Our economy should work for people, not profiteering corporations including the big banks, property developers, and big business corporations.

People are struggling to keep their head above water because the cost of everything is going up, and wages have flatlined. 

The Greens want to improve the standard of living for Victorians with more affordable housing, and cheaper energy, education and transport.

We will also create more well paid, secure jobs and higher wages for teachers, nurses and other workers who provide essential public services.

And we’ll pay for it by making big corporations pay their fair share of tax.

The Greens’ plan to tackle cost of living includes:

• Cheaper energy bills for households through a publicly-owned energy retailer.
  
• Stop the big supermarkets from price-gouging through targeted price controls on essential groceries.
  
• Making public schools genuinely free with no out-of-pocket expenses for families.
  
• Higher wages for essential public sector workers by removing the wages cap for non-executive workers.
  
• Building more affordable housing and freezing rents.
  
  

We can increase revenue to pay for the public services we need, like schools and hospitals, through making big corporations and property developers pay their fair share of tax. 

Victoria has a structural revenue problem. The state budget is too reliant on unfair taxes like stamp duty, which contributes to the housing affordability crisis, and gambling taxes, which means the government refuses to fix the harm of problem gambling.

The Victorian Labor Government caved to the property development industry and scrapped its plan for a social housing levy, which would have raised billions from developers to pay for more affordable housing. 

The Greens’ plan to tax big banks and corporations includes: 

• Charging the big banks a levy. They continue to make tens of billions in profit every year, and at just 0.015% quarterly of Victoria’s share of bank liabilities, the levy could raise $1.4 billion over the next four years. 
• Making developers help pay for affordable housing, by charging them a levy of just 2.5% of the value of the properties they sell. 
• Transitioning Victoria off stamp duty, to make housing more affordable. The ACT and NSW are already making the shift to land tax, which is fairer.
• Charging developers who make it rich when land is rezoned a 75% tax on their windfall profits.
• Doubling the royalty rates for coal, gas and oil.
• Increasing the online betting tax to 20%.
• Making levies on water corporations fairer, by charging all of them the same rate (5%), and continuing the levy past its current expiry date.
• Reducing congestion in the inner city by immediately increasing the congestion levy to $2540 for category one.
  

You can find more information about how we plan to pay for our policies here.