2023-01-08
Despite the odds being overwhelmingly stacked against us, in having only one Greens representative in State Parliament, we are still managing to achieve significant wins for our communities and planet
By Hon Brad Pettitt, MLC, Member for South Metropolitan
2022 has been a tremendous year and together we have achieved so much. As we reach the end of the year, I want to reflect on everything that our grassroots community movement has enabled us to accomplish this year.
Despite Labor’s total majority in WA Parliament, reduced staffing and legislation opportunities, a particularly conservative government who won’t accept amendments to their bills, and countless other challenges, we still managed to progress dozens of important issues this year.
It has only been because of you, the wonderful community advocates and incredible supporters of our Greens (WA) movement, that we have managed to accomplish so much with so little resourcing and only one Greens MP in State Parliament.
Here are all the things we achieved together in 2022:
- The Estimates Committee conducted our Parliamentary Inquiry into homelessness.
- Through constant collaboration with stakeholders, we pushed the State Government to finally acknowledge WA’s youth justice crisis at Banksia Hill, Unit 18.
- After years of community advocacy and much Parliamentary questioning, Roebourne Prison will finally have air con installed.
- WA finally has some incentives for electric vehicles, including a $3,500 rebate for new EVs.
- After decades of lobbying from the Greens and advocacy groups, conversion practices (or ‘therapies’) will soon be banned in WA and the archaic Gender Reassignment Board is set to be abolished.
- We secured changes to WA’s archaic bicycle regulations, enabling disabled Western Australians to purchase mobility bikes with their NDIS funding.
- Thanks to a tremendous effort from Free the Hounds, we tabled the largest petition of the 41st Parliament with 18,677 people calling to end greyhound racing in WA.
- We helped facilitate 759 appeals to the Environmental Protection Authority on Woodside’s climate-wrecking North West Shelf project, shattering the record for the most appeals ever made in WA.
- Main Roads WA agreed to investigate an alternative alignment for the Lloyd Street Bridge to protect cultural heritage and the Helena River Wetlands.
- In light of opposition from community and the Greens, the controversial Charles Street duck & dive project has been ditched.
- Thanks to fervent advocacy from unions and support from the Greens, public sector workers won a hard-fought real pay rise for the first time in years.
- Improved abortion rights for Western Australians is now back on the agenda after much collective community action and our Parliamentary petition.
- In collaboration with stakeholders like Bringing Them Home WA, we facilitated a petition to implement a reparations scheme for Stolen Generation survivors.
Despite the odds being overwhelmingly stacked against us in State Parliament, we are still managing to achieve significant wins for our communities and planet.
Whether it be improving renters’ rights, saving the Black Cockatoos, drafting WA’s new Forest Management Plan, achieving political donations reforms, raising the age of criminal responsibility, or tackling WA’s high carbon emissions, there’s so much to work toward in 2023.
After a much-needed rest over the holidays, I’m looking forward to working with you to achieve even more progressive wins for WA and continuing to build our incredible Greens movement in 2023.
Thank you so much for your invaluable support this year. I have never been more excited and proud to be a part of our Greens community.
Header photo: At the Australian Greens National Conference held in Melbourne in June 2022.