Category: Australian News

Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP has offered support to Pacific Leaders to demand Labor stop opening coal and gas mines in return for hosting a climate summit, while also encouraging people to join a non-violent ‘people’s blockade’ of Australia’s largest coal port in Newcastle this November. 

Mr Bandt has written to Pacific Island Leaders, backing recent calls from prominent Pacific elders that Australia should stop opening up new coal and gas before it is awarded a global climate COP summit. 

Last night, Mr Bandt also made a speech at a ‘Rising Tide’ event in Melbourne, as part of the ‘People’s Blockade Speaking Tour’, where the group is building support for ‘thousands of people to gather and demand an immediate end to new coal projects and the end of coal exports from the world’s largest coal port, by 2030’. Mr Bandt said growing civil disobedience is necessary to help pressure Labor to stop opening new coal and gas mines. 

The letter to Pacific leaders backs a recent bold call from the Pacific Elders’ Voice, a collection of former regional leaders including the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Palau, that Australia should stop trying to hurry their smaller nations’ current leadership to support our bid for COP31.

As Climate Minister, Chris Bowen, was last week travelling around Pacific Island Nations to seek support for hosting the COP, Mr Bandt says that stopping new projects is “the single biggest thing the Australian Labor government could do to protect our region” and has offered the Greens’ support for any pressure Pacific Island nations wish to exert on Australia to stop opening coal and gas mines in return for co-hosting the COP.

The latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory quarterly update showed a 2.1% rise in oil and gas emissions over the year to March 2023, together with a long-term increase in Australia’s emissions from coal and gas.

Excerpts from the speech to the Peoples Blockade Speaking Tour:

We must come together and fight back. Together, we must demonstrate that we can stop Labor and the big corporations from threatening our survival. 

The Greens will keep fighting in Parliament to stop Labor opening new coal and gas mines. But we will have a better chance of winning together if there is a more powerful movement on the streets, around kitchen tables, in universities and in schools, in workplaces and at the pubs.

And we need non-violent civil disobedience. The types of civil disobedience that have been so crucial throughout history in securing change, from ending slavery to gaining women’s suffrage, from workers’ rights to civil rights.

Big coal and gas corporations have too much power. They behave like criminal cartels, buying off governments, engaging in sports washing and not giving a damn about the damage they cause. And it is a power which is state sanctioned. 

They’re extorting us, and they’re being protected by the state. 

This isn’t about the government protecting jobs, because coal and gas threaten the millions of jobs that rely on a safe climate. It isn’t about the benefit to the economy, because the gas industry is a systemic non payer of tax. 

Labor has sold us out to the coal and gas corporations for a few thousand in donations. They’ve sold out our kids and the future generations. And they’ve sold out working people.  

This is the fight we’re in. The world’s greediest and most dangerous corporations, backed by the political class. 

The Liberals and Nationals were kicked out of office for thumbing their nose at the climate crisis for being callous and captured, but with Labor, it’s somehow more disappointing, because you know they know what they’re doing is wrong. Some Labor MPs might not get into politics to help out Woodside, but sure enough they end up there. 

Now, we need to embrace the importance of protest and civil disobedience. We must come together and fight back.  

Rising Tide has been doing this for a generation now. “Just stop oil” protesters disrupted the Ashes and Wimbledon. The Extinction Rebellion has been shutting down the streets. There needs to be more. More protests, more rallies, more non-violent civil disobedience, more organising politically and more power and wealth back to the people. 

We need to celebrate our activists and open our movements up to all. Someone smart once said to me campaigns are like nature, and in nature there isn’t scarcity but abundance, and that in a campaign we mustn’t think there’s only one pathway, or one simple set of actions, everyone must do everything they can, whatever it is, whether it’s knitting for refugees or door knocking in your community.  

We might not all want to climb a coal bridge or sit in the foyer of Woodside, but we need to back the right of people to do so, and celebrate and feel joy from their action. 

It might cause a temporary disruption, but that’s nothing compared to the death and devastation being inflicted by global boiling. 

Radical, non-violent civil disobedience against the action of big corporations backed by the state are never going to be sanctioned by the government. As a former lawyer, the law is often complex, but the morality is simple. 

This country is built on the back of civil disobedience. The Wave Hill Walk off, the Franklin Dam rallies and the Green bans – these were often against the law, but they were on the side of what’s right.   

These halls we stand in are built by those who fought for their safety and their rights and fought back against unethical laws. 

Our laws have made it legal to destroy our world by mining and burning coal and gas. Our environment laws do not protect us. Our laws must change so they give power and wealth to the people. 

This is why we need a strong movement who, like the labour movement, will once again take people back to the streets. We need a movement with real power. 

With Labor hell bent on opening more coal and gas mines, we need to build an even more powerful movement and get in behind the Disrupt Burrup Hub, Rising Tide and Extinction Rebellion and those who are prepared to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience.

We need to stop all new coal and gas. Everyone needs to do everything.

The Greens will use their Senate balance of power to hold up proposed changes to the tax treatment of large superannuation accounts until the government puts superannuation on paid parental leave. The Greens support for that reform will be contingent on passage of legislation to put super on Paid Parental Leave (PPL).

The Government announced in their 2023-24 Budget that from 2025‑26 the tax rate on earnings of superannuation balances above $3 million will be lifted from 15% to 30%. This is expected to affect around 80,000 people in 2025-26 and in the first full year of collection (2027-28) is expected to increase receipts by $2.3 billion.

Paying superannuation on PPL would cost the Government less than ten percent of that, an estimated $200m per annum according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (AFSA).¹

Greens leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Women, Larissa Waters said:

“The Greens will use our balance of power in the Senate to ensure the government makes superannuation on Paid Parental Leave a priority reform, as part of its changes to super. 

“This is such a timid proposed change to the tax concessions the obscenely wealthy receive. If Labor is not going to improve it, the least they can do is put it to good use.

“Paying superannuation on Paid Parental Leave would cost $200m each year, less than ten percent of the $2.3 billion expected to be raised from the government’s proposed changes to superannuation tax concessions.

“We will use our balance of power in the Senate to get outcomes for women and young families who are struggling with the cost of living crisis. 

“We know Australian women are retiring with significantly less superannuation savings than men, with the gender retirement gap currently sitting at 23 per cent². Women deserve fairer Paid Parental Leave, and it’s only fair if it includes super. 

“It’s been almost a year since business groups and unions came together at Labor’s Jobs and Skills Summit to call for 26 weeks paid parental leave and super to be paid on it; and three months since they ignored the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce calls for super on paid parental leave – a key recommendation of its interim report.

“Labor is dragging out the increase to 26 weeks, making women wait while it’s introduced gradually over the next two years. And they rejected a Greens amendment in May to pay super on PPL. 

“They are drip-feeding the ‘idea’ of paying super on PPL until a date that suits them politically. 

“While we wait for the Government to come up with a campaign plan, the gender superannuation gap continues to grow, and a comfortable retirement feels more out of reach for more women and young people.

“Labor agreed to a binding resolution at national conference to ‘work to implement payment of superannuation on government Paid Parental Leave as a priority reform’. Now’s their chance.”

^1.https://www.superannuation.asn.au/media/media-releases/2023/media-release-7-march-2023
^2.60-64 age bracket: Towards gender equity in retirement (kpmg.com)

The final Gas Code of Conduct was tabled in the Parliament last sitting week. While this is a complex piece of regulation that needs closer scrutiny, what is clear is that the government has again watered down its proposal to benefit Australia’s powerful gas corporations. The Greens cannot guarantee support for this weakened Code.

New Ministerial powers in the Code allowing gas companies off the hook have exploded from five classes of exemptions to thirteen. These include exemptions that would encourage new gas field developments in spite of catastrophic global boiling.

Before coming to any decision about disallowing or protecting the regulation, the Greens have secured support to send this legislative instrument off to a Senate inquiry before a final vote in October. Evidence presented at the inquiry will inform the Greens final position. 

Treasury spokesperson, Senator Nick McKim said:

“The government should not take our support for this instrument for granted.”

“There is no doubt this country needs policies that regulate the greed and unscrupulous behaviour of gas companies, but not at the expense of encouraging new gas fields to open.” 

“The Greens are open to sending the government back to the drawing board on this. This should be our opportunity for Australia to wean itself off gas by electrifying homes and businesses. Instead Labor is using this code of conduct to encourage new gas supplies even as the planet boils around us.”

“While the Albanese Government is again bending over backwards to please Woodside and Santos, it seems to have forgotten that it is the Parliament, not the powerful gas cartel that has the final say on what laws are put in place.”

Latest data has revealed that bulk billing rates have drastically fallen under the Albanese Labor Government.

Since Labor came into government, bulkbilling rates have been dropping consecutively every single month – The latest data showing a total Medicare bulkbilling rate of 77%, and 80.2% for non-referred GP appointments, in the 12 months to June this year.

These are the lowest bulkbilling rates recorded since 2013.

This is in stark comparison to the 12 months to June 2021, which saw rates at an all-time high of 88.8% under the Coalition.

The Albanese Government is overseeing plummeting bulk billing rates at a time when Australians are struggling to pay the bills, let alone cough up for an unexpected GP appointment.

Rates have continued to fall every month despite the Government’s Budget announcement that they will triple the bulkbilling incentive, showing they have failed to restore confidence in the system at this critical time.

Now it has become clear that changes to payroll taxes will only exacerbate this concerning trend and eat away at any potential benefit provided by their budget measure.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald this month, “patients are set to pay up to $20 more to see a GP” and the new State Government payroll taxes will “kill off bulkbilling”.

With wall-to-wall state Labor premiers on the mainland, it is astounding that the Albanese Government is letting the states effectively quash their bulkbilling budget measure with these changes.

The Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator the Hon Anne Ruston said that this is a worrying double hit for patients.

“Bulkbilling rates are falling and the cost of seeing a GP is increasing, creating an unacceptable barrier for Australians in need of critical healthcare,” Senator Ruston said.

“The Albanese Government was elected with a promise to ‘strengthen Medicare’, yet all of the data is pointing in the exact opposite direction.”

“Despite all their rhetoric, the reality is that the Coalition Government oversaw record high bulkbilling rates while we were in Government, while Labor has let them fall to the lowest levels since the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years.”

“Medicare has been weakened from every angle, and Australians cannot afford for this concerning trend to continue,” Senator Ruston said.

Under the Albanese Labor Government, Medicare-subsidised mental health support has been slashed, less than half of their promised Urgent Care Clinics are operational, and 70 telehealth items have been cut from Medicare.

Australians must look at this Government’s actions and not their words.

Without urgent action from the Albanese Government to address the current decline in bulkbilling and rising health costs, Australians’ access to critical healthcare will be increasingly at risk.

Australia’s energy grid is under imminent threat of blackouts as soon as this summer as the Albanese Government’s energy plan drives the premature closure of baseload energy without any guarantee of replacement.

The Australian Energy Market Operator today sounded a dire warning, signalling the increased likelihood of significant energy shortfalls as renewable energy investment stalls.

Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Ted O’Brien said these warnings come as a direct consequence of Labor’s radical energy experiment.

“The market operator’s latest report is another frightening wake-up call for an incompetent federal Labor government,” Mr O’Brien said.

“Labor’s radical experiment with Australia’s energy system has created a looming crisis, with an increasing threat of blackouts as soon as this summer.”

“Australians are already paying some of the most expensive energy bills in the world and now they have been told their lights may not turn on when they need them.”

“It will only get worse if Labor continues down this dangerous path.”

The report comes as both Federal and State Governments grapple with the closure of coal fired power stations, including New South Wales’s Eraring Power Station which provides 20% of the State’s electricity.

The Shadow Energy Spokesperson called on Labor to scrap its ideological approach to energy.

“Labor must immediately stop its ideological crusade against energy technologies it doesn’t like that reliably keep the lights on,” Mr O’Brien said.

“It must adopt an ‘All the Above’ approach to energy – as the Coalition has done – to ensure a balanced mix of technologies power our grid into the future.”

“Renewables are an important part of the mix but Labor is setting them up for failure, not success, by demanding a renewables-only grid.”

“It beggars belief that while the rest of Australia grapples with soaring energy bills and an increasingly unreliable grid, our energy Minister continues to claim his policies are ‘improving the strength of the grid’.”

Today marks one year since the significant report by the United Nations Human Rights Office found human rights violations, including possible crimes against humanity, have been committed against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region of the People’s Republic of China.

Disappointingly there has been little action from the Albanese Government in response to this report. Despite repeated calls from the Uyghur community in Australia and offers of bipartisanship from the Coalition, Labor has chosen not to utilise the responses available to them.

The Albanese Government inaction stands in contrast to the actions taken by the European Union, UK, US and Canada who have pursued those responsible with targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes.

The Coalition, again, offers bipartisan support to the Foreign Minister and Albanese Government to use the Magnitsky-style sanctions at their disposal and send a strong message that Australia is serious about these human rights violations.

We urge the Government to build upon the bipartisan approach which delivered Australia’s Magnitsky-style sanctions, to act in a manner more consistent with Minister Wong’s pre-election statements and to accept the Coalition’s offer without further delay.

The Coalition strongly supports the OHCHR recommendations calling for the prompt release of all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty and the urgent independent investigation of all allegations of human rights abuses.

Since 2018 the Australian Government has consistently, publicly and directly with the Chinese Government, raised grave concerns about the reports of human rights abuses against ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

We also acknowledge the trauma of Uyghurs in Australia, who hold fears for their loved ones in Xinjiang, and in some cases have faced harassment and intimidation for sharing their stories publicly.

The Coalition restates our support for the UN to be given unrestricted access to Xinjiang to continue their independent investigation, and for those found to have committed human rights abuses to be held accountable.

The Albanese Government has today announced its refusal to act on a critical recommendation aimed at protecting children from pornography and other online harm.

In a major report to Government, Roadmap for Age Verification, the eSafety Commissioner has recommended a pilot of Age Assurance technologies. On page 8 of the Roadmap the eSafety Commissioner included in its Recommendations for the Australian Government:

Trial a pilot before seeking to prescribe and mandate age assurance technology.

This was a significant report, commissioned by the Coalition Government, that considered options to protect children online. The report has been with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland since March this year and was not released until today.

At the same time as releasing the Report, the Minister has shut down plans for the trial recommended by the eSafety Commissioner.

Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman said this was an extraordinary response by the Government.

“Every day, thousands of children access pornography online. As the eSafety Commissioner’s report notes, this can have very damaging impacts. And children are also accessing a large volume of other damaging content, such as material related to self-harm,” Mr Coleman said.

“The US Surgeon General has stated that there is ample evidence that access to damaging material online is harming the mental health of children. This is a defining issue of our era, and governments must take strong steps to protect children.

“An Age Assurance system would require technology companies to take specific steps to identify under-aged users and stop children from accessing dangerous material.

“The Government has refused to even trial an Age Assurance program, despite a clear recommendation from the eSafety Commissioner. It’s impossible to understand why the Albanese Government would not even trial such a system.

“On one hand we have a Government that wants to regulate political speech through its appalling Misinformation Bill. On the other we have a Government that refuses to trial crucial technology to keep children safe online. Minister Rowland’s decisions continue to defy logic, to the great detriment of Australians.”

As the Prime Minister announces the date for the Voice Referendum, October 14th, we face a critical juncture in our nation’s history. In these last remaining weeks before the referendum, the Left will be more resolved than ever to rally all their resources for the Yes campaign and redouble their efforts to turn around the disastrous polling that they have been facing these last few months.

We mustn’t allow them to hoodwink voters in this final stretch before polling day. Those of us who stand against this madness mustn’t get complacent. Voters have woken up to Albanese’s divisive agenda, but we must continue fighting until this threat to our national unity is buried.

As Australians who cherish the values that have defined our great nation, we cannot allow this left-wing lunacy, which has already infiltrated so much, to enter even our Constitution.

What is at stake here is the very core of our national identity. The radicals pushing for this change want nothing more than to undermine our values, our traditions, and our unity. They seek to create a parallel structure that would only fracture our society and provide an opening for those who want to undermine the foundations of our democracy.

We have seen the devastating consequences of these left-wing ideologies in other parts of the world; we cannot stand by and allow our great nation to be consumed by the same divisive forces. We must stand firm to show everyone who wants to divide and subvert our foundational institutions that we are still One Nation. We must redouble our efforts to ensure Australians stop this divisive agenda and Vote No.

I am pleased to announce the Governor-General has accepted my recommendation to appoint Adam Fennessy PSM as Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Mr Fennessy is an accomplished public sector leader including as the Secretary of the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries and then the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning between 2013 and 2017. Mr Fennessy was the Victorian Public Service Commissioner between 2020 and 2022. He was awarded a Public Service Medal in 2018 in recognition of his outstanding public service to government departments in Victoria.

Mr Fennessy is currently the Dean and CEO of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.

With his strong subject matter knowledge in primary industries, including well-established relationships with industry, and significant experience in organisational transformation, Mr Fennessy will be able to make an immediate contribution to the strategic leadership of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the broader Australian Public Service.

The five year appointment begins on 18 September 2023.

The office of the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was vacated on the retirement of Mr Andrew Metcalfe AO, on 4 August 2023. On behalf of my government I thank Mr Metcalfe for his dedicated service and leadership, including as Secretary of three Departments of State since 2005.

The Greens have condemned the Forestry Corporation of NSW for threatening endangered species by logging the habitat of the great glider in Tallaganda state forest.

They are calling on state and federal governments to urgently act to scrap the Regional Forest Agreements to end native forest logging and protect endangered species.

Australian Greens’ spokesperson for forests Janet Rice said: 

“This forest and these gliders are national heritage – the Commonwealth has a responsibility to protect them, particularly in light of how much forest burnt in 2019 in NSW and Victoria. 

“It shouldn’t be up to the vandals of the NSW forestry commission to send greater gliders closer and closer to extinction. 

“If we want zero extinctions as Tanya Plibersek has promised then we need to end native forest logging across the country immediately.

“Forests are going to be under even greater threat from fire in the future with more extreme conditions due to global heating.

“The Regional Forest Agreements have allowed for decades of reckless destruction of native forests across Australia, pushed native wildlife to the brink of extinction, endangered our water supplies, heightened bushfire risk, and made the climate crisis worse.

“Native forest logging is a dying industry and there’s no way around it. 

“We need a permanent, national ban on native forest logging and a just transition plan for forestry workers.” 

NSW Greens’ spokesperson for forests Sue Higginson said:

“The NSW Government must immediately pause all plans to log Tallaganda Forest. We can not allow Greater Glider extinction logging and make no mistake, that’s what this is. 

“There are dozens of Greater Glider den trees in Tallaganda that are proposed to be logged, but Forestry Corporation have only mapped a single tree for habitat protection across the 5,000 hectares that they want to destroy.

“Forestry Corporation are legally required to conduct pre-logging fauna and flora surveys but they can not have done this adequately as their report has drastically under-assessed the Greater Glider habitat and population in this area that is critical for the survival of the Greater Glider.

“I’ve called on the NSW Minister for Environment and the Environment Protection Authority to use their powers and issue an immediate stop work order for logging operations in Tallaganda State Forest until an independent review of the Greater Glider habitat can be undertaken.

“The NSW Government has committed to zero extinctions in NSW but the continued logging of critical Greater Glider Habitat, one of only two remaining in the state, is a blatant failure to take the necessary actions to prevent the extinction of Greater Gliders.”