Category: Australian News

Australian Greens Senator and Education Spokesperson, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has welcomed Early Learning Matters Week and called for the Morrison Government to commit to supporting the sector, including by introducing funding certainty, guaranteeing all three and four year olds access to 24 hours of early childhood education a week and supporting early childhood workers with professional pay.
Senator Faruqi said:
“Early Learning Matters Week is a great opportunity to highlight how early childhood education supports the well-being of our children, families and society.
“We need to recognise the importance of a well-resourced and accessible early childhood education system with professional pay for staff and thank Australia’s early childhood educators for their work.
“The Morrison Government needs to get serious about early childhood education in this country by introducing funding certainty for providers, guaranteeing all three and four year olds access to 24 hours of early childhood education a week and supporting early childhood workers with professional pay.
“The Greens strongly support early childhood educators across the country and their rights to fair pay. It is well past time for the people who educate and care for children to have decent pay and conditions” she concluded.

Greens climate change spokesperson Adam Bandt MP has today called on Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor to do his job, end the war on renewables and extend the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to cut pollution and lower power bills.
“If Angus Taylor wants to do his job and cut emissions, he needs to extend the RET,” said Mr Bandt.
“Australia’s energy sector is facing a valley of death from the coming investment strike.
“It’s time for Australia to end its war on renewables. We need to extend the RET, establish a national storage target and significantly boost investment in the grid.
“Angus Taylor is like an internet dater ghosting on the state and territory Energy Ministers, refusing to host a COAG Energy Minister’s meeting since December 2018. We are a country floundering without an energy policy.
“Angus Taylor needs to do his job, call a COAG meeting and extend the RET to lower energy costs and cut pollution.”

Paedophiles would face mandatory jail sentences and the most serious offenders could be jailed for life under sweeping changes to Federal sentencing laws to be introduced to Parliament next week.
The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Bill 2019 will also make it harder for serious offenders to get bail, while repeat offenders will have to stay in prison for longer.
The Bill reflects the Morrison Government’s commitment to keeping Australians safe and creates new offences to capture evolving forms of child exploitation such as being the administrator of a website that functions for the purpose of distributing child abuse material.
Attorney-General Christian Porter said 28 per cent of child sex offenders convicted of federal offences in 2018-19 did not spend one day in jail – a statistic totally out of step with community expectations.
“It simply beggars belief that nearly a third of all child sex offenders who were sentenced last year were not required to spend a single day behind bars, despite the devastating and life-long impacts that their crimes have on their young victims and their families,” the Attorney-General said.
“And when jail terms were handed out, the average length of time that offenders spent in custody was just 18 months.
“The changes being introduced by the Morrison Government will ensure that a jail term becomes the starting point for all child sex offenders, while maximum penalties will also be increased to better reflect the gravity of these types of crimes, including a new life term for the worst offenders.”
Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the Australian Federal Police received almost 18,000 reports of child exploitation involving Australian children or Australian child sex offenders last year, which was almost double the number from the previous year.
“Sentences need to reflect community expectations and act as a significant deterrent to others, which is why these sorts of despicable crimes must result in significant penalties, not simply a slap on the wrist which is often the case,” Mr Dutton said.
“Our Government is at war with these predators and all those who would seek to do harm to children
“The message we are sending to paedophiles is that it won’t matter how good their lawyer is, a prison cell will be waiting for them when they are convicted. This is what the community expects and this what the Morrison Government intends to deliver.
“I would urge the Labor Party, who failed to support these reforms in the last Parliament, to listen to the Australian People and put community safety first when it comes time to vote on this Bill.”
The Bill complements a broad package of reforms already introduced by the Coalition during the last Parliament, which strengthened laws relating to child sexual abuse and created new protections for the community.
This included tough new measures to stop child sex offenders from travelling overseas to abuse children and the introduction of Carly’s law, which targets online predators who use the internet to prepare or plan to sexually abuse children.
The new Bill will vastly improve justice outcomes and community safety through:

• Mandatory minimum sentences for serious child sex offences and for recidivist offenders
• A presumption against bail for serious and repeat offenders to keep them off the streets
• Increased maximum penalties across the spectrum of child sex offences, including up to life imprisonment for the most serious offences
• Presumptions in favour of cumulative sentences and actual imprisonment
• Ensuring that all sex offenders, upon release from custody, are adequately supervised and subject to appropriate rehabilitative conditions
• Preventing courts from discounting sentences on the basis of good character where this is used to facilitate the crime.

