaging to Australia’s clean energy transition.
Business leaders have accused Greens leader Adam Bandt of “economic sabotage” after he unveiled plans for a
“Big Corporations Tax” that would apply to company profits earned on turnover after the first $100 million, with the money raised in what he described as a “Robin Hood” reform to then be “given back to everyday people”.
Minerals Council of Australia chief Tania Constable said the Greens’ “destructive ideas” would deliver a “brutal blow to Australia’s competitive position, undermining investment, jobs, and growth across our critical industries”.
This so-called ‘Robin Hood’ tax plan is nothing more than economic sabotage,” she said.
“The last thing we need is to destabilise the sector that drives our economy and sustains our future prosperity.”
Ms Constable said the Greens’ latest attempt to “punish industries that contribute billions to the national economy and support countless jobs” - particularly in regional communities - was “reckless and irresponsible”.
“Beyond the immediate economic damage, these plans would also erode the investment and confidence essential for future growth, effectively dealing Australia out of the clean energy transition,” she said.
Mr Bandt on Wednesday used his National Press Club address in Canberra to announce an election platform of “Robin Hood reforms” will help form the basis of the Greens’ demands in a “likely” minority parliament next term.
“Big corporations across the economy have squeezed hundreds of billions of dollars out of the public since the end of the pandemic – too much of it tax free,” he said.
“Just one of the things we could do through a Robin Hood-style ‘Big Corporations Tax’ is to put dental into Medicare, for everybody, because your teeth should be included as basic healthcare.”
This measure alone would raise an estimated $296 billion in revenue over the next decade, according to modelling produced by the Parliamentary Budget Office for the Greens.
Under the proposal a company like Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which made about $14.6bn in pre-tax profit in 2023 would go from paying $4.15bn in tax to $5.7bn, while Coles Group Limited would go from paying $423m in tax last year to $724m, according to the Greens’ analysis of financial statements.
Westpac, NAB, ANZ, Woolworths, Telstra, JB Hifi and Ampol would also be among the ASX listed companies the Greens believe would be captured by their tax plan.
The party will argue its corporate super profits tax still allows a “reasonable rate of return” of effectively fiver per cent plus a long term bond rate on shareholder equity, allows for companies to carry forward credits for years that saw substantial revenue drops, and “avoids financial cliffs that some critics say discourage smaller enterprises from expanding”.
Two other components of the Greens’ proposal are an “excessive profits of coal and other mining industries”, and “significant reform” to the existing Petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) to raise an extra $107m and $111m respectively over ten years.
Mr Bandt argued Australians are at breaking point due to rising rents, mortgages, and prices at the checkout, while Labor’s “cosying up” to big corporations is fuelling the cost-of-living crisis.
“The last time the country tried to seriously tax the excess profits of the mining industry, these companies poured millions of dollars into advertising, forcing Labor to sack their own democratically elected Prime Minister,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do, that is exactly why it needs to be done. We can’t have the mining industry determining who is and who isn’t running the country and who the country is run for.”
Mr Bandt said if Labor hadn’t “capitulated” and dumped the mining tax, Australia would have had an extra $35bn in revenue between 2012 and 2020
“This money could have built homes, fixed teeth or kept people out of poverty but instead have been hoarded by mining corporations, hidden in offshore havens and handed off to CEOs in mega bonuses,” he said.
‘Dangerous situation’: Grim weather warning
Forecasters are warning of a “dangerous … multi day outbreak” of dire weather, with storms, heavy rains and floods all possible.
Folbigg husband: ’Maybe I killed kids’
The husband of Kathleen Folbigg – wrongfully convicted over the deaths of her four children – made a stunning suggestion that was kept from public view at his wife’s fateful trial.