16 News

As the Glasgow climate summit comes to a head and the Liberals’ weak 2030 targets place Australia under increasing pressure, Scott Morrison is again readying Australia to sabotage a global climate consensus by blocking political momentum for a ‘ratcheting up’ of 2030 targets.
With Australia failing to raise ambition for 2030, the draft communique from COP26 is planning to specifically call upon nations who have insufficient mid-term targets to return next year to COP27 in Egypt with increased ambition consistent with the science.
The Liberal Party has a demonstrated history of sabotaging international climate talks by blocking consensus and demanding the right to keep polluting. The notorious ‘Australia clause’ loophole that allowed countries like Australia to increase its emissions under the Kyoto Protocol was added into the agreement at the demand of the then Howard Government.
“Scott Morrison is getting ready to sabotage global climate action just to save face,” Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, said.
“Scott Morrison must not hold the rest of the world back from climate action just to suit his domestic climate denial.
“If we don’t do more by 2030, we won’t stop the climate crisis. The rest of the world gets that and they’re urging countries like Australia, Russia and Saudi Arabia to do more.
“Instead of trying to fudge the science and rip clauses out of the Glasgow agreement, Scott Morrison should sign on to the agreement and lift Australia’s 2030 targets, like the US and UK have done.”
“Removing clauses that recall nations who fail to increase 2030 ambitions may appease the coal and gas corporations in the lead up to the 2022 election, but it gives cover for other recalcitrant petrostates to join Australia’s lead and refuse to act.
“We’re in a critical decade for climate action and the rest of the world is no longer distracted by the Liberals’ accounting tricks. The only action that will count is urgently phasing out coal, oil and gas, the main causes of the climate crisis.
“This draft communique recognises the urgency from the latest IPCC report. Pushing back action to later decades is as dangerous as climate denial.”

Gomeroi man, Stanley Russell, a father, was shot dead by NSW police. His brother, Eddie Russell, died in police custody in 1999. “Violence against First Nations people is a national crisis and the Morrison Government is doing nothing about it,” said Gunnai, Gunditjmara and DjabWurrung Senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe.
Greens spokesperson for Justice and First Nations, Senator Lidia Thorpe said:
“This is colonial violence. This is the continuation of the genocidal project that started in 1788. Over 470 people have died since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and we’re still waiting for true accountability. Is the system broken, or working according to its design?
“The police are supposed to protect people, not kill them. Why does being around the police have fatal consequences for First Nations people? My heart aches for this family. The police have a duty of care and that has been completely ignored for this family.
“We’ve had the solutions to end deaths in custody for over 30 years. The Morrison Government needs to work with the families of people who have died in police custody and implement all of the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. How many more of us need to die?
“The Greens have listened to the families and we are joining their call for a national ban on spit hoods and lethal choke holds, greater transparency in reporting deaths in custody and more funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and Family Violence Prevention Legal Services and their peak bodies.
“As a matter of national urgency, we’re also calling for the full implementation of an independent prison oversight system under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). Without independent monitoring of places of detention, more First Nations people will die in custody.
“OPCAT is a critical instrument of international human rights law. It needs to be culturally safe, properly resourced and nationally consistent. The Liberal party signed onto it in 2017, and since then have done the bare minimum and called it progress.
“Everyone has the right to be treated fairly, no matter where they are. Humane treatment in police custody cannot be a game of chance. Every person in this country deserves to be treated with dignity and be free from torture. Always.” Said Thorpe.
The Office of Senator Thorpe has asked for permission from the family to speak on this, and use their names.
David Shoebridge, Greens NSW MP said: 
“Deaths in custody are not an accident, they are the result of a criminal justice system that is designed to be dangerous, often lethal, for First Nations people.
“Recurring deaths in custody send renewed waves of pain and hurt across communities. It never seems to have an end.“This is a national crisis that many political leaders refuse to recognise, because those that pay the cost are not the people they are in power to represent.
“Indifference, platitudes and empty gestures from politicians allow these killings to continue, and it’s well past time they were held to account for their inaction,” Said Shoebridge.

Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Michaelia Cash will today open a national forum hosted by Commonwealth work health and safety (WHS) regulator Comcare, focussing on the prevention, management and regulation of workplace sexual harassment.
“I am proud to launch this forum today as it brings together WHS regulators, professionals and employers across the country to promote cultural change in our workplaces. That’s reflected in the forum’s theme – Influencing positive change,” said the Attorney-General.
“Education is a central to the Government’s action to implement the ‘Roadmap for Respect: Preventing and Addressing Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces’. The forum will help drive a national approach to prevention strategies, as announced in the 2021-22 Budget.”
Participants will hear from a range of speakers at the event including Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Chair of the Respect@Work Council, Kate Jenkins, who will focus on the findings of her landmark National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces.
The program has been co-designed in collaboration with Safe Work Australia and state and territory WHS regulators. It will help to ensure that WHS authorities are equipped to assist businesses and workers to understand their duties and obligations in relation to sexual harassment under WHS laws, and deliver best practice regulation.
The forum builds on the education resources Comcare has developed in collaboration with the Australian Human Rights Commission and aligns with the national Guidance from Safe Work Australia. These resources provide practical guidance for employers, managers, supervisors and workers to prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment.
For more information on the event, visit the Comcare website.
If you need immediate assistance or support you can contact 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732.

At an event last night to mark the 10th anniversary of the carbon price being legislated, Greens Leader Adam Bandt – whose victory in the seat of Melbourne led to the establishment of a Multi-Party Climate Change Committee that developed a world-leading suite of climate policies – has released modelling showing the carbon price was operating so effectively that had it not been repealed, the Liberals weak 2030 targets would have been met in 2020, a full decade early.
As another power-sharing minority Parliament looms, Mr Bandt said Labor should be proud of their cross-party achievement under Julia Gillard instead of continually trying to airbrush the period out of history, and should instead join the Greens in directing their criticisms at the real enemy – the Liberals – who tore down the only climate policy in this country that actually worked.
MR BANDT said:
In just its first year of operations, the Clean Energy Act cut emissions by 10 million tonnes.
If the Liberals hadn’t torn up the carbon price, Australia would have stopped an additional 256 million tonnes of pollution going into the atmosphere.
Every tonne counts.
We’ve modelled it. If the price on pollution had not been murdered on the floor of the Parliament, we would have cut over a quarter of a billion tonnes extra of pollution over the last six years.
In 2020, pollution would be 464 million tonnes a year, compared with the 512 Mt we reached under the Liberals and the 529-585 Mt forecast under Kevin Rudd’s own poor first draft of a climate policy.
If we had kept the price on pollution, we would have met the Coalition’s weak 2030 targets in 2020.
Australia’s pollution would already be 26% below 2005 levels, meeting the Government’s insufficient 2030 target 10 years early.
We would be ten years ahead of where we are now.
We would not face, as a country, the humiliation and shame on the international stageScott Morrison inflicted on us these past weeks.
We would not be putting Pacific Islands at risk of going under.
We would be able to honestly and credibly say we are doing a fair share of what needs to be done to keep people safe.
We would be able to stand with our allies, the USA and the UK, to increase our 2030 commitments.
We could condemn the actions of Russia, but instead Scott Morrison has had Australia join them, holding back the rest of the world’s efforts to keep people safe.
The carbon price package wasn’t perfect and nor did everyone get everything they wanted. But it not only worked, it strengthened the economy, solved big problems we faced, and set us up for the future.
Julia Gillard’s achievements here are often ignored.
Not only by the political media, but often by the ALP too.
Ten years on, we can see clearly how these policies would have worked to reduce millions of tonnes of pollution.
Instead of spending all their time telling tall tales about the one that got away, Labor needs to be proud of the climate legislation we actually landed.
The real villains in this piece are the Liberal Party, the Murdoch media and the coal and gas corporations, who all joined together to tear down the only climate policy that actually worked.
As we head towards another minority Parliament, it’s a reminder of what we can achieve for the country when the Greens, Labor and independents work together.
Coal and gas corporations still have deep pockets, but the tide has turned.
As a result, at the next election, we will kick the Liberals out.
And the Greens are once again in a position to be in the balance of power.
If history and current polling are a guide, the Greens could hold the balance of power in the Lower House and the Senate too.
Indeed, pushing Scott Morrison into minority Parliament will only take a few hundred people shifting their votes, but Labor needs to defy recent history to win a majority in their own right.
So a power-sharing parliament is the most likely outcome.
In balance of power, the Greens will kick the Liberals out and push the next government to take climate action.
What we can push the next government to adopt remains to be seen.
Distressingly, in a time of climate crisis, Labor wants more coal and gas. And they still take donations from coal and gas corporations. Where they’re in power in the states and territories they’re opening up new coal and gas mines and federally they’re backing the Liberals to do the same.
Pushing Labor to act on coal and gas will be a priority for us.
The Liberals won’t act at all, but Labor won’t act on coal and gas unless the Greens are there to push them.
For amongst all the tales of alternative history that get told in politics, all the ‘if onlys’ and ‘could have beens’, one stark, historical fact stands out.
The only time that pollution has meaningfully come down was when the Greens were in the balance of power.
Fortunately, if only a few hundred people change their vote, that’s where we’ll be again after the next election.

The Greens have vowed to fight Scott Morrison’s move to bankroll carbon capture and storage, saying public funds should not be funnelled to billionaire coal and gas corporations for unicorn technology.
“The way to tackle climate change is to get out of fossil fuels, but Scott Morrison wants to funnel public funds to coal and gas corporations for a unicorn technology they haven’t been able to make work themselves,” said Greens Leader, Adam Bandt.
“Today, the UN has warned that we’re heading to over 2.4C of warming unless we take urgent action by 2030. It’s time to get out of coal and gas, not fund more of it.
“Public money should go to schools, hospitals and renewables, not to tax-dodging billionaire coal and gas corporations.
“Coal and gas are not ‘clean energy’.
“The Greens secured the CEFC during the 2010 power-sharing Parliament, we made sure it couldn’t fund CCS and we’ll fight this latest attack tooth and nail.
“The government doesn’t need legislation to take ownership stakes in new start-ups. The CEFC can do that already and an investment mandate from the Minister would put it beyond doubt. The only reason the Liberals want legislation is to turn the CEFC into a slush found for coal and gas corporations.
“This is nothing to do with stopping climate change and everything to do with Scott Morrison rewarding the coal and gas corporations that donate to the Liberal and Labor parties.”
“The simplest way to stop pollution is to stop digging up and burning coal and gas in the first place, not to hope unicorn technology will one day stop coal and gas pollution escaping.
“Here lies the big trick of Scott Morrison’s climate charade. He pays coal and gas corporations to dig up fossil fuels then pays them to fail at cleaning up their pollution. They win but the rest of us lose.”