The Greens and the left in general have been making an awful lot of noise about billionaires (they notably shut up about millionaires as soon as they amassed their first millions) and mega-corps not paying tax, lately. But they’re strangely selective in who they get outraged about.
If you were to believe the Greens, the only people in Australia not paying tax are Evil Rupert Murdoch and fossil fuel companies.
They haven’t said a word about one of their Green Messiahs.
[Mike Cannon-Brookes] has amassed a fortune of $20billion, largely reaped from selling shares in Atlassian, the task management software company he co-founded.
Despite generating around $1billion in revenue from its Australian operations the firm pays no local company tax, according to the Australian Financial Review.
One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson said Australia needed urgent tax reform to make sure companies such as Atlassian stopped ‘ripping off’ the taxpayer.
Well, as Kerry Packer once told the Senate, they write the rules — he only followed them.
But at least Packer never pretended to be some sort of woke saviour.
Mr Cannon-Brookes promotes Atlassian, which is Australia’s most successful tech company with a market value of around $53billion, as a champion of ‘giving back’.
‘It’s no secret that Atlassian has a pretty deep belief as a company in a responsibility to give back to stand up for what is right and to lead in a quality way through our actions and obviously a long history of doing that,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Except if “giving back” actually means paying taxes of course.
In fact, Cannon-Brookes, who has one of the most gargantuan carbon footprints in the world, has a very strange idea of “giving back”. Apparently, his idea of playing Robin Hood is to slug the poor with skyrocketing electricity bills.
Mr Cannon-Brookes launched a takeover bid of energy giant AGL in May with the stated purpose of shutting down its coal and gas operations.
While the bid was unsuccessful, he retains a significant holding in the company and is campaigning to install four board members who more closely align with his views.
‘We have to move faster onto renewables – which, yes, is renewables … and transmission,’ Mr Cannon-Brookes said.
“Renewables”, of course, means “doubling your electricity bill”. On the other hand, “transmission” means, “a whacking great slice of other peoples’ tax money as subsidies”.
Major energy retailers say replacing coal and gas with renewable energy is the major reason power prices are sky-rocketing.
‘Next year, using the current market prices, tariffs are going up a minimum 35 per cent,’ Alinta chief executive Jeff Dimery told an energy conference in October.
‘It’s horrendous, it’s unpalatable. We don’t want energy consumers getting their power bills and setting fire to them.’
In September, reports by regulators the Energy Security Board and the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) both pointed at switching to renewables as a major reason for power price surges.
Higher electricity prices are unlikely to unduly worry Mr Cannon-Brookes even though he does have multiple rooms to light and heat.
Well, of course: like all environmentally-conscious plutocrats, he lives in a mansion with a Godzilla-sized carbon footprint.
Despite his company being notably absent when it comes to chipping in for the federal budget, Mr Cannon- Brookes has many ideas on how to spend lots of tax money.
In a lengthy twitter thread directed at former treasurer Josh Frydenberg on the eve of the last May budget, Mr Cannon-Brookes proposed a huge spending spree.
He wanted the Commonwealth to ‘help Aussies electrify their homes’ by ‘switching your car & appliances (heating/water/cooking etc) from petrol & gas’ […]
There was also shopping list of regulations and subsidies to be lavished on electric vehicles.
Daily Mail
None of which will end up in his pockets, of course.
That’s what taxes are for, you see: subsidising the follies of the climate-deranged ultra-rich.
Now, shut up and let them take your money.