Australian billionaires would face a new wealth tax under the latest plank of the Greens’ Robin Hood-style plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, will on Tuesday unveil a proposal to hit the nation’s estimated 150 billionaires with an additional 10% tax on their wealth above $1bn.
The policy would also impose a 10% limit on so-called “capital flight” each year, curbing the ability of billionaires to shift their wealth offshore to escape the tax.
The tax would raise $23bn over the forward estimates and $50bn this decade, according to Greens-commissioned Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) costings.
That would add to the $514bn raised under the Greens’ other proposed Robin Hood taxes, which would be used to fund policies such as adding dental to Medicare and 50c public transport fares nationwide.
“In a wealthy country like ours, everyone should be able to afford the basics: a home, food, and world-class health and education,” Bandt said. “Instead, billionaires are making out like bandits while everyone else is being squeezed.
“It’s time we turned the tables and made billionaires pay their fair share to fund the services people need.”
An Oxfam report released last month found Australia’s billionaires rake in an average of $67,000 an hour – more than 1,300 times more than the average Australian.
The PBO costings flagged several “uncertainties” with the costings, including the potential for billionaires to deploy “sophisticated strategies” to reduce their wealth liability, thus reducing the amount of revenue raised.
Billionaires could also launch legal challenges to the tax or reduce investment in Australia, the PBO warned.
The Greens will push on regardless, viewing the prospect of a hung parliament after the next election as a “once-in-a-generation” chance to legislate a billionaires tax.
Labor and the Coalition rejected the Greens’ other Robin Hood-style taxes on gas companies and corporate super profits announced last year.
The Greens are aiming to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament and remain optimistic about their prospects of picking up seats despite another poor electoral showing – this time at the Prahran byelection.
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The defeat to the Liberals in the Victorian state seat followed the loss of ground at last year’s Queensland and Australian Capital Territory elections.
The string of results has confirmed a view among major party strategists that support for the Greens is waning, leaving the party at risk of losing seats at this year’s federal poll.
Greens insiders downplayed any federal implications from the Prahran byelection, putting the loss down to low turnout – particularly among young voters – and the campaign run by the former Labor MP turned independent Tony Lupton.
One insider noted the Greens’ primary vote had held up despite circumstances that were “perfect for a catastrophic result”, including the resignation in scandal of a sitting MP and a highly visible campaign from the rightwing group Advance.
One senior Liberal source rubbished the Greens’ narrative, arguing that the minor party’s primary vote should have been higher without a Labor candidate in the byelection.
“The fact that it didn’t suggests some brand damage,” they said.
Prahran overlaps with Bandt’s federal electorate of Melbourne and parts of Labor-held Macnamara, which is among the five seats nationally the Greens are targeting.
Wills in Melbourne, Richmond in New South Wales, Perth in Western Australia and Sturt in South Australia are also on the target list.
