2024-10-04
By Sarah Hanson-Young
Senator for South Australia
Skyrocketing rents, crippling mortgage repayments and the soaring cost of living is taking a toll, and everyone is feeling it. Australians are worried about what kind of future our children will have and they have lost any hope that the Labor Government can deliver more affordable living and a safe, liveable planet. They know things need to change, but they also know Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party would be worse.
Dutton and his climate-wrecking Coalition are spending their time fear-mongering and stoking division in the community while spruiking expensive, radioactive nuclear power plants to keep coal and gas in the system longer. Mr Dutton has said that if elected he would tear up Australia’s climate targets. Going backwards on climate and threatening to put toxic nuclear power stations in our towns and suburbs is not a policy for the future. Neither of the major parties have solutions to help people who are struggling right now.
Protecting our environment and stopping extinction
This year, the Labor Government broke its promise to fix Australia’s broken environment laws. More than four years on since the once-in-ten-year review of federal environment laws, which declared the laws broken and failing to stop extinction, very little has changed. Labor has kicked the reform can down the road leaving the Greens, environmental groups and scientists pleading with Minister Plibersek to get on with it.
We were able to secure two important wins before Parliament rose for 2023 which included amendments to the Water Trigger and changes to put a stop to greenwashing of nature offsets. The Government agreed to close the loophole which gave gas fracking corporations a license to drill without any federal environmental water assessment. The agreement is a major blow to climate-bomb projects in places like the Beetaloo Basin and the Kimberley and a win for the climate, the environment and First Nations communities. Right now, we are continuing to urge Minister Plibersek to call in projects in the Beetaloo Basin and exercise her power under the water trigger.
On nature, the Greens significantly improved environmental integrity by completely scrapping the dodgy biodiversity offsets that would have been used to greenwash wildlife and habitat destruction within the original Nature Repair Market Bill. The renamed Nature Repair Bill will now better protect habitat and wildlife without greenwashed offsets. It can also enable private investment on private land to stop extinction and destruction in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework to protect at least 30% of land, freshwater and ocean ecosystems by 2030.
With the Greens in balance of power this past year we also negotiated a lifeline for our precious River Murray and delivered $17 million for the Coorong, and we killed off Labor's plans to fast-track gas approvals.
But until the Labor Government ends its cosy relationship with the coal, gas and logging industries, our environment and climate will remain in dire straits. The Greens continue to push for a ban to native forest logging to save our ancient old growth forests and the wildlife that call them home, from logging and destruction. We are also demanding a Climate Trigger in our environment laws so that polluting projects are assessed for the emissions they create. The experts agree with us – our environment laws will stay broken unless they include climate. With so many new gas projects coming across the Environment Minister’s desk for approval – from Woodside’s Scarborough to the Beetaloo to Santos’ Barossa – they must be assessed for the climate bombs they are.
In late August, the Senate Committee I chair, delivered an important report into the Middle Arm industrial precinct proposed for Darwin, after 12 months of evidence and investigation. The Labor Government committed $1.5billion to this polluting, cancer-causing gas hub which Traditional Owners, local communities, health and medical experts, scientists, and the tourism and fishing industry told us would be dangerous and devastating to humans and the environment alike. Labor and the Liberals failed to put forward any recommendations but the Greens recommended that if Middle Arm proceeds that it be fossil fuel free and that the $1.5billion instead be used to back the clean industries of the future that help keep our air, land, water and climate safe.
Saving the arts, integrity in media and holding the tech giants to account
This past year we have continued the fight which began in 2020 when COVID shut down our live performance industry overnight. Through the Greens’ established inquiry into the National Cultural Policy we have examined the issues affecting live performance and in particular the music industry which has seen festival after festival cancelled, and called for greater support including an insurance scheme and greater funding support. The Committee has also urged the government to get on with legislating for local content quotas which they had pledged to commence on 1 July – another broken promise.
Mainstream media in Australia appears to be on the verge of a reckoning when it comes to their treatment of women in their organisations. It is another reason why the Greens continue to call for a Royal Commission to examine the influence and dominance of the Murdoch Media empire as well as the broader media landscape in Australia. The impact of social media and the tech giants is again under the microscope. The very important deals made under the News Media Bargaining Code the Greens were integral in negotiating in the last parliament are coming to an end and the likes of Meta are flexing their muscle.
We are urging the Federal Government to announce how it will address the threats by Meta to pull news from its platforms and to reveal its policy that will help ensure public interest journalism is funded and sustainable well into the future. I am the Deputy Chair of a special committee inquiring into social media which is looking at these issues as well as the pernicious side which is causing harm to children and the most vulnerable in our communities. It will report at the end of the year.
Hope for a fairer, safer and healthier future
As we hurtle towards the next Federal Election, I maintain my hope that we can have better – more affordable homes and groceries, ending extinction and protecting our natural world, and securing a safe climate. As the Greens manager of business and member of our strongest-ever party room, I have had a front row seat to what can be achieved with the Greens in the balance of power. Together we can achieve real change and with more Greens elected the possibilities are endless. At the next election, Australians need to know that rather than having to choose between the toxic Liberals or the disappointing Labor Party, they can choose the Greens. Only the Greens will fight for people and planet.
- Sarah