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At a time when the community is facing unprecedented environmental and economic challenges, this Budget should be transforming Australia to a low-carbon economy.

This Budget should be, but is not, a Green New Deal for Australia.

When the recession ends Australia should be in place to reap the benefits of the global green jobs boom, not at the back of the queue. Instead this budget is a clear demonstration of the Rudd Government's commitment to the old economy; a commitment that will delay Australians the opportunity of the new jobs, innovative research and developmental opportunities, ecological security and social benefits that would come from the move to the New Green Economy.

This is an opportunity that has been seized by governments around the world, like the progressive decisions made by President Obama in his multi-billion billion Green New Deal stimulus package for the United States. Tonight I will set out some of the ways the Greens would grab this transformative opportunity with both hands.

The Prime Minister has called on the Senate to pass this budget in its entirety. Well Prime Minister, the Senate is the House of Review. We're not here to be a rubber stamp and this Budget is far from perfect. It fails single parents, the unemployed and the environment. So the Greens will responsibly scrutinise and improve it, and move to improve it in the Senate.

Australians do not want an early election, and nor do the Greens. We say to the Prime Minister, let's work together to improve this budget, in the same way the Greens worked with the Government to improve the economic stimulus package earlier this year.

Greens Local Jobs programs

We Greens are proud that through our effective work in the Senate we were successful in adding some $350 million for local green jobs into the government's $42 million stimulus package - a package that did not originally create any jobs outside the building and construction sector. These Green-inspired local job programs are now highlights in this Budget.

The millions of dollars for jobs in heritage, cycleway infrastructure and a range of community project grants will create thousands of jobs for Australian throughout the country.

Of the $60 million for heritage grants to be rolled out in the next year, $2 million has already been allocated to support important conservation and restoration work at the National Heritage-listed Old Government House in Parramatta. The Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape in South-Western Victoria,- the first place included in Australia's National Heritage List - has also received just over $360,000 and earlier this month these funds were provided to the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners and the Winda Mara Aboriginal Corporations for the Budj Bim Tracks project.

We also came to an agreement with the Treasurer for improvements to the Liquid Assets Test to enable people on low incomes better access income support when they become unemployed. Our negotiations also sealed increased funding for bushfire research.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics plays a vital role in collecting and analysing social data and providing essential information for research and policy development. We went in to bat for it and $60 million has been allocated over four years in the Budget. This is a significant improvement for this agency. Having said that, I note the recent job losses in the ABS and I would expect that this funding will ensure the job cuts will stop.

Pension Increase

Australia's 1.2 million aged pensioners and carers struggle to make ends meet. Single aged pensioners have been particularly vulnerable and forced to live on less than $285 a week - an income the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer themselves have admitted they could not live on. We have been campaigning for a minimum $30 a week increase in the single aged pension since the 2007 budget.

Increase funding to ABC and SBS

The increased funding to the nation's public broadcasters is also welcome and long overdue. The additional $167 million to the ABC in this year's Federal Budget to increase Australian content and roll out a children's station will benefit millions of families, but we recognise that it will take much more than this to reverse the effects of a decade of neglect. The extra $20 million to SBS is welcome, but not enough to remove the broadcaster's reliance on advertising revenue.

The Greens solidly back the ABC and SBS and it's great to see that our public broadcasters have scored a win in the Budget. But it is disappointing that the Government has neglected smaller community broadcasters.

Paid parental leave

Australian parents have been calling for action on paid parental leave for years, and while the Greens are pleased to see a commitment in Tuesday's budget for the introduction of an 18 week scheme, the fact that it will be delayed until 2011 - after the next election - and will not require employer superannuation contributions to continue, will not go well with the electorate.

Sarah Hanson-Young's paid parental leave Bill is currently before the Parliament. I urge the Government to back our fully-costed model, for 26-weeks paid parental leave, and to adopt this model before the next election.

Metropolitan rail infrastructure

The Greens welcome the substantial increase in new rail projects, particularly the investment in metropolitan rail networks in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. It's a pity these initiatives do not extend to rail projects for Tasmania and the ACT or to getting more of the nation's freight off roads and onto the rail network. It is an even greater pity that one of the projects simply services the coal industry in Newcastle, which the Prime Minister visited today.

We note that many of the rail projects in the Budget are scoping rather than construction. The government should ensure that these projects or their equivalents come to fruition. For example, in Melbourne the announcement of $40 million for preconstruction work on the East- West rail tunnel is a real victory for the 'No Road Tunnel' and Greens campaign. But the full cost of this project is estimated at $3.5 billion. Nonetheless the fact that there is no funding for tollways in Melbourne is real recognition of the community need for low carbon transport options. The Greens will pursue more funding for extending existing train lines and building more tram routes.

Australians want greener and more affordable transport options, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to improve public health and reduce obesity, but also to reduce the cost of transport.

The government has determined to keep its $4.5 billion tax cuts for the rich, while at the same time ignoring those suffering real financial hardship. While the pension increase is welcome, the Greens are disappointed the Government has failed to provide similar support for single parents, or the million or so Australians the Government expects may lose their jobs in coming year.

Unemployed ignored

Unemployed people, whose incomes are even lower than those of pensioners, were ignored in the stimulus package cash payments, despite the Greens' efforts to have them included. Now they are ignored in this Budget, So unemployed Australians must try to scrape by on $227 per week - that's $90 less than the new single pension rate of $317.

This is simply wrong. This inequity in the income support system should be addressed. Based on 2008-9 data, the Australia Institute estimates the cost of an increase to the unemployment benefit to achieve parity with the pre-Budget pension would be approximately $1.7 billion in 2010.

Single parents and students

For the first time since the single mother's pension was introduced, pension payments to single parents will be paid at a different rate from other pensions. The Prime Minister has stated he could not live on the pension, yet with this budget he is asking single parents, more than 85 percent of whom are single mothers, to raise children on $285 a week. These children are growing up in poverty.

The Greens welcome changes to the eligibility for Youth Allowance, making it easier for many young people in education to access income support. We believe these changes should be brought forward to benefit students now. The tightening of the workforce participation criteria, however, should not start until 2011 to ensure the young people who are planning to commence study in 2010 are not disadvantaged.

Family Tax Benefit A indexation

The decision to index the Family Tax Benefit A against the Consumer Price Index, instead of being linked to pension indexation, will hit those at the low end of the income scale, including more than one million children with parents in receipt of the Family Tax Benefit (A) maximum rate. Why did this Labor government not raise this revenue by reversing on its tax cuts to the mega-rich instead?

Tightening the income test taper

The Government has also announced that taper rates will be increased (from 40 cents in the dollar) to 50 cents in the dollar reduction in a person's pension depending on how much income they make. The measure will also have the effect of lowering the rate at which the pension will cut out. This is a very harsh option for raising revenue when Labor could have raised contributions from wealthier Australians.

This will affect pensions including old age and disability pensioners to raise $1 billion when, again there are other better options for raising revenue.

Private Health Insurance

In the Senate we will move to have money saved from means testing the private health insurance rebate to be allocated to public hospitals.

We will also be looking closely at the means testing of the private health rebate, and the consequent increase in Medicare levy surcharge - something that gives us some misgivings.

Public sector job cuts

The Greens have been vocal in opposing the additional 2 per cent efficiency dividend which has already cost around 1700 jobs in the nation's public service. We welcome the Government's decision to reduce this to 1.25 per cent general efficiency dividend. In the recession, public service jobs should be retained rather than shed. And we are pleased that there will be new public service jobs in Centrelink, CSIRO, the Child Support Agency and the ABS.

But the decision to axe Land and Water Australia is a particularly nasty budget cut in which not only will 51 public servants lose their jobs but a valuable research agency will be lost. Cutting this program for a saving of $13 million at a time when climate change is creating the most significant challenges for rural Australia is simply irresponsible. The government should think again.

No labour-market programmes

This Budget has no dedicated response to job-creation in the form of labour market programs. While the Government is spending big on major infrastructure projects, public housing and schools, creating building and construction sector jobs, - and the Greens welcome this expenditure - there are no significant measures to create jobs in other sectors of the community. In the past in tough economic times, it has been Labor governments that have instituted large scale labour market programs for people who have lost their jobs as a consequence of an economic downturn.

The Greens' changes to the economic stimulus package, which will create up to 10,000 jobs, show how more targeted expenditure can create jobs as well as stimulate business.

South Australia's Desalination plant - lack of water for the Lower Murray:

The extra $228 million injected into Adelaide's desalination plant in this budget on the agreement that it would double its output from 50GL to 100GL per year is concerning, considering we have seen a cut of $16.4 million over two years from water reform programs for the Murray-Darling Basin. Surely this money could have been much better spent on water buybacks to give the Murray a bigger flow and the lower lakes the lifeline they need.

Captured by coal

And there is no better demonstration of the old-style thinking of this Budget than the massive expenditure on coal - almost double the amount to be invested in clean, renewable energy projects. A single coal project in the Hunter Valley will receive almost the same amount of money as the entire $1.5 billion Solar Flagship program over the next six years.

A Green New Deal for Australia

This budget banks on coal mining and burning booming again. While it gives some much needed support to renewable energy and energy efficiency, it remains locked in to the coal-reliant past instead of forging a path towards a vibrant carbon neutral economy for Australia.

President Obama's recent multi-billion dollar stimulus package points to the kind of priorities we need to emulate to set Australia on track to deliver a zero carbon jobs boom.

In President Obama's package, funding to roll out renewable energy technologies was well over double the corporate welfare for coal. By contrast, the Rudd Government budget's support for coal is higher than for all of the market-ready renewable technologies combined. The Obama package sets aside a much higher proportion of funding for energy efficiency than this Rudd budget.

But the most visionary aspect of the Obama stimulus is the massive injection of funding into an intelligent grid infrastructure. Upgrading our grid is perhaps the most important investment our governments can make in energy. Building a high quality intelligent grid will save money for every Australian householder, business and factory. It enables much greater energy efficiency. It will modernise our outmoded energy network into cutting edge technology that can repair itself, avoid blackouts and is open to being 100% renewably powered.

The Government has at least recognised that grid investment is necessary. But it has put aside only $100 million equivalent to only one and a half per cent of its expenditure on renewables and coal. Obama set aside $11 billion, as much as his total investment in renewables and coal combined.

If this budget had followed President Obama's albeit imperfect prescription, Australia would have invested $2 billion in renewable energy, $750 million in coal, $4 billion in energy efficiency and $2.2 billion in upgrading the grid. While renewable energy would have received slightly less direct funding, the indirect benefits from the grid upgrade, as well as the raft of supportive policies, would have driven investment many times further. The Greens would rather see the coal sector invest its own profits in its infrastructure needs. We would give their budget allocation to the renewable energy technologies Australia needs to bring online as fast as possible.

President Obama is also investing tens of millions of dollars in jobs training packages to prepare the American workforce for the huge task of transforming its energy infrastructure. Instead of bowing to polluters' demands, Obama is protecting the workers' future by preparing them for the jobs that are needed to deliver a renewable energy and energy efficiency boom. The Rudd government should take heed.

How the Greens will fund our new economy initiatives

There are many opportunities in the Budget to fund the fairer, jobs-rich, green economy I have touched on here tonight. The Greens share community concern about the $57.6 billion deficit created in the budget. Money that must be repaid and cannot therefore be spent on transforming our economy or supporting schools, hospitals, public housing or transport in the years ahead.

However, in these extraordinary economic circumstances, a moderate budget deficit is prudent if the funds are spent on investing in transforming Australia's economy. Unfortunately the government has chosen to prop up the old economy rather than transforming to the new economy.

We have identified very large saving which can be made by redirecting funds from the old polluting economy.

Over the budget period of four years the Greens would save $35 billion in the following ways:

• Removing the tax cuts for people with incomes of more than $100,000. This would save $4.5 billion;
• maintaining the current rate of defence expenditure, but not increasing it by the proposed 3 percent above inflation, would save $7.3 billion;
• $22.2 million per year would be saved on public funding of research into carbon capture and storage - that is $89 million;
• The $1 billion to be spent on the Hunter Valley Coal project would go; 
• The additional $280 million to be given to the biggest polluters under the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction program would follow suit; 
• We support Mr Turnbull's call for higher taxes on cigarettes

In addition, the Greens would make further substantial savings by abolishing some long running industry subsidies that damage both the environment and the budget bottom line. In particular:

• Removing the Fringe Benefits Tax subsidy for company cars - including those used by public servants - would save about $8.2 billion over four year;
• A further $3.2 billion over four years would be saved by ending fuel subsidies to the aviation industry; and
• $10.3 billion over four years would be saved by ending fuel subsidies to the mining, electricity, transport and related businesses, such gas, water, waste, postal and warehousing.

The Greens have economically sound alternatives this budget. Our ideas are more job-rich, environmentally sound and socially responsible. The Government has flagged changes to the superannuation system, the private health insurance rebate and the pension age. Many of its measures require legislation. The Greens will be looking at them closely. We will be consulting widely with the community and we will work to ensure the best outcomes for Australia. As with our job creating changes to the $42 billion stimulus package, we can and will help the government make this budget more productive for the taxpayers' dollar.