Category: Australian News

I express my sincere condolences and sympathies to the families of the firefighters who have so tragically been killed overnight.
They were bravely defending their communities with an unmatched spirit and a dedication that will forever set them apart amongst our most courageous Australians.
Their sacrifice and service saving lives and saving properties will be forever remembered. I wish those injured all the best in their recovery.
Our hearts go out to their families, friends and colleagues who have been working tirelessly beside them, particularly during this Christmas period.
These fires and heat conditions are horrendous, and there are still difficult days ahead, with Saturday predicted to be the most severe day, with extreme temperatures and wind making conditions very difficult for fire crews.
We wish all of those putting themselves in harm’s way for all of us, all the best. Stay safe, stay together.
Know that Australians are deeply grateful. To Australians living in fire-ravaged regions, please heed the warnings of the authorities, and stay safe.
Given these most recent tragic events, I will be returning to Sydney from leave as soon as can be arranged.
The Federal Government stands ready to deploy whatever further assistance State and Territory authorities request to manage this disaster.

Greens Senator Janet Rice has slammed the government’s failure to act as farmers suffer the effects of the climate emergency, following a damning report released today from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The report found that the climate crisis has sunk Australian farms’ average annual profits by 22% and that crop farmers have been hit the hardest, losing $1.1bn in revenue a year since 2000.

Senator Janet Rice, Greens spokesperson for Agriculture and Regional Affairs said:

“This is the cost of our climate crisis. It’s unacceptable that Australian farmers are losing around $18,600 per farm and yet the government is still failing to act on the climate emergency that’s causing this loss.

“Farmers and rural Australians are on the frontline of the climate crisis and this drought is devastating families and leaving communities to perish.

“Instead of helping regional communities and farmers, the coal-hugging Liberal-National Coalition have lifted pollution and done everything in their power to make global heating worse.

“The LNP seem more interested in cosying up to their coal, oil and gas lobby mates than they are in supporting farmers.

“The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that drier than average weather will continue, so we must ensure farmers have what they need to adapt.

“The Morrison government can’t just throw money at the problem as a bandaid during times of crisis. This is an ongoing crisis, made worse by the government’s failure to address the root cause of drought, fund long-term drought resilience programs, and take urgent climate action.

“It is only by cutting pollution that we can reduce the impact of droughts and alleviate the effect on farmers.”

It’s time that the fossil fuel companies whose products are responsible for the climate crisis start footing some of the bill for cleaning it up. A $1 levy per tonne of carbon pollution from the country’s biggest polluters, proposed today by the Australia Institute, is the very least that these companies can do, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.
“Fossil fuels like coal are the biggest cause of climate change, and yet despite raking in billions of dollars in super profits each year, the companies that dig up and sell them aren’t paying enough towards cleaning up the mess their products help to cause. That needs to stop” said Di Natale.
”Houses in Australia are on fire today. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of bush land is on fire today. Temperature records are being broken across the country today. It’s not too much to ask that fossil fuel companies contribute some of the money we will need to clean up the mess.”
“Coal will kill us. The producers of disaster inducing coal, oil and gas cannot get off scot free while their product contributes to deadly fires and oppressive heatwaves,” said Greens Climate Change spokesperson Adam Bandt, MP.
“The costs of these climate induced extreme weather events are skyrocketing. If this government was serious about protecting the Australian economy and saving Australian lives, they’d introduce a pollution levy to properly equip our emergency services and prepare our cities and towns.
“The Liberals just sabotaged global climate talks for the sake of dodgy credits they now say they don’t need.  The government has been shamed by the rest of the world and is now trying to crabwalk out of its unlawful carryover credit debacle. If the Liberals say they don’t need their dodgy carryover credits then they should rule out using them and apologise to the rest of the world for scuppering the Madrid climate summit.”

