2023-08-30
By Mehreen Faruqi
Australian Greens Deputy Parliamentary Leader and Senator for NSW
Year in Review
It has been an incredible first year as Deputy Leader of the Greens, and it feels like such a privilege to take a moment to reflect on our journey and share some of the highlights and challenges we've faced.
The year commenced with so much optimism after almost a decade of toxic Coalition rule. Not only were we finally rid of the rightwing and incompetent Morrison government, but we had achieved a record election result and secured balance of power in the senate. I was very pleased to welcome so many new colleagues to the Greens party room, and have loved the opportunity to work closely with them and their offices.
Our movement is going from strength to strength. This past year has consolidated our position as the true opposition. As Labor lurches further to the right and the Coalition scrapes the bottom of the barrel for culture war distractions, I am proud that the Greens have become the only party genuinely fighting for people and the planet. Whether it be on education, housing, climate, or corruption, the Greens have been such a powerful force for good.
Our office has had some momentous wins over the past year. We’ve put the student debt crisis on front pages, and have fought relentlessly for tertiary students and staff. We’ve been a staunch advocate for climate justice and the need to ensure global justice is front and centre of any and every conversation about the climate crisis. We have well and truly led the way on anti-racism, despite the many challenges that remain. And we continue to be a passionate voice for animal welfare in the Federal Parliament.
Some of my most joyful moments have been out and about, rallying, door knocking, and campaigning with members and local communities. I’ve travelled throughout NSW and the rest of the country attending member events, communities forums and rallies. We’ve held housing doorknocks, and campaigned on the streets for meaningful action to address the housing and rental crisis.
Our office organised a number of successful events, including our Annual Women's Day Breakfast, our annual Women’s Iftar and Nup to the Cup. It's been such a joy to meet so many new people and to grow our movement, especially amongst communities of colour. While we achieved so much, there have been some really hard times. Senator Lidia Thorpe’s departure from the party was a difficult and challenging time. Lidia was a staunch ally against white supremacy and racism in all its forms.
Seeing Pakistan, my country of birth, absolutely ravaged by climate crisis induced apocalyptic floods has been terrifying, heartbreaking and infuriating. I’ve also personally faced some of the worst racism I’ve ever encountered over this past year.
Finally, our movement has lost some incredible, irreplaceable people this year. These tragedies have served as a reminder of how this party is nothing without its people, and have made me so grateful to be part of our loving, caring, deeply interconnected Greens family.
Education
It has been a massive year in higher education. Because of our work, student debt dominated the headlines day after day, with record high indexation adding a whopping 7.1% to the study debts of millions of graduates.
We introduced a bill to stop indexation, held an inquiry into student debt, organised a speak- out, postered Labor electorates calling for action, held stalls at universities, coordinated an open letter with thousands of signatures and joined with the crossbench to call for intervention. Despite so much community support for our campaign, the Labor Government blocked our attempts to save graduates from a student debt avalanche. In my view, removal of indexation is an important step on the road to wiping student debt altogether which remains our ultimate aim.
Unfortunately, Labor continues to ignore the student debt crisis, which is causing so much harm during this cost of living crisis. Our office has calculated that student debts could rise by around 15% in just two years of the Labor government.
We have also had some wins for research, securing a well overdue review of the Australian Research Council. We continue to fight for fairer conditions for researchers, including extending paid parental leave to PhD students and raising the research stipend. Our other key focuses in the higher education portfolio have been addressing student poverty, improving student safety on campus, working with university staff, especially casual staff, for better work rights and improving university governance.
The Greens went to the election with a fully costed plan to deliver free and universal early childhood education and care (ECEC), support the workforce and develop a plan to phase out for-profit early education providers. We’ve pushed hard for this vision to become a reality over the past year and will continue to do so.
One of the Labor Government’s election promises was to make ECEC more affordable, but sadly they have just tinkered around the edges, and totally ignored staggering ECEC workforce shortages. Our office advocated for a pay rise for ECEC workers, the dumping of the cruel and punitive Activity Test, stronger transparency measures for providers and better work conditions for staff.
Anti-racism
Our anti-racism work is relentless and often emotionally challenging, though at times very rewarding as well. It was wonderful to see Labor agreeing to fund a new national anti-racism strategy- this was a policy we took to the election and something we have been calling for for some time.
As a member of the joint committee on Parliamentary Standards, which was tasked with developing codes of conduct for parliamentarians and staff, I pushed hard for the committee to specifically prohibit racism and recommend anti-racism training. It is my hope that the codes will make parliament a much safer place for everyone, especially women, First Nations people, people of colour and people with a disability.
One of our key campaigns has been calling on the Labor Government to restore “Harmony Day”, held annually on March 21, to its original name, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, with the purpose of acknowledging and eliminating racism. ‘Harmony Day’ is a John Howard invention. It whitewashes historic and ongoing racism in Australia.
Another huge win for us was getting the Australian Public Service Commission to finally agree to having a strategy to improve representation of people of colour in the public service. For far too long, people of colour have been neglected by the public service, which should truly reflect the cultural diversity of this country.