The Bill will be introduced to Parliament next Wednesday.

Federal Water Minister David Littleproud is completely out of touch if he believes his claims on ABC Radio this morning that the only problem with the Murray Darling Basin is a lack of water due to drought, the Greens say.
Greens Murray Darling Basin spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the Minister is shirking responsibility by claiming that unless it rains, there’s no water to share.
“The NSW Natural Resources Commission found over-allocation of water in favour of up-stream corporate irrigators pushed the river system into severe drought leading to the devastating fish kills,” Senator Hanson-Young said.
“If water is over-extracted by irrigators then it isn’t lack of it falling from the sky that means there’s not enough to go round. This is clearly a water management issue and therefore under the Minister’s purview.
“The Minister needs to stop working in favour of big corporate irrigators and lift the freeze on buying back environmental water.
“Water must be returned to the River and we must have a Royal Commission to fix the management of the Murray Darling Basin before it is too late.
“The National Party’s head in the sand attitude to climate change is a slap in the face to rural communities and farmers.
“Between denying climate change and refusing to tackle the greed of big corporate irrigators, it’s no wonder scientists are warning there will be more fish deaths this summer.”

The ALP is melting down over climate policy, and Anthony Albanese is missing in action.
“The Government’s climate policy is shockingly weak, and rather than showing leadership, Labor looks like they’re about to join them. At a time when we need to be declaring a climate emergency, WA Labor is declaring climate surrender,” said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.
“WA Labor’s decision to dump the emissions targets that Labor just took to the federal election and replace them with the Coalition’s shockingly weak targets follows Queensland Labor’s support for Adani and full throated attack on climate protesters. Anthony Albanese’s inability to reign them in shows just how adrift the Labor Party has become and why the Greens are now the real opposition.
“Labor has changed their climate policy half a dozen times in recent years and with every change its got weaker. With big donations from the coal, oil and gas lobby continuing to flow, Albo out to lunch and the ALP adrift at sea, it’s only the Greens who are prepared to take the fight up to this rotten government.
“Where is Albo, and when is he going to tell us what Labor’s climate policy is?”
“It looks like Labor and the Liberals are now on a unity ticket in backing Tony Abbott’s measly emissions targets, which are not consistent with global warming staying below two degrees,” said Greens Climate Change Spokesperson Adam Bandt MP.
“The Greens are fighting the Liberals’ climate denialism, but it looks like Labor won’t be with us.
“Anthony Albanese needs to get his colleagues on the same page, override the WA Labor party and help the Greens fight for emissions cuts consistent with the Paris ‘two degree’ goals, because otherwise we’re on track for climate disaster and Labor’s climate credibility is shot.

The Morrison Government will be responsible for the death of the Great Barrier Reef unless it takes urgent action on climate change, the Greens say.

“Today’s report is a Code Red on the survival of the Great Barrier Reef,” Greens Environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“Today’s report confirms that things are getting much worse for the Great Barrier Reef under the Morrison government. We must have immediate and comprehensive climate action if we are to save it.

“The future of the Reef, the 64,000 jobs that depend on it, and its value as a World Heritage Area are all in peril because of the fossil-fuel loving Coalition.

“It’s not the Greens saying this, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has again clearly said climate change is the biggest threat to the Reef and without national and global action, it won’t be ‘Great’ for much longer.

“Meanwhile, Matt Canavan is in India courting coal barons and putting the future of the Reef and the climate in further danger.

“If the PM and the Environment Minister insist on keeping their heads in the sand on climate change they’ll be to blame for the death of the Great Barrier Reef. Time to stop shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Greens Oceans spokesperson and chair of the Senate Inquiry into the $444m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said: “It’s official, the Great Barrier Reef, the planet’s biggest living organism, has been admitted to the emergency ward.”

“No amount of cosmetic surgery will save it from its inevitable total decline. The life support it needs is urgent and requires drastic climate action.

“Collectively, the world needs to reduce emissions. As custodian of this natural wonder, Australia must lead from the front and it isn’t doing that.”

The Biloela family must be allowed to stay in Australia, Greens Immigration and Citizenship spokesperson Nick McKim says.
“Trying to deport a family, including Australian born children, in the dead of night is emblematic of this government’s heartlessness,” Senator McKim said.
“Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton and David Coleman must listen to the community and allow Priya, Nades and their children to stay in Australia.”
“With the stroke of a ministerial pen they could be released from detention and allowed to get on with their lives.”
“This is their home. They are beloved members of the Biloela community.”
“The advocates and community who have tirelessly rallied behind this family have done a fantastic job.”

If the NSW Government was serious about preventing “Fish Armageddon” this summer, it would secure water supply for native fish so they don’t need rescuing in the first place, Greens water spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“The NSW Government’s refusal to accept the findings of the Natural Resources Commission is outrageous. The findings show over-allocation of water in favour of up-stream corporate irrigators pushed the river system into severe drought three years earlier than it would have, leading to the fish kills in the Menindee Lakes and Darling River.
“They’ve had more than six months since those devastating fish kills to stop over extraction and lift the freeze on buying back environmental water so native fish can get the water they need to survive.
“Instead, they plan to rescue dying fish from the river when the heat sets in and the water stops flowing, which does nothing to prevent future fish kills.
“It’s time the NSW Government stopped working in favour of big corporate irrigators and started acting in the best interests of family farmers, river communities, the environment and native fish.
“Water must be returned to the River and we must have a Royal Commission to fix the management of the Murray Darling Basin before it is too late.”

The Federal Government must accept the science pointing to the need for drastic emissions reduction to protect the Great Barrier Reef and actually take the necessary action instead of wasting time trying to influence UNESCO’s climate change policy, the Greens say.

“This looks a lot like history repeating itself when it comes to the in-danger listing of the Reef by the World Heritage Committee,” Greens Environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“Australia has form when it comes to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying UNESCO to influence its decision making on the Reef so it can push ahead with climate-destroying projects like Adani’s Carmichael coal mine.

“If the Reef is to survive, the Morrison Government must accept climate change is the Reef’s greatest threat and they must stop stalling on meaningful action to drastically reduce emissions.”

Greens Oceans spokesperson and chair of the Senate Inquiry into the $444m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said, “Australians are custodians of this international icon for the whole world”.

“We know climate change is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef. Yet our emissions have been rising under the Morrison Government, and we are pushing on with massive new coal mines that will export global warming to the world,” Senator Whish-Wilson said.

“Our role as both custodian of this treasure and coal-plugger is a shameful conflict of interest that this government has gone to great lengths to hide and spin their way out of.

“As chair of the Senate inquiry into the $444m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, I discovered the main motivation for this grant was to avoid an ‘in danger listing’, to avoid telling the truth about the tenuous future for the reef, and for more spin and greenwash to hide this government’s shameful record on climate action.

“Scott Morrison shouldn’t be trying to hide the truth, which is as plain as daylight: the GBR is ‘in danger’ whichever way you look at it, and the actions of his government have played a role in the unfolding tragedy we are seeing on this massive ecosystem visible from space.”

Greens climate change spokesperson Adam Bandt MP, today called on the government to rule out privatisation of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), which Scott Morrison has called the ‘world’s most successful green bank’, warning it would leave the government without even a fig-leaf of a climate change policy.
“Just last week, Scott Morrison was boasting to Pacific Island leaders about the importance of the ‘world’s most successful green bank’ to the government’s climate policy, yet now there’s discussion about selling it off,” said Mr Bandt.
“Scott Morrison has repeatedly said the CEFC is one of the key planks of the government’s climate policy. He must immediately rule out selling off the CEFC, one of the few effective things this government is doing to fight climate change.
“Selling it off would leave the government without even a fig-leaf of a climate change policy and further weaken Australia’s already miserable efforts to fight global warming.
“I’m proud of the role the Greens played in establishing the CEFC and securing its $10 billion for clean energy in the 2010 shared power Parliament. Since 2011, it has backed renewable energy projects across the country, helping cut pollution and make clean energy cheaper.”
“We’ll be fighting tooth and nail to keep the CEFC in public hands.”