In May, millions of voters validated that we have a rightful place in Canberra as a third force in national politics.
By Senator Peter Whish-Wilson
Another year has provided another opportunity to demonstrate why Australia needs the Greens in parliaments.
Millions of voters validated that we have a rightful place in Canberra as a third force in national politics, and returned all our MPs to the federal parliament with a healthy increased vote at the May 2019 federal election.
It is a testament to the Greens’ consistency and dedication, fighting hard for outcomes that benefit the whole community and not just vested interests. In particular, our decades-long stance fighting for the environment and for climate action is resonating with more and more Australians. Onward and upward!
The protection of our oceans
As the Greens Healthy Oceans spokesperson, I continued to pressure the Australian government and parliament to uphold our traditional global leadership role in opposing any form of cruel whaling.
A Greens motion recently passed the Australian Senate unanimously condemning Japan for pulling out of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and resuming commercial whaling.
Whilst decades of activism by many good people and decades of the Greens pressuring respective Australian governments to act in parliaments played an important role in Japan withdrawing from whaling in our Southern Ocean, the cruel and inhumane hunt continues in the Pacific and other oceans around the world.
I have written several times to the Greens Icelandic Prime Minister and have made contact the Global Greens to form an alliance of Green MPs from different nations to pressure the last whaling countries to cease this barbaric practice, once and for all.
MPAs ripped up
Sadly, we have seen this past year the Morrison Liberal Government gut decades of hard work by scientists, conservationists and activists in establishing the world’s leading Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) network off our Australian coastlines. Protected areas that would stop destructive oil and gas drilling, seismic testing, overfishing and help our oceans recover in a time of crisis. They also provide an invaluable data set so we better understand other impacts on marine life, such as from pollution and climate change.
We fought hard in the Senate against the axing of half of the previously established (but already weakened) MPAs, which also included leading on trying to have new inadequate regulations disallowed. I warned other senators that the savage cuts to marine protection were being done for a few powerful vested interests in the fishing and oil and gas industries, and that if we cut marine protections in Australia federal waters, it would likely lead to cuts and weakening of marine protections in state waters and that is exactly what has happened.
The Greens will continue to work with the thousands of Australians and the many hard-working ENGOs that campaigned for better marine protections to keep this campaign alive.
Banning oil, all new offshore oil and gas drilling
The Greens have also led the charge in parliament against seismic testing and banning all new offshore oil and gas drilling. The Fight for the Bight campaign saw massive protests around the nation, including thousands of surfers getting active and paddling out at their local beaches to say NO to new oil and gas drilling in our oceans. My office has been actively involved in many of these protests nationwide.
At a time of climate emergency, the Greens would like to see all new seismic testing and oil and gas drilling banned in offshore Australian waters. This is what the NZ Greens were able to achieve in negotiations with the Ardern Labor Government; there is no reason we can’t aim for the same here. It’s worth noting this is also one of the key asks of the Schools Strike 4 Climate: no new fossil fuel developments.
On a positive note, after three attempts, the Greens have just succeeded in getting up a Senate Inquiry into the impacts of seismic testing on our oceans and fisheries. This is a world first. While it is hard to believe that the trillion dollar oil and gas industry has thrived for decades, almost no scientific research exists on the impacts of their activities on marine life. We will now closely scrutinise this.
Climate change and oceans
The last 12 months has also seen more tragic changes to our oceans. In Tasmania, new scientific reports showed that warming oceans from climate change have brought new pests to our coasts, including the invasive sea urchins Centrostephanus rodgersii. It is predicted that Tasmania has already lost 30 percent of its productive east coast reefs to this urchin, made totally barren of the biodiversity that is critical to marine life and fisheries. Models predict that by 2050 half of our reefs will be gone if we don’t take drastic action.
I have spent a lot of time talking to Tasmanians about other changes climate change is bringing to their marine environment: the declines in most fish stocks, the loss of our ancient giant kelp forests, the threats from industrial salmon acquaculture. Other states around the nation are suffering similar devastating impacts. It is important for the Greens to have conversations with local communities and all stakeholders around this nation about the changes we are all seeing, and why supporting strong action on climate is critical for ocean health.
