This information relates to the 2022 Federal Election and may no longer be current. 

Greens Policy Platform – latest announcements​

Tackling The Climate Crisis

The Greens plan to phase out coal, oil and gas and create jobs

We are in a climate emergency. It threatens the safety of people, our health, water, ability to grow food, and the air we breathe. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

If we continue to mine and burn coal, oil and gas, we’ll experience further economic losses, food, insurance and health costs will go up, and we’ll pay much higher energy bills. Over a million jobs in industries including tourism and farming are at risk. 

The climate crisis is caused by mining and burning coal & gas.

It’s simple, if you don’t have a plan to phase out coal & gas, you don’t have a plan for the climate crisis. 

Right now, the urgent action we need is being delayed because the Liberals and Labor take millions in donations from big coal & gas corporations and the billionaires who own them. In return those corporations get special treatment. Many of the biggest coal & gas corporations pay no tax and send their profit offshore tax free. 

The Greens can get on with taking climate action, because we don’t take donations from coal & gas corporations. 

Did you know:
The Greens are in balance of power in the ACT – which now runs on 100% renewable energy.

We’ll make big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax to clean up the mess they’re making, fund the transition to 100% renewables and kick off a full-scale renewable export industry. 

Our fully-costed climate action plan will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, bring electricity costs down, and drive our economy into the future.

Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, It’s time to make coal and gas history

No more coal and gas

The mining and burning of coal and gas is a key reason we now face a climate crisis. In this critical decade for climate action, we need to keep coal and gas in the ground, and rapidly shift to renewable energy.

Both Liberal and Labor take millions of dollars in political donations from fossil fuel companies. 

The Greens plan includes:

  • Immediately ban the construction of new coal, oil and gas infrastructure, ensuring we can transition our economy to zero carbon energy while maintaining a safe climate
  • Help out mining workers and communities by creating long term, sustainable industries to assist in the move beyond fossil fuels and to ensure people do not lose work
  • Phase out the mining, burning and export of thermal coal by 2030 to ensure we do our bit, so the world does not go over the 1.5 degree climate cliff 
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Politicians should represent us, not big corporations

No More Dirty Donations

Every year, tens of billions of dollars of public money that could be going to schools and hospitals goes into the bank accounts of fossil fuel companies. In return, fossil fuel companies donate to Liberal and Labor.

By donating $11 million to political parties, coal and gas corporations are slowing down climate action.

It’s time to ban all political donations from the fossil fuel sector and close the revolving door between politicians and the coal and gas industry.

The Greens plan includes:

  • Stop the massive subsidies to big coal, oil and gas corporations - over $10b each year and reinvest the money into the clean energy transition 
  • Make polluters pay for the damage they cause to people and the environment, by implementing a carbon price and levy on climate pollution we export
  • Ban all political donations from the mining and resources sector (and other dirty industries) and cap all other donations at $1000 per year 
  • Stop Resource Ministers and advisers from working for the fossil fuel industry within five years of leaving parliament
  • Publish a register of meetings between Ministers and mining lobbyists to improve transparency and shine a light on dodgy deals
  • Deliver a strong, independent national corruption watchdog that will be retrospective, can act on tipoffs, and holds public hearings
  • Deliver a Code of Conduct for all politicians and senior staff that ensures fossil fuel billionaires cannot buy political outcomes that favour them
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Make choosing clean, green energy easier

Renewable Homes and Businesses

Renewables are the cheapest form of power - and green electricity will be the energy source of the future, both at home and your work. But rather than encouraging the transition, Scott Morrison’s ‘gas fired recovery’ is pushing more homes and businesses onto methane gas. 

Methane gas is more expensive than renewables,almost 100 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide when leaked, and is responsible for up to 12% of the burden of childhood asthma

The Greens plan includes:

  • Support households and small businesses to get off gas and move to electric alternatives, that are better for our health and the environment through, grants of up to $25k
    and loans up to $100k
  • Kickstart a household battery boom, with grants of up to $10k and loans up to $50k
  • Work with state and territories to ban gas in new housing developments
  • Create a non-profit publicly owned retailer to push down power bills and increase take-up of green energy
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Regional Communities need a solid plan for the future

Coal and Gas Communities

We know that we need to move away from fossil fuels - but we can’t abandon the workers and communities that have powered our country for generations. Without a plan, communities dominated by fossil fuels are at the mercy of corporate boardrooms and mining billionaires. And when they decide it’s no longer profitable, they’ll simply leave thousands of people without work or a future. 

Without a plan, when mines close, only a third of workers are able to find jobs again. 

The Greens plan includes:

  • Work with workers and communities to find industries that will provide meaningful, long term work as the economy changes
  • Creating good long-term jobs, reskilling workers into similar industries, and providing grants to help new employers get off the ground
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Preparing our towns and cities for whats ahead is important

Climate Impacts

Whether it’s uncontrolled bushfires across our country, deadly floods in Germany, sea-level rises in the Pacific or wildfires in Greece - the planet is experiencing the impacts of climate change right now. 

Our cities and emergency services are unprepared for the worst of a heating planet.

We need to build critical infrastructure to help keep communities safe as we face the impacts of successive governments not taking action on climate. 

The Greens plan includes:

  • Legislating to make fossil fuel companies pay to clean up their mess, and reinvesting those funds in our infrastructure - from floodproofing stormwater drains, to improving the capacity of our transport systems to handle heat waves. 
  • Keep people safe as we battle global heating and work to  return the world to a safe climate, by increasing vital funding for emergency services like firefighters
  • Better funding the BoM, and CSIRO to predict the impacts and help us plan
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Let’s make more things here

Green manufacturing

For years, the lack of a transition plan has made it difficult to build things in this country. A hands-off Government has let our manufacturing industries decline, while we export billions of dollars of raw materials to be further processed overseas. 

Due to our plentiful sun and wind, Australia has access to some of the cheapest energy in the world.

The Greens plan includes:

  • Use low cost, green energy to rebuild our manufacturing industry, support new green export industries and bring back jobs that have gone overseas.
  • A rapid transition to 100% renewables, , creating jobs, industries and innovation along the way.
  • Establish the Manufacturing Australia Fund to help local manufacturers recover from the pandemic, move off coal and gas and expand into new sectors
  • Use government investment to drive new export industries in green hydrogen and minerals processing, ensuring Australia becomes a renewable superpower 
  • Buy Local, Buy Green - make sure the government is buying products made by local workers produced with clean, green materials and power
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, We all need access to clean, green and affordable power

100% clean green electricity

Big coal and gas corporations have made electricity too dirty and too expensive - and they’re fighting the green energy revolution so they can keep making profits on their dirty clunkers. We should be generating power for the good of the country, not for private profits. 

Renewables and storage provide cleaner, cheaper power. 

The Greens plan includes:

  • Large-scale public investment in renewable energy and storage, to replace every coal-fired power plant in the country by 2030, ensuring we deal with the climate emergency in time.
  • Upgrading the electricity transmission and distribution grid, integrating more wind and solar energy while ensuring we keep the lights on 
  • The creation of a publicly owned non-profit power retailer, to push power prices down and end price gouging by the big energy companies
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Let's get EVs on every street

More electric vehicles

Every month there are more options, electric vehicles are getting cheaper, and with even more places to charge, you can drive further too. But, instead of encouraging a transition, Scott Morrison’s wasted time lying about electric cars, while Labor has pushed extra taxes for clean vehicles. 

There are 20 million cars in Australia and less than 1% of them are electric

We need an electric vehicle revolution, it will make transport cleaner, cheaper and more reliable, create thousands of jobs and new industries and help tackle the climate crisis.  

The Greens plan includes:

  • Help you buy your first EV, reducing the cost of an electric vehicle by up to $15,000 and provide ultra-cheap finance for the balance
  • Build a $2 billion publicly owned EV fast charging network, ensuring that you’ll always have a place to fuel up
  • Electrify the Commonwealth fleet by 2025, leading the way and driving the second-hand vehicle market
  • End the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, so you’re not stuck on yesterday’s technology
  • Legislate tough vehicle pollution standards to drive down emissions - meaning cleaner air in your community
  • Provide $1.2b to manufacturers of electric vehicles and electric vehicle components in Australia, building the Australian EV manufacturing industry
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Clean, green, transport makes it easier to get around

Public transport and high speed rail

For years the Liberal Government has failed to plan ahead and meet the demands of our growing cities and regions. Rather than investing in public transport, getting freight onto rail and clean, zero carbon trucks, our city and transport options are being decided by corporations.

Funding roads is 80 cents of every $1 of federal government transport investment

Investing in public transport will reduce traffic, get us where we want to go faster, cost less and clean up the air we breathe. 

The Greens plan includes:

  • Put an extra $25 billion into rail and bus services and $500 million per year into making cycling and walking safe and accessible and connecting people from the cities, to outer suburbs and regions with ease  
  • Transform transport networks with thousands of new electric buses making them cleaner and greener
  • Build high speed rail from Melbourne to Brisbane, giving people an alternative way to travel domestic
  • Invest in getting freight onto rail and cleaning up our truck fleets so we can further reduce air pollution 
Photo of a smiling person. Text reads, Taking care of country is everyone's responsibility

Land restoration and carbon drawdown

To return us to a safe climate, it’s not enough to be no longer putting carbon into the atmosphere - to stay safe, we need to actively bring down CO2 levels. Centuries of coal-fired power, deforestation, and soil erosion have meant we’re starting from behind. 

To avoid a catastrophic 1.5C degrees of global warming, up to 24 million hectares of this country may need to be reforested.

The Greens plan includes:

  • Ending land clearing and native forest logging so we can ensure we protect the carbon already in our native forests and grasslands
  • Creating local forestry jobs through planting trees and restoring damaged forests and habitats
  • Work with farmers to increase carbon sequestered on land, drawing down pollution while providing new revenue streams for farms 
  • Increase the funding to indigenous ranger programs

Together, we’re powerful.

We have a plan to reduce the cost of living, make housing more affordable, tackle the climate crisis, and make sure everyone is looked after.

We'll take on the big corporations, stop them ripping you off, and and tax them to fund the things that everyone needs. The Greens are fighting for you.