Opinion: Billionaires in no position to call for power rebate means-testing

Billionaires and highly paid MPs need another handout like a crocodile needs a vegan diet, writes Robert Schwarten.

I can’t recall Peter Dutton or any of the other anti-Labor chorus saying the billions in handouts during Covid-19 should have been means-tested.

But I do recall a billionaire scoffing at suggestions that he repay the taxpayer because his business thrived despite the pandemic, claiming that $20m is not a lot of money.

I can also recall Mr Dutton’s government being booted from office with inflation at 6 per cent with over 20 untouched policy positions on energy and no increase in housing funding or increase in housing assistance during its time in government.

I’m told that in order to give a power cost rebate to households in need there is no practical or timely method to means-test it.

But in any case, the precedent set by the former Coalition government in printing money to put into billionaires’ pockets turns the Dutton et al protest to dust.

One of my Tory mates asked me in the pub last Friday night what I was going to do with the Labor energy handouts.

My answer was I will gift it to the struggling single mum who lives in my street and catches the bus with her kids to school every day.

I know she struggles with her electricity bill, her rent, and the delivery of a decent diet for her kids.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in Parliament on Thursday. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

I have gifted her the odd meat tray I have won at the pub and you would swear she had won the casket.

My parents often spoke of their experience in the Depression, remarking that everyone was poor but you shared whatever you could.

You never walked past eyes averted or tut-tutted at misfortune.

If you grew lettuces everyone in the street got one.

Billionaires and highly paid MPs need another handout like a crocodile needs a vegan diet, so they should indeed donate this unneeded taxpayer gift to charity.

Let them experience the glory that comes from giving and the satisfaction of helping those who need it.

They could even go one step further and not claim a tax refund from the donation.

This money is not inflationary for the people who really need it.

They will not go and spend it elsewhere, because theirs is a hand-to-mouth existence – and it is our duty as decent humans to be kind to those who need help.

Until I see those who criticise the government for trying to get money to those in need donate their own handout to charity, I think Australians are free to believe that it is all just faux outrage and vulgar propaganda on behalf of those who would sooner sever their hands than vote Labor.

Robert Schwarten is a former Queensland Labor minister

Originally published as Opinion: Billionaires in no position to call for power rebate means-testing