Greens will not support tax cuts for high-income earners, Bandt warns Labor

Greens leader Adam Bandt has warned the Senate balance-of-power party will oppose the government’s first budget if Labor proceeds with stage-three tax cuts for high-­income earners.

Greens MP Adam Bandt at a Queensland Media Club event in Brisbane, on Friday. Picture: Richard Walker

Greens leader Adam Bandt has warned the Senate balance-of-power party will oppose the government’s first budget in October if Labor proceeds with stage-three tax cuts for high-income earners.

He warned on Friday the Greens “will not support a Labor budget” that legislated any of the Coalition tax relief platform to mostly benefit those making more than $120,000 a year. ­Anthony Albanese embraced the cuts ahead of last month’s federal election.

But Mr Bandt insisted this would not amount to blocking supply when the Greens planned to put up amendments to any budget bills providing for the tax cuts.

“The Greens will not support a Labor budget that is based on cuts that hurt everyday people while continuing the handouts to billionaires,” he told a Queensland Media Club lunch in Brisbane.

“We will seek to amend the first budget if Labor proceeds with the tax cuts … we will not stand quietly by while Australia is sold off and sold out.”

Pressed on whether the Greens would block supply in the Senate – a scenario involving the Coalition also opposing centrepiece budget appropriation bills – Mr Bandt said: “No, it’s not about blocking. But as you know, there are various ­pieces of legislation that comprise a budget and those pieces of legislation can be amended. That is something we reserve the right to pursue.”

Riding high on the benchmark election result in Queensland, where a record three Greens seized house seats from the major parties in Brisbane and returned a second senator for the state, taking their representation in the upper chamber to 12, Mr Bandt was quizzed on how the party would honour its raft of commitments to voters.

In particular, measures advocated by incoming MP Max Chandler-Mather, who defeated Labor frontbencher Terri Butler in Griffith, to reduce aircraft noise with a 10pm curfew at Brisbane Airport and capped flight movements.

Mr Bandt said the government had the capacity to fix the problem – a growing one in all capital cities. “In three years’ time the community will look to see if we have done the best we can … to push the government to fix it and will judge the government accordingly. If the government hasn’t fixed it, that will be on the government’s head.”