Australia is in the midst of an unprecedented heatwave and bushfire emergency, but the Prime Minister has been missing in action. Scott Morrison must show some leadership and immediately convene emergency meetings with fire chiefs, peak medical bodies and cross-party political leadership to craft a response to this crisis, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.
”The country is in crisis and the Australian people are crying out for leadership, but Scott Morrison has been missing in action,” said Di Natale.
”We are seeing the climate crisis play out right now across Australia, and it is only going to get worse. That’s why we need the Prime Minister to lead an emergency response that is above politics, that brings the community together and not only responds to these fires but prepares for the fires that are yet to come.
“The decision today by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to declare a State of Emergency in New South Wales highlights just how serious this situation is not just in New South Wales but across the country, and how missing leadership has been at the national level.
“That’s why the Greens are calling on the Prime Minister to immediately :

• Commit to convening an emergency Summit with the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action to discuss improving how we prepare for and resource bushfire emergencies in a changed climate.
• Meet with the Presidents of medical colleges who have called the current crisis a public health emergency to discuss critical responses to protect human health.
• Take a page out of John Howard‘s response to the Port Arthur tragedy, convene an urgent cross party forum with the leaders of our main political parties to find a way forward on our paralysed and wholly insufficient climate policy.

Our blind and vision-impaired communities are celebrating today, after years of campaigning alongside the Greens, that audio description will be made available on Australia’s public broadcasters: the ABC and SBS.
Australian Greens Disability Rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John said there are more than 450,000 blind or vision-impaired Australians who are currently unable to enjoy television with friends and family, or reap the medium’s educational potential.
“This is now finally beginning to change, with funding made available to our public broadcasters to implement audio description across their channels from 1 July 2020,” Steele-John said today.
“Whilst this is a huge win for our blind and vision-impaired communities, it is disappointing to see that this government has not committed to requiring commercial free-to-air television stations to provide audio description as well.
“The commercial stations – Channel’s Seven, Nine, Ten and Sky – are now on notice. The technology is readily available and cheap, and the community expects them to follow suit and make sure their content is accessible to blind and visually-impaired Australians!
“The Greens will continue to campaign alongside the community to make sure that free-to-air TV in Australia is accessible and inclusive for everyone.”

Today’s meeting of the Murray–Darling Basin Ministerial Council has left the River system in crisis, robbed the environment, and has left South Australia high and dry.
“Today’s meeting has delivered a major blow to the environment, with cuts to crucial environmental water and a delay in plans designed to restore the health of the River” said Senator for SA and Greens Spokesperson for the Murray-Darling, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
“Rather than tackling over-allocation and mismanagement of water, Water Ministers today cut water to the environment. This means less water for the River to survive, while big irrigators can keep damming, pumping and making profits.
“The only winners out of the today’s meeting are the big irrigators upstream who have continued to expand irrigation, despite the drought.
“What we’ve seen today is a concerted, planned effort from the upstream states to cut obligations to the environment and roll South Australia.
“NSW’s refusal to help return the promised 450gl to the River as required in the Plan throws South Australia under the bridge.
“When the Murray-Darling Plan was agreed to, all signatories — that is, all the States — agreed to return 3,200 gigalitres of water to the River, that commitment is now effectively dead.
“The SA Water Minister should hang his head in shame. How did he let this happen?
“SA Premier Steven Marshall needs to front up to South Australians and explain what he’s going to do with his capitulating, weak Minister who has sold out our state and surrendered the Rivers health.”

Greens Senator Janet Rice has slammed the government’s failure to act as farmers suffer the effects of the climate emergency, following a damning report released today from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The report found that the climate crisis has sunk Australian farms’ average annual profits by 22% and that crop farmers have been hit the hardest, losing $1.1bn in revenue a year since 2000.

Senator Janet Rice, Greens spokesperson for Agriculture and Regional affairs said

“This is the cost of our climate crisis. It’s unacceptable that Australian farmers are losing around $18,600 per farm and yet the government is still failing to act on the climate emergency that’s causing this loss.

“Farmers and rural Australians are on the frontline of the climate crisis and this drought is devastating families and leaving communities to perish.

“Instead of helping regional communities and farmers, the coal-hugging Liberal-National Coalition have lifted pollution and done everything in their power to make global heating worse.

“The LNP seem more interested in cosying up to their coal, oil and gas lobby mates than they are in supporting farmers.

