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The Government’s announcement of $483m to fund the Urannah Dam, in close proximity to numerous existing and planned mining projects, is an undisguised investment in the expansion of the coal industry. 

The dam, in Joyce’s own words, will provide water security for the nearby coal mining industry to grow into the future – even at a time when we need to urgently reduce emissions to avoid the impacts of climate change that parts of our country are currently experiencing. 

The Greens environment and water spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said:

“While towns in NSW are still cleaning up from the disastrous climate floods, Barnaby Joyce and Scott Morrison want to spend half a billion dollars to help build more coal mines and make climate change worse – this is unforgivable. 

“Barnaby’s big dam is all about helping expand the coal industry in the Bowen Basin – a project that has been dismissed by scientists, economists and the community. It’s makes a mockery of the Morrison Government’s net zero promise and their upcoming Federal Budget. 

“The climate has changed – it’s happening now. We’re seeing the crisis unfold before our eyes, with people’s homes lost, their livelihoods destroyed. Australians can’t afford new projects that ignore the impacts of climate change.

“Voters around the country will be angry that Barnaby Joyce gets to spend $500 million on a massive dam for his coal donors, while people who have lost their homes in the bushfires and now the floods still don’t have homes to live in. 

“This announcement has put a torpedo through the economic credibility of this Government. The feasibility studies into this project all show that this is nothing more than boondoggle – a waste of public money and a waste of time. When majority of voters support action on climate change, spending public money on making climate change worse is simply bad economic management.

“How on earth did this get the tick off from the Treasurer and the Finance Minister? Josh Frydenberg and Simon Birmingham should be embarrassed, Barnaby is already making a mockery of their Budget.” 

The Greens will undo years of privatisation and revitalise the Australian Public Service by restoring staffing levels and increasing wages, winding back labour hire and outsourcing, reducing politicisation and freeing public servants to participate fully in public debate.

Successive governments have outsourced Australia’s essential public services, making them more expensive, lower quality and harder to oversee. The outsourcing of jobs has seen real wages fall and employment conditions worsen, which has put downward pressure on wages and conditions in the private sector.

We can end the over-reliance on privatisation and deliver a stronger and more capable public service at a lower cost to the public. The Greens will:

• Restore APS jobs to match 2012 levels so the public service can meet the needs of this country 
• Lift APS level wages by 4% p/a over the next four years to value public sector workers and pull wages up across the private sectors
• Limit outsourcing to labour hire firms and the Big Four to 7.5% of an agency’s budget
• Reform the appointment process to reduce politicisation
• Ensure public servants can participate in public debate 
• Protect public sector whistleblowers who disclose Ministerial or Departmental misconduct 

Link to full policy document

Greens deputy leader and public sector spokesperson Senator Larissa Waters said:

“Under the Liberals and Labor our public service has been progressively privatised, with jobs cut, government departments hollowed out and work palmed off to the ‘Big Four’ consulting firms, which are now among the country’s biggest political donors. 

“Since 2012 successive governments have slashed a total of 17,000 full-time jobs from the public service, while at the same time funnelling billions into the bank accounts of consultancy firms like KPMG and Deloitte, including $850 million in 2020 alone.

“The undermining of the public sector began under the Gillard Labor government, which launched a massive cull of public servants, and has only accelerated under the Liberals, who have ramped up payments to the Big Four, particularly during the pandemic.
 
“Between them the Big Four have donated more than $5.4 million to the major parties since 2012, including nearly $700,000 in 2020-21.

“Contrary to the neoliberal propaganda, privatising essential services does not save money nor produce better outcomes. It makes services less efficient and puts decision-making in the hands of for-profit multinationals.

“To guarantee that the education, housing, health, social security, environmental protection and infrastructure needs of our country are being met we need a well-staffed and highly skilled public service that is able to provide effective and impartial policy advice to government, and carry out its responsibilities free from political interference.”

Greens candidate for Canberra Tim Hollo said:

“The outsourcing of basic public service work to contractors and the Big Four has been a disaster not just for good government but for so many Canberrans, particularly young people trying to build a career in public service.

“I hear from a lot of young Canberrans who’ve found that outsourcing means they can’t get basic job security, have no real prospective career path, and can’t afford to rock the boat in any way. And many older, experienced people are deeply troubled that the crucial institutions they’ve dedicated their lives to are being eroded and privatised. That’s terrible for them, but also for our expectations that government should get frank and fearless advice.

“This policy is going to excite a lot of people around Canberra, and I’m sure elsewhere in Australia. With Greens in shared power in both houses, we can get rid of the destructive LNP and work to pull Labor to go further and faster in ending outsourcing and supporting the public service.”

With a likely sixth mass bleaching event now unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef, the Greens have called on the Morrison Government to cooperate fully and transparently with UNESCO’s 10-day monitoring mission, which begins next Monday.

Data from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority which will confirm the extent of current coral bleaching as moderate or mass bleaching is expected next Friday, during the monitoring mission. A decision on whether the Reef will be listed as World Heritage In Danger will be made in June 2022, after several previous considerations in the last decade.

Greens Senators Larissa Waters, Peter Whish-Wilson and Sarah Hanson-Young last week wrote to environment minister Sussan Ley asking the government to publish details of the mission, including the itinerary and the mission’s participants, and to ensure that Reef scientists and civil society organisations are invited to brief UNESCO representatives.

We have not yet received a reply.

Greens deputy leader and Queensland Senator Larissa Waters said:

“The Morrison Government has an abysmal record when it comes to reducing the biggest threat to the Reef, the climate crisis, and an equally shocking record when it comes to transparency.

“Every time UNESCO has expressed science-based concern about the state of the Reef and whether it should be recognised as In Danger, the feds have gone into spin overdrive and spent more time and money on lobbying other nations than on fