Senator David Shoebridge’s landmark speech in Canberra last week has raised serious concerns, as Alan Austin reports.
THE ADDRESS to the National Press Club by new Greens Leader David Shoebridge clarified how he sees his mission and enhanced his profile.
It did not, however, show he understands why social cohesion is fraying, nor offer a solution.
Excellent commentary on race and climate
The Senator from NSW affirmed the need for a treaty with First Nations people. This was most welcome.
Shoebridge blasted the “hate and division we hear from One Nation, openly dehumanising migrants, punching down on people with less power in politics, some of the appalling behaviour we’ve seen in the cartoons they have put out, unspeakable stuff”.
The Greens Leader declared forthrightly that One Nation, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are “grifters, cashing in on the anxiety this economic system has created, a system they fully support”. Impressive.
Senator Shoebridge diagnosed accurately “the climate crisis bearing down on us” and highlighted big corporations “still paying little or no tax”. He instanced Woodside, other miners, toll road operators, gambling corporations, arms company Northrop Grumman, other weapons manufacturers, Microsoft and other “AI vampire companies” and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Excellent.
Media falsehoods endorsed
The problems with the speech, however, were the multiple false narratives concocted by the Coalition parties and the pro-Coalition newsrooms which Shoebridge has apparently swallowed whole. We counted 14. Here are the top nine.
1. Shoebridge asserted inflation is excessively high. It isn’t. At just 4.3%, it is well below the 7.9% driven by the policies of the previous Morrison Government. It compares favourably with 6.1% during the Howard years, 11.3% under Fraser and above 23% during the Menzies era.
2. Shoebridge claimed, “the rest of us [those not billionaires] are being smashed by rate rises”. Not true. Interest rates at 4.6% are pretty much where they should be. A bit higher will be perfect.
The Greens Leader seems unaware that interest rates were below 1.51% under Turnbull and Morrison for six years, and at 0.1% for 17 months, thus pushing thousands of elderly savers into poverty and homelessness.
Rates were above 6% under Howard, above 14% under Hawke, above 18% under Fraser and above 24% under Menzies.
3. Shoebridge bemoaned “falling real wages” and blamed the Albanese Government. He has not learned that wage rises since December 2023 have exceeded price rises, and will almost certainly continue to do so when Donald Trump is removed and global fuel supplies return to normal. See chart below:
4. Senator Shoebridge said Australians are now “drowning in debt”, a claim debunked by recent updates on credit card debt. This figure fell again in September to $27,244 million, down from $27,317 million in August, $28,507 million in July 2024 and $38,028 million in July 2019.
Yes, total household debt is at an all-time high. But that is mainly because more first-home buyers have been able to take out loans.
5. It is no longer true that poverty and homelessness are worsening, with “record numbers of people living in poverty”.
As shown here, here and here, data from the Productivity Commission and elsewhere confirm poverty and homelessness peaked in 2023.
6. Shoebridge's claim of “record inequality” is also discredited by recent datasets, including this year’s UBS Global Wealth Report, which has Australia’s Gini coefficient ranking 29th on the table of 32 wealthy countries, the lowest on record — which means the best.
To his shame, Shoebridge held a chart up to the camera to prove a widening wealth gap, which showed only the years 1980 to 2024. Progress since then was concealed.
7. Shoebridge falsely claimed, “the share of our economy going to the profits of big corporations is at an historic high”. Pure malicious nonsense. The record high was in June 2022. See chart below:
8. Shoebridge repeated the false mantra of virtually all newsrooms that Australians are still suffering under the Coalition’s cost-of-living crisis. As proven by multiple sources, that crisis ended in mid-2023. Most Australians are now enjoying a strong upswing in living standards.
9. Finally and damningly, Shoebridge wailed that “big corporations made record profits last year. And yet collectively, they paid less tax than the previous year. How does it happen? And why isn’t it leading the front page of every website and news outlet in this country?”
That did not happen. Completely false.
Total corporate profits tumbled in 2024-25 for the second year in a row, due to falls in iron ore, aluminium, lamb, fine wool and other commodity prices. Naturally, tax paid on profits declined as well.
Shoebridge concealed that the rate of company tax collected under Labor has been increasing strongly.
The Coalition collected 21.9% of gross profits in company income tax in 2019-20 and again in 2020-21. Labor immediately lifted this to a healthy 27.4% in 2022-23, and then up to 28.3% in 2024-25, the last year for which we have numbers.
The current tax administration is not failing here.
Why these falsehoods matter
Shoebridge correctly noted that “the deal between people and government is breaking down, and in that vacuum trust and fear and division, well, it’s growing”.
He fails to see trust is destroyed when newsrooms, economists, business lobbyists, social media commentators and politicians spread malevolent falsehoods — which he is diligently doing.
Predictably, no one at the anti-Labor National Press Club challenged any of his misinformation. Those “reporters” are the principal sources of these pervasive lies and were doubtless delighted to see a high-profile politician sucked in by them.
The Greens Leader’s profile may rise further if he continues to parrot the false narratives regarding the economy.
Shoebridge will begin to serve the nation when he abandons them.
Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001 and Bluesky @alanaustin.bsky.social.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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