Marine plastic pollution
Nationally, the Greens continue to lead the charge against marine plastic pollution, and fixing the recycling crisis. I have campaigned on this issue for nearly 15 years, seven of this within the Senate. After initiating numerous historic parliamentary inquiries into this most pervasive of issues, the Greens have just introduced legislation to the Senate to ban certain single use plastics, and set mandatory, regulated targets to reboot national recycling.
This bill is called: Product Stewardship Amendment (Packaging and Plastics) Bill 2019. Watch this space! After demonstrating our track record over many years on this issue, with many stakeholders, we are hoping to get political support across the spectrum for this critical piece of legislation.
Sharks live in the ocean and deserve our protection
I have continued another year of campaigning in and out of parliament to have last-century, ineffective and highly destructive lethal measures for ‘shark mitigation’ removed from our oceans and beaches. Shark nets and baited hooks (drum lines) don’t make the ocean safe for humans but they are weapons of mass destruction for protected marine life.
I was pleased that the Senate recently supported my call for the establishment of a national working group to develop strategies and facilitate information-sharing about non-lethal shark mitigation measures with the objective of ending lethal shark control programs. We should be investing in new technologies that can reduce the risk to ocean-goers and protect all marine life. The campaign has strong public support and is just ramping up.
Great Barrier Reef
All of us are aware of the alarming, tragic decline of the Great Barrier Reef. It is a cause of global concern. But what exactly are we doing about this?
I chaired a Senate inquiry into the Great Barrier Reef 2050 Partnership Program that saw the government provide a dodgy grant of $444 million to a small private organisation, with no track record in managing large scientific programs – an organisation with fossil fuel companies on its board.
I found that the grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation was a desperate attempt to cover-up this government's legacy of reef mismanagement: years of chronic underfunding and disregard for climate change in the context of an imminent World Heritage in Danger listing for the greatest living organism on this planet. This grant was clearly a political decision made with no consultation, no due diligence and no regard for proper process. It's a textbook case of how not to implement public policy and a perfect example of why we shouldn't trust the future of a dying reef to a government intent on outsourcing public policy.
The report and its recommendations are a good opportunity now to press reset and build the best blueprint possible for future reef management in full consultation with all stakeholders.
An economy for all of us
All Australians watched the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry (BRC) unfold in the last year, many not knowing that the Greens led in federal parliament on getting this critical inquiry. Indeed, this critical and historic probe wouldn’t have happened without the Greens in Canberra.
This inquiry put the worst excesses of capitalism on trial, and boy was it found guilty! A litany of greed, fraud and misconduct was uncovered, and aired in public. Even veteran journalists were shocked at what was revealed.
This 46th parliament will see over 30 pieces of new legislation brought forward, acting on the recommendations of the BRC to fix a broken system and hold big corporations to account. The Greens should be proud of this particular legacy.
As Treasury spokesperson, I will also continue to lead the fight in the Senate against corporate greed, multinational tax avoidance, tax cuts to big business and wealthy Australians. The Greens will also continue to tackle housing affordability for Australians, push for further reform of our financial and tax systems, foreign investment laws, and drive the transition to renewable energy. We will also continue our focus on the need to capitalise on record low interest rates and build the right infrastructure necessary to set this nation up for the new century, creating thousands of new Green jobs in the process.
Why protest is important
In the end, what has been most remarkable about his past year is the power of individuals to motivate and inspire others to take action to effect change. The environment movement worldwide has been inspired by Greta Thunberg and I count myself among them.
I’ve attended three Schools Strike 4 Climate events over the past year and felt hope for the future with our amazing young people showing the drive and passion it will take to protect our planet and get action on climate change!
If our communities and societies were an ocean, we can all now feel the energy in the water and see the wave of protest building. The Greens have been working hard to catch and ride this wave with millions of others, and we now have to work doubly hard to make sure that protest movements such as Schools Strike 4 Climate and Extinction Rebellion have a political pathway forward, to effect change in parliaments.
Ultimately, decisions are made in parliaments. That’s why the Greens formed as a political party: to give voters a clear choice on the issues that are critical to them. And of course, there is no bigger issue confronting us now than mass species extinction and a climate catastrophe that will be inherited by future generations.