2022-03-04
The view from the West: How did we get here? Our climate in crisis and the fight for our future
By Senator Dorinda Cox, Yamatji-Noongar woman and Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia
Right now, across this great ancient continent, we find ourselves in a climate crisis. This is a crisis led by governments at all levels ‒ governments that have stacked the cards in favour of big mining and corporate interests, at the cost of our climate, our Country, and our communities.
Nowhere is this more felt than in my state of Western Australia, where the shores of the Derbarl Yerrigan ‒ the Swan River ‒ are lined with towering buildings owned by BHP Billiton, Woodside, and Rio Tinto.
Our governments have been sold to the highest bidder, on our watch, and in our name.
This is how the game works. In 2020-21, Woodside donates over $232,000 to the Liberal, National and Labor parties. It’s not a huge amount by some standards, but in return, they get the greenlight from the WA Government to go ahead with the climate-wrecking Scarborough gas project ‒ the most polluting fossil fuel project in Australia.
They get the green light, despite knowing that the Scarborough project will do irreversible damage to the Murujuga rock art and the Seven Sisters Songlines. They know full well that the project will also release 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon pollution into the atmosphere over the next 25 years. Despite knowing that a project of this kind will only accelerate the climate crisis, the greatest challenge of our generation, on which our entire ecosystem relies.
Depressingly, this is not the only example. Case in point, Chevron also recently donated a total of $74,650 to the Liberal, National and Labor parties. Chevron’s WA gas plants are responsible for producing millions of tonnes of emissions into our atmosphere every single year. In fact, Chevron’s Gorgon gas plant incorporating the world’s biggest attempt at a carbon capture storage project has been a big, expensive failure that continues to leak huge amounts of pollution into our state’s atmosphere.
Not that it takes all that much to buy off our governments: Mineral Resources, a lithium and iron ore company, donated a paltry $222,400 to the major parties as part of its plans to develop oil and gas basins in our state.
The WA Government will try to tell us that major oil and gas projects, like Scarborough, will create jobs. What they won’t tell you is that the oil and gas extraction industry employs less than one per cent of WA’s workforce. In fact, if the WA Government is seeking to create jobs for West Australians it is better off supporting literally any other industry.
These are weak arguments put forward by weak Governments, both Labor and Liberal, who have sold off our lands, skies and waters to the highest bidder ‒ climate, Country and community be damned.
So, what will the Greens do about it? For starters, we are calling for a moratorium on all new gas and coal projects, and are the only party with a plan to ban all political donations from the coal, oil and gas industries. We will cap all other donations at $1,000 per year and limit the amount that political parties can spend on elections. We will stop the revolving door of ministers and advisers moving from politics to the fossil fuel industry.
We would also establish a national integrity commission to hold all politicians accountable. The Greens have a model for a strong corruption watchdog that has already passed the Senate. Establishing a federal anti-corruption commission in this term of government was a key pledge made by the Prime Minister before the last election.
The big parties have voted against our reforms because they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them. But in balance of power after the next election the Greens will push the next government to reform election funding, clean up politics and achieve urgent action on climate change. We’ll keep pushing for a ban on new coal mines or mine expansions, and a national ban on fracking and stronger national laws to protect our precious water resources, farmland, rural communities and environment from the impacts of runaway mining ‒ and that’s just the beginning.
That’s what the Greens are here to do ‒ to push the next government further and faster to act on the climate crisis. We’re here to name names, and to call out what our former Senator Scott Ludlam rightly calls “state capture”.
As long as there is big money in politics, we will see fossil fuel companies setting climate policy in this country. But time’s up. People can see that urgent climate action is being delayed because the Liberals and Labor take millions in donations from big coal and gas corporations and the billionaires who own them.
Our Greens family is what stands between Labor, Liberal and their big coal and gas donors. In a climate emergency, we Greens are here to fight for our future: over the next few months, our efforts will matter more than ever. I hope we have your support.
In solidarity, with determination and hope,
Header photo: Yamatji-Noongar woman Greens Senator for Western Australia Dorinda Cox