Reactive work continues to be a significant, necessary and indispensable part of the anti- racism portfolio. We’ve taken a stand against racism at every opportunity, calling out racism against Stan Grant, Neo-Nazis saluting in Melbourne, racist commentary on the Voice referendum, Sonia Kruger’s Gold Logie win and the blaming of migrants for the housing crisis.
Animal welfare
After a decade of neglect by the Coalition, many people were hoping for bold, transformative reform from the Albanese Government to protect animals. But while the change in Government has brought about new opportunities for progress on animal welfare, the reality is that the Greens remain the only voice for animals in federal parliament.
Labor committed to phasing out live sheep exports before the election but, since coming to power, have refused to even commit to legislating a phase out in their first term. Our focus has been on ensuring the government keeps its commitment, puts forward a clear timeline to end live sheep export and improves its regulation of the industry until it is finally banned. One of our early actions was an attempt to block Morrison era changes to the Northern Hemisphere summer ban, which prevents thousands of sheep being shipped across the ocean at some of the hottest times of year. We inevitably see Labor as the obstacle to progress, as the party backed Morrison’s changes.
We continue to campaign with communities on ending gambling-fuelled animal cruelty, i.e. horse and greyhound racing. We have successfully referred our bill to end the commercial import and export of greyhounds to inquiry and wrote to Melbourne Cup sponsors urging them to drop their sponsorship of the cruel Melbourne Cup Carnival.
Finally, we have had a strong role in exposing the cruelties of factory farming and holding the Government to account for their failures to keep farm animals safe. We obtained more than 8,000 pages of animal welfare incident reports showing horrific suffering at abattoirs and pushed relentlessly for more humane stunning methods for pigs. We are also moving to enshrine animal sentience in federal law for the first time; this is something that could spark lasting, transformative change.
International aid and Global justice
We have worked hard to decolonise the aid portfolio. As a result, the Greens have a radically different perspective to both Labor and the Coalition when it comes to international aid and global justice, and so much of our work in this portfolio over the past year has been resisting the framing of international aid as a matter of charity or a strategic tool to further Australia’s national interest.
Our view is that international aid is a necessary act of global justice. That view has driven our work over the past year, which has included successfully pushing the Government to co- sponsor Vanuatu’s UN bid to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the rights of present and future generations to be protected from climate change, increase funding for UNRWA and provide more funding to the Global South countries on the frontlines of the climate emergency.
We have been on the front foot in holding Labor to account on their failure to increase the aid budget despite having a stated funding target of at least 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income, including in their new International Development Policy. We are pushing Labor to commit to loss and damage funding for countries of the Global South. We’ve also been relentless in pointing out the importance of centering climate justice in any conversations about the climate crisis.
As co-chair of the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, I’ve hosted a roundtable of UNFPA and the International Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Consortium at Parliament House and organised an event in parliament to mark the One Year Anniversary of the overturning of Roe vs Wade. The rights of women and girls are so important to global justice.
NSW
It is such a privilege to represent the people of New South Wales. I thoroughly enjoyed campaigning with my incredible NSW Greens colleagues ahead of the March State election, and was so pleased that Kobi Shetty and Amanda Cohn got elected. It was also wonderful to see yet another Coalition government lose power and so incredible to have an all women Greens team in NSW State!
I was thrilled to see Many Nolan announced as the Greens candidate for Richmond again and can’t wait to campaign with her.
The people of our state have been on the frontlines of the housing crisis, with staggering public housing waitlists, increasing homelessness and so many in acute rental stress. People deserve better, and that’s why we have been fighting tooth and nail for more investment in public housing and a fairer deal for renters, who are currently treated like second class citizens.
Constituent Support
Over the past year, our office has continued to provide support to constituents from across New South Wales and Australia on a broad range of issues including visa applications, NDIS enquiries and liaising with Centrelink.
A large proportion of our advocacy casework consists of visa enquiries to the Department of Home Affairs and unfortunately, there are still unacceptably long waiting periods for a majority of visa types and ongoing problems with our hostile immigration system that continues to fail vulnerable people
We will continue to use every communication channel we have with the government to assist as many people as we can. My team will continue to work closely with other Greens’ offices to respond with care and compassion.
Media
We have continued to build a strong presence in national and local media across our portfolio areas. Becoming Deputy Leader has also allowed us to amplify the media presence of our work over the past year. I am particularly proud of our media campaign on student debt.
We have had appearances and features on major national programs and publications including ABC News Breakfast, Q+A, Radio National Breakfast, Afternoon Briefing, The Monthly as well as within regular news reporting across TV, print, radio and online. August 2023 also marked five years in the Senate for me and I am beyond proud of what we have achieved together. I am excited to continue working on our shared vision of a greener, fairer, and anti-racist Australia.
Committees
- Education and Employment committee:
- All relevant bill inquiries, including on the Greens private members’ bill to abolish indexation on student debt and raise the minimum repayment income to the median wage.
- Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee inquiry on a Coalition bill to ban Nazi symbols
- Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Standards
- Temporary Chair of Committees
- Senate Estimates committees:
- Education and Employment
- Community Affairs
- Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
- Rural, Regional and Transport
- Legal and Constitutional Affairs
– Mehreen