2025-10-21
By Peter Whish-Wilson
Senator for Tasmania
The past year has been one where the Greens have secured significant wins on matters of policy and principle. Our 2025 federal election result here in Lutruwita/Tasmania was a historic testament to the ongoing and passionate work of our candidates, volunteers and supporters, with the Greens’ performance in the Tasmanian Senate election winning a positive swing, recording well over a Senate quota in our own right and re-electing Senator Nick McKim in third position out of six - a fantastic and well-deserved result.
With the Greens now holding sole balance of power in the Senate, the re-elected Labor government has a clear choice to make. Prime Minister Albanese can either choose to lift his ambition, work constructively with the Greens and use his significant majority in the House of Representatives to address the rapidly worsening climate, environmental and inequality crises, or he can continue to placate the Liberals and squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact lasting and meaningful progressive change.
Only time will tell which the Prime Minister chooses.
HEALTHY OCEANS
Our oceans remain under assault from a myriad of pressures and damaging extractive industries, but the most concerning of all over the past 12 months has been the unrelenting and unprecedented marine heatwaves experienced right around the country.
The confirmed bleaching of Australia’s two World Heritage-listed reefs – Ningaloo Reef and the Great Barrier Reef – and the catastrophic algal bloom in South Australia have been high on the national agenda.
When scientists confirmed the simultaneous bleaching of Ningaloo Reef and the Great Barrier Reef as the worst coral bleaching event in our nation’s history, Senator Whish-Wilson travelled to both reefs to bear witness to the tragedies first-hand, run events with impacted communities, and elevate the matter with media.
At a time when communities are struggling to comprehend the breakdown of the natural world around them – and scientists are warning the data is off the charts – exposing the truth about the consequences of these events has never been more important. If we deny the truth, politicians won’t act. For this reason the Greens pushed for coral bleaching and the SA algal bloom to be declared a national emergency.
In one of the most despicable acts in parliament over the past year, Labor and the Liberals teamed up to gut our environment laws, in favour of the toxic salmon industry. Industrial foreign-owned fish farms are wreaking havoc on our fragile marine ecosystems, privatising Tasmania's coastline, and driving the ancient Maugean skate to extinction. The Greens will continue to fight to remove industrial fish farms from Macquarie Harbour, stop the expansion of destructive offshore salmon farming, and transition the industry to sustainable, land-based operations.
Senator Whish-Wilson has been fighting for the Federal Government to remove existing exemptions to state controlled lethal shark net programs that risk federally protected species for over a decade. Despite continued radio silence from the Federal Government on this critical matter, this year we finally saw some promising signs from the NSW government, which will trial the removal of shark nets at some of its beaches. But sadly this fight is far from over – with the Queensland government shamefully announcing an expansion to its Shark Control Program! The fight goes on!
Lobbying the government for increased and renewed Antarctic science funding has also been a priority for Senator Whish-Wilson this year. Renewed Antarctic science funding is urgently needed to avoid an exodus of Antarctic researchers from Tasmania and a significant reduction in Australia’s Antarctic research capacity. At a point in history where governments should be investing more in studying our planet's rapidly changing climate and in climate adaptation technologies, it is critical the Albanese government invests in Antarctic science – and the Greens will continue to maintain pressure on the government until this funding is secured!
This year also saw Senator Whish-Wilson continue to lobby for Great Southern Reef recognition and funding – including establishing a Parliamentary Friends of the Great Southern Reef group which held an incredibly successful inaugural event at Parliament House!
When Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson was arrested on an extradition request from Japan due to him protecting whales from being slaughtered by the Japanese in 2010, the Greens led the parliamentary push to help free him. Gratefully, global political pressure like that applied by the Greens in the Australian Parliament worked, and resulted in Paul Watson being freed!
Lastly, in a HUGE win for our oceans, together we stopped PEP11 – the Greens worked alongside communities to challenge this project for many years, due to the devastating impact the project would have had on people, nature, and the climate if it were to go ahead.
The defeat of PEP 11 is welcome proof that with enough sustained pressure people power and protest action works – and it is this inspiration and energy the Greens will take forward in the fight to protect our oceans from the scourge of new fossil fuels, starting with protecting the pristine biodiversity hotspot of Scott Reef from being destroyed by Woodside’s filthy Browse gas project!
BUILDING A ZERO WASTE FUTURE
After talking a big game for the first couple of months of their first term of parliament, Labor’s commitments to build a zero waste future and deliver a circular economy fell by the wayside, seemingly not a priority for this Albanese Labor government. To combat this lack of action the Greens established a Senate inquiry in February 2024 set to report in November of last year. This reporting date was extended and our final report was handed down during the Federal election.
Evidence exposed in a 2024 Senate inquiry report into the Albanese Government’s waste reduction and recycling policies revealed Australia is losing the war on waste and that our current and historic federal policy framework has failed. This is hardly surprising given our framework hinges on industry self-regulation and voluntary systems of reducing waste.
Findings to the Senate inquiry were unanimous: to end the plastic waste crisis, we need to change the system that creates it – Australia desperately needs legislation and regulation that addresses plastic waste at the design stage instead of waiting for these harmful pollutants to be created, only to then work out how to manage and repurpose them.
The Greens will continue to work hard with environment groups, recyclers and our waste recovery sectors to move Australia forward towards mandatory regulations to build a zero waste future.
In April this year Senator Whish-Wilson travelled to Lord Howe Island to bear witness to the plight of the shearwater colony on the island, which has been catastrophically impacted by marine plastic pollution. Thousands of birds with bellies full of plastic are being recovered by Dr Jen Lavers and her team of researchers at AdriftLab, and Senator Whish-Wilson joined these researchers to see first hand the heartbreaking impacts government refusal to tackle plastic waste has on our marine life and environment. This trip initiated by Greens Senator Peter Whish-WIlson made national, then international headlines and was a catalyst for increased scrutiny on Labor’s commitment for action ahead of the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in Geneva.
Following the devastating failure of nations to reach an agreement on a binding and enforceable global plastics treaty, reform on plastic here in Australia, through bans on single-use plastics, the introduction of mandatory packaging product stewardship schemes and mandated Australian recycled content requirements have never been more important - this is what the Greens will continue to push for in this 48th parliament.
And finally, for the fight for a zero waste future, a (not so) small but important win in Lutruwita/Tasmania - a container deposit scheme finally commenced operation in May this year, over 12 years after Senator Peter Whish-Wilson’s first campaign on this issue in Tasmania back in 2012!
AGRICULTURE
The Greens know that a rapidly changing climate is the most pressing threat to our agriculture sector and we have over the past 12 months consistently advocated for the uptake of on-farm renewables to support farmers to operations away from fossil fuels.
In the middle of last year, the Greens were in balance of power in the debate over Labor’s proposed “biosecurity protection levy” - the Greens spent many months listening to the concerns of farmers and those living in rural and regional communities and ultimately arrived at the decision not to support this flawed policy being proposed by Labor. The Greens want Labor to commit to significant new funding for environment biosecurity protection, containment and response measures to ensure communities, the environment and industry are safeguarded in the future, but Labor’s bill, which would tax farmers directly at the farmgate to pay for biosecurity measures, was the wrong way to go about this.
Over many years the Greens have been fierce advocates for the Australian Hemp industry, and we have recently supported the establishment of a Senate inquiry to investigate the positive environmental and economic opportunities that a thriving domestic hemp industry could deliver for Australia.
The Greens have also consistently been going into bat for Australian medicinal cannabis growers in Canberra. Local cannabis growers have been dealing with a number of trade-related issues over recent months. The import-driven model for medicinal cannabis in Australia presents several clear problems that hinder the growth and sustainability of our domestic industry, with significant economic, social, and patient safety impacts - this is something which concerns the Greens and we are actively working with both the government and Australian growers to find a solution that ensures the ongoing growth of this exciting industry.
The Greens continue to advocate for the government to introduce a National Organic Standard to provide certainty for growers and producers, and the recent news regarding NASAA entering administration will be a key point raised with the Department and Minister at the coming Senate estimates in October. The Greens hold strong relationships with a number of peak organic certifiers and we will continue to make representations to the government to ensure that the support being provided by the government and appropriate industry bodies is satisfying the immediate needs of those impacted by the current changes at NASAA.
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION INTEGRITY ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY
A recent but important win, Senator Whish-Wilson and the Greens recently secured government support to establish the Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. Organisations that campaign using disinformation to undermine climate action will come under scrutiny in this new parliamentary inquiry established by the Greens.
Aggressive and coordinated disinformation campaigns are increasingly spreading false information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion on climate change. As the dangers of climate change intensify, the need for reliable and accurate information on the climate crisis and the Australian parliament's response to it has never been more crucial.
For decades, vested interests have been waging a global war of disinformation against the clean energy transition, including environmental and climate legislation, and these vested interests have recently achieved significant political success in nations such as the US.
In the last parliament, evidence was provided to the Senate Inquiry into offshore wind industry that strategies such as establishing fake community groups – otherwise known as astroturfing – were being used in Australia to spread lies about renewable energy.
It’s critical that parliament continues this work and now examines these interests for what they are and who they serve.
This will be a key focus for Senator Whish-Wilson and the Greens over the coming months.
- Pete