2016-12-08
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — President, on behalf of my Greens party colleagues I would like to wish all members and your good self an enjoyable summer break. We all need the opportunity to relax and recharge. We are human beings just like anybody else, despite what some people might think of us or some of us might think about each other. We are not robots. We need to be able to remind ourselves during a time of rest, enjoyment and contemplation what it is that we value so much about life here in Australia, which is a peaceful and prosperous nation and group of people.
While we are doing that we also need to contemplate a couple of issues that we will not be able to avoid while we are enjoying our summer break. One is the rising road toll. It is going up when it should be going down, and when we return next year we are going to need to seriously start debating a plan about what we are going to do to get that down. The other issue that will not go away just because we are going to is the issue of heatwaves. They are our most deadly form of natural disaster here in Victoria, and they will be increasingly so. That is something from which I think some parts of our state will be suffering while we are away, while we are all enjoying ourselves, and I can only hope that we weather that as best as we possibly can and that when we come back here we will be able to debate what further steps we can take to ensure that we protect people in those climate events.
To access full speeches and debates please visit http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/hansard where you can search Victorian Hansard publications from 1991 onwards.