Davidson Marama; Tisch LindsayMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): I rise to speak on the second reading of the Taxation (Budget Measures: Family Incomes Package) Bill. This bill is part of a Budget package that reminds me of a scene from the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. There is a scene in that movie where at the end the tyrant who has taken control of all the water and kept it away from the people finally turns the taps on for the people. He turns the giant taps on and the people are clamouring to get their bit of water. They are cheering and they are yelling because they have been denied water for so long. There is cheering and yelling and he turns the tap on and then he turns it off a few seconds later. The water is on for only a few seconds and then that is it for the people.I was thinking about that. I was thinking that this bill turns that tap on and for families and communities who have desperately needed help for years and have been denied it it is a small trickling drop. For our lowest-income families this bill is a trickle. In the words of the Child Poverty Action Group what we need instead is a tide to actually make meaningful change.Increasing the lowest tax thresholds and increasing the child payment rates under the family tax credit will get more money to people on lower incomes and we support that yes. This bill increases Working for Families payments because costs are high especially at the moment with housing.So it is unfortunate that the Government has hooked the tax cuts for the lowest incomes to tax cuts for the higher incomes. The Greens do not support tax cuts for higher incomes. People on higher incomes themselves do not support tax cuts for higher incomes. They have been clear that they would prefer to have well-funded public services and provisions and a country where people have enough to live well. Like everyone the Greens are not fooled by this Government's bill which is pretending to fix up some of the big mess that the Government designed.This Government wants to pretend it is finally making the changes our country desperately needs after having run into the ground social services like social housing like education support staff and like mental health and addiction support services. In actual fact this Government once again has made decisions for the past not for the future like the fact that the largest share of the tax cuts under this bill will go to families on more than $127000 a year. There is around $33-odd a week for them while those on the lowest incomes—less than $24000 a year—will get maybe only five bucks if they are lucky. Those tax cuts for higher incomes will come at the cost of even more public services.The Greens know that that is the opposite of what we need. Five dollars extra is a pittance for people on lower incomes but at the moment sadly that $5 makes a difference. It makes a meaningful difference and we should not be proud of that. Some families have become so used to scraping a meal together on so little that $5 extra is actually a thing. It is a deal and so the Greens will not stand in the way of that. But this bill does not do what is really needed to improve the lives of people on the lowest incomes and to help us all benefit from stronger communities everywhere.The Greens will keep fighting for those more meaningful changes while not standing in the way of the potential of what this bill has to offer to our lowest-income families. We will keep working for the real changes. We understand the true value of communities of people who have enough to live and survive and live meaningful lives. That is the leadership we need. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Dr Megan Woods—5 minutes.