“The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that drier than average weather will continue, so we must ensure farmers have what they need to adapt.

“The Morrison government can’t just throw money at the problem as a bandaid during times of crisis. This is an ongoing crisis, made worse by the government’s failure to address the root cause of drought, fund long-term drought resilience programs, and take urgent climate action.

“It is only by cutting pollution that we can reduce the impact of droughts and alleviate the effect on farmers.”

The Prime Minister should stop fudging the figures and get on fixing southern Tasmania’s traffic woes, starting with delivering on the Airport Roundabout.
In 2017, the Liberals promised the Airport Roundabout in Hobart would be finished next year.
Instead, Tasmanians stuck in airport traffic will be still waiting months before they see the first shovel in the ground.
Worse still, there is confusion about total funding for the Hobart-Sorell Corridor.
There was $154 million promised for both the Hobart-Sorell Corridor and the Hobart Airport Roundabout but with blowouts to the Airport Roundabout there is now just $86m available for the rest of the Hobart-Sorell corridor.
We also know from MYEFO that just $25.2 million of the Infrastructure Fast Track will flow to Tasmania this year – less than 15 percent of the Tasmanian package.
Tasmanian locals as well as visitors deserve a plan on infrastructure and jobs from Scott Morrison.
They deserve an answer on whether the Liberal Government will properly fund the over-run over the airport roundabout, and what that means for upgrades to the whole corridor.
In addition – when will all this actually happen?
This Government, now in its seventh year, is continuing to demonstrate it has no plan to boost jobs and no plan on the economy.

Official data shows 1190 fewer Tasmanians are engaged in apprenticeships or traineeships than when the Federal Coalition took office more than six years ago.
That’s a drop of 12.5 per cent.
Over the same period, the Government has issued more than 500,000 visas to overseas workers to cover the skills shortages created by its cuts to TAFE and training.
Tasmanian employers are crying out for qualified workers.
The skills crisis in engineering, health, trades, technicians and construction is hurting the Tasmanian economy and denying young people a pathway to secure, well-paid jobs.
Nationwide, since the Liberals were elected six years ago, Australia has lost around 150,000 apprenticeships and traineeships.
Scott Morrison has no plan to fix the skills crisis he created.
He has no plan to create more jobs or to lift wages for those who are employed.
Australia is perfectly placed to reap the benefits offered by the extraordinary economic growth in our region.
But to take full advantage of this growth we must train Australians so they have the skills and qualifications to exploit the looming opportunities in manufacturing and construction.

Greens’ Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, responded today to the release of the Mid-Year Economic Forecast and Outlook (MYEFO).
“Today’s MYEFO has confirmed that Scott Morrison is not interested in governing.
“In the face of unheralded economic conditions and a climate emergency, the government is running idle.
“Interest rates are at record lows. Wages, productivity and spending are all in a slump. The enormity of the climate crisis is dawning on the nation.
“So what does the government offer up? A hope that house prices will return to their record highs.
“Property speculation, not productive investment: that’s the mantra of the Property Council PM.
“The bringing forward of $4.2 billion in infrastructure spending is scraps off the edge of the table. Non-defence capital spending is still in decline over the forwards estimates. And the government is still paying down debt when what we actually need is government to invest in job creating infrastructure.
“This government wants households to take on more debt while it takes on less debt.
“This economic pigheadedness is distorting the whole economy, making housing less affordable, and leaving us more exposed to the climate emergency.
“The Greens have put together 5-point stimulus plan to kick-start the economy and to act on the existential crisis that is climate change.
The Greens Stimulus Package would:

1. Accelerate and expand the pipeline of green infrastructure investment in electricity generation, transmission and storage, energy efficient public housing and public transport.
2. Create thousands of jobs to protect and restore Australia’s flora, fauna, land and sea.
3. Remove the Commonwealth public sector wage cap and commit to lifting wages by 4% per annum.
4. Immediately increase Newstart and Youth Allowance payments by at least $75 a week.
5. Unleash private sector wage growth by legislating to reverse the cuts to penalty rates and peg the minimum wage to 60% of the median full-time wage.