Every day it gets harder to tell the difference between Labor and the Liberals. They’ve sold out to their big corporate donors, while ordinary people are doing it tough.

Australia needs a new vision. We can create hundreds of thousands of good, steady jobs and ensure everyone gets what they need to live a good life. We just need to make big corporations pay their fair share.

This election you have a choice. More of the same from Labor and the Liberals, or to vote for a future you can actually believe in.

We can have:

Free Dental

Public Ownership of Electricity

Cheap, High Frequency Public Transport

Ban Corporate Donations

Guarantee Everyone a Home

$20.5 Billion in Public Schools

Free University & TAFE

Universal, Free Childcare

Tackle Climate Change

Close Manus and Nauru

Invest in new Public Infrastructure

Make Big Corporations Pay their Fair Share

Introduce free dental by bringing it into Medicare.

Almost 50% of Australians (12.6 million people) skip seeing the dentist because of cost, often leading to major health problems in the long run. A quarter of Australians have untreated tooth decay and each year there are 128,712 hospitalisations due to dental issues that were serious enough to require a general anaesthetic.

Just like hospitals and education, everyone should have a right to see the dentist for free. We will bring dental into Medicare, making basic checkups and surgery universal and free. Each person will get $1000 every two years to spend on dental work.

Bring electricity back into public ownership for cheap, reliable and renewable power.

Labor and the Liberals should never have privatised our electricity system. Origin and AGL are making massive profits while we pay more - up to 40% of our power bills are now profits for private retailers selling us an essential service. The Greens will bring electricity back into efficient public ownership and run the sector not for profit, delivering cheap, reliable and renewable power and saving you up to $600 a year.

Introduce $1 public transport fares and frequent buses and trains.

Public transport is a basic service, but at the moment it is too expensive, too slow and too unreliable. This forces more people to drive, makes traffic worse and parking harder, increases stress and costs us money. The Greens believe that bus fares for a family shouldn’t cost more than driving. Travellers shouldn’t have to plan hours in advance just to travel two suburbs over.

The Greens want a future where anyone can walk down the road and pay $1 to catch a bus without having to check a timetable. We’ll ensure there is a high frequency bus or train on every major road.

Ban political donations from for-profit corporations.

Corporate donations to political parties are legalised bribery. Over the past 5 years alone, Labor and the Liberals have taken over $100 million in donations from corporations like banks, property developers, gambling companies, and mining companies. Big corporations and lobbyists can also pay thousands of dollars to get special access to government ministers – and it’s completely legal. These corporations are often rewarded handsomely for their donations with favourable policies and contracts. Meanwhile, the voices of ordinary people are ignored in Canberra.

We will ban both cash-for-access meetings and political donations from for-profit corporations.

Guarantee everyone a home by building 500,000 quality social homes.

More and more people are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage, a whole generation has been locked out of the possibility of buying a home, and homelessness is increasing. The Greens will follow the successful Scandinavian model and build 500,000 well designed social homes available not just to our most vulnerable but to teachers, nurses and anyone who needs an affordable home. These will be built to the highest standard of sustainability and liveability. This will create tens of thousands of good jobs and transform millions of people’s lives for the better.

Invest an extra $20.5 billion in Australian public schools and close the Labor and Liberal funding gap.

Right now, 87% of our schools are underfunded, putting pressure on teachers, students and parents. Every child deserves a quality education no matter their parents’ income or postcode. We’re making an unprecedented investment in public schools of over $20.5 billion in the next 10 years, including investing $4.5 billion directly into Queensland public schools, and giving State Schools access to an expanded Capital Grants Program of $400 million per year.

Under our plan, by 2023, every public school in Australia will be fully funded to reach the nationally agreed standard and to meet the educational needs of all students. This will close the funding gap left by the Liberals and Labor, both of which have refused to fully fund public schools.

Bring back free university and TAFE

Students leaving university or TAFE now face greater pressures than ever before, including high youth unemployment and record high housing and living costs. Being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that takes decades to repay is unsustainable and unfair. The Greens will make TAFE and university universal and free, increase youth allowance by $75 per week and increase funding to universities and TAFEs to ensure everyone gets a quality education.

Introduce Universal, Free Childcare

Currently, privatised childcare systems are expensive and prohibitive for most families - childcare costs an average of $13,000 per year, and this is expected to continue rising. Early childhood is a crucial stage in a child’s development and right now children are missing out. Many parents, in particular women, will often have to leave work to care for children - this can have ongoing impacts throughout women’s lives in terms of their careers, superannuation, and income.

Just like primary and secondary education, we believe everyone should have the right to universal free childcare, university and TAFE. We know early childhood is just as important as school when it comes to giving a child their best chance in life. A child’s access to childcare shouldn’t be determined by their postcode or how much their parents earn.

We’ll ensure every child gets access to five days free childcare. We’ll expand the number of public childcare centres across Queensland to ease the shortage in inner-city and regional areas. We’ll achieve this via coordinated federal and state funding because just like state education, the only way we’ll ensure a truly free, universal system is by stopping state and federal politicians from passing the buck.

Tackle Climate Change through an ambitious, jobs-rich transition

Global warming is already causing unprecedented floods, droughts and heatwaves, but Labor and the Liberals are selling out our future to their big fossil fuel donors. The Greens will transition to 100% public and community owned renewable energy, creating tens of thousands of good, steady jobs across Australia, and delivering cheap, reliable power for everyone. Over the same period we will phase out fossil fuel mining, beginning with banning all new coal and gas projects like Adani’s Carmichael mine.

In addition, we will fund a massive expansion in public transport infrastructure and electric vehicles while ensuring all new developments meet strict standards for sustainability and liveability. We will provide free education and reskilling to all workers whose jobs will be affected. This transition will be funded by levying larger taxes on the big coal and gas corporations before they are phased out.

Close Manus and Nauru and end mandatory detention.

Labor and the Liberals have spent $10 billion on an offshore detention regime that tortures children and in which 12 people have died. They use people seeking asylum as scapegoats for a political and economic system that creates enormous wealth inequality. We will close the camps, bring them here, and end mandatory detention. Asylum seekers' claims will be processed in the community where they have access to housing, healthcare and education, and working rights. At the same time we will provide $500 million over four years to support organisations like UNHCR and partner countries in our region to establish a new system for assessing people’s claims for asylum in a timely and humane fashion.

Invest in new public infrastructure like public parks, pools and libraries.

Both Labor and the LNP have put the short-term profits of big property developers ahead of the interests of ordinary residents. They’ve allowed waves of private development to break up communities, at best engaging in fake consultation. The Greens will overhaul our planning laws and make the big developers pay their fair share to fund the public infrastructure that our neighbourhoods need. We will invest in transforming our neighbourhoods, providing everyone with beautiful, accessible public parks and green space, public pools, libraries, community spaces, sporting facilities, and performance spaces – all within walking distance of your home.

How will we pay for it?

For decades both Liberal and Labor governments have taken millions of dollars in corporate donations. In return, they’ve given away billions of dollars to corporations and left big loopholes in our tax system, to the point where one in three of the biggest corporations pays no tax at all, and working and middle class have the biggest tax burden. Making big corporations pay their fair share in tax would raise $98.5 billion. We can do this by closing corporate tax loopholes, reversing Labor and the Liberals’ tax cuts for the super rich and big corporations, imposing higher taxes on oil and gas, and taxing corporations for their pollution.