Greens promise to pay Aussie artists nearly $800 a week

As people flock to festivals and concerts again, the Greens suggest artists should always have a financial cushion to fall back on.

Up to 10,000 artists could sign up for the Green Party’s proposed pilot program, in which they would be paid $772.60 a week for a year.

The party argues the artists’ wages would give creatives the freedom to focus on their craft after struggling to make ends meet after two years of cancellations due to the pandemic and cuts in government arts funding.

“The arts are a central part of Australian culture and contribute so much to our economy. We must do everything we can to ensure our artists can continue to be creative,” Green Party Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said on Saturday.

“The arts have helped us all get through lockdowns and now is the time for us to be there for them.”

The nearly $280 million program, which is conditional on a suspended parliament following the May 21 federal election, would also have an artists-in-residence component, placing an artist in every school and library across the country would.

“In today’s rapidly inflationary world, $772.60 for a single-income family consisting of a mother and father and two children in school is going to run out quickly,” said David Bradbury, an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker, in support of the program.

“But it’s a hell of a lot better than most of us deserve in today’s Australia, which is rapidly polarizing between rich and poor.”

Green Senate candidate David Shoebridge said the arts sector employed nearly 200,000 people, four times the number of coal mine workers, and contributed about $15 billion a year to Australia’s GDP.

“Imagine a pub without music, galleries without artwork, cinemas without films, bookstores without fiction,” he said.

Within the Green Party’s very ambitious plan to transform Australia

Australia’s Greens have pledged to legalize marijuana, pay off student debt, make childcare free and ban petrol cars in an ambitious electoral agenda.

But the bold plan – which would cost billions and transform Australia as we know it – is largely a pie in the sky as the party only holds one seat in the House of Representatives.

In the most recent Newspoll ahead of the May elections, the Greens have a primary vote result of 10 percent, which is the same as the 2019 result.

Last month, the Greens announced they would spend at least $66 billion in taxpayers’ money to pay down all student debt, and the leader is Adam Bandt More big-spending plans will be announced in the coming weeks.

Here Daily Mail Australia takes a look at what they have promised so far in policies that will cost hundreds of billions.

Clear student debt

The Greens want to eliminate all student loan debt, meaning Aussies with student loan debt will not have to pay it back.

“College debt should not be an additional burden for people who are already struggling, especially after the impact of the pandemic,” said education spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi.

“Many current MPs, including the Prime Minister, went to university when it was free, but now students are saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that often takes decades to pay off.”

In 2020-21, the average student debt in Australia was $23,685. The total value of HELP debt in 2020 was $66.6 billion.

The Greens also want to make childcare, school, TAFE and university free of charge.

University was free in Australia from 1974, but fees were reintroduced in the 1980s.

Legalize weed

The Greens believe that drug use should be treated as a health problem, not a criminal problem.

They would legalize, tax and regulate cannabis, fund pill testing at festivals and set up safe injection facilities in every capital city.

The Greens want to establish a regulated cannabis market with an Australian cannabis agency to license production and sales and ensure quality.

Aussies are allowed to grow six plants at home for personal use, but there would be heavy penalties for selling them without a license.

Advertising for the drug would be banned.

“The major parties in these countries want to push policies that criminalize drug users, support an unregulated and dangerous market, and scare people to seek help when they need it,” the Greens say on their website.

Ban petrol cars

The Greens want to immediately ban the construction of new coal, oil and gas infrastructure.

Their goal is to stop mining, burning and exporting thermal coal by 2030.

They also want to stop subsidies to fossil fuel companies, ban political donations from those industries, and reintroduce a carbon price.

They would spend billions on renewable energy and storage to ensure Australia’s electricity is 100 per cent renewable.

The Greens would also end sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, subsidize electric cars and build charging stations nationwide.

They want to spend $25 billion on more train and bus services and build a high-speed rail line from Melbourne to Brisbane.

The Greens also want to end clearing and logging of native forests and plant millions of trees.

Make more free health care

The Greens want to make point-of-use dental care free under the Medicare system.

They would also spend $4.8 billion to offer unlimited psychological or psychiatric mental health sessions under Medicare.

Parental Leave at $100,000 per year

The Greens want to stir up parental leave to give parents 26 weeks off.

Their plan is to give each parent six weeks off on a use-or-lose basis, plus an additional 14 weeks that a couple can split between them.

The leave would be paid by taxpayers at the caregiver’s wages of up to $100,000 a year, rather than minimum wage.

In addition, a pension would be paid for the entire period of parental leave.

minimum wage increase

The Greens want to set the minimum wage at 60 percent of the median wage.

The average wage for full-time workers in Australia is currently $1,835 per week and 60 per cent of that would be $1,101.

This would raise the annual minimum wage to $57,264 per year, up from $40,175 per year, or $772.60 per week.

cut defense spending

The Greens, who call their defense spokesman Peace and Disarmament Spokesman, want to cut defense spending to 1.5 percent of GDP.

They want to reduce guns and tanks and instead maintain a “light, immediately deployable, and highly mobile force suited to the needs of our place in the world.”

Greens also want laws that prevent governments from going to war without them Parliament’s approval, a move critics say would hamper the nation’s ability to act quickly in the face of threats.

The Greens also want to “renegotiate” the nation’s alliance with the US and ban killer drones.

They want to end the offshore detention of illegal immigrants and increase the intake of refugees to 50,000 a year.

End racism and sexism

Greens say ‘racism is rampant in Australia’ and ‘racial trauma is a commonplace reality for so many people’.

They would mandate anti-racism training for all federal and Commonwealth employees and spend $5 million on an anti-racism campaign.

The Greens also say, “We live in a rape culture: a culture that normalizes sexual assault as ‘boys will be boys’.”

They would require all MPs to have regular, comprehensive anti-bullying and harassment training and fund a national respectful relationships program in public schools.

Tax the rich even more

The Greens have proposed a billionaire tax that would take 6 percent of the wealth of anyone with a net worth of more than $1 billion.

They say this tax would raise about $40 billion over 10 years on 122 Australian citizens.

They also want a corporate super-profits tax that would impose a 40 percent tax on companies with annual sales over $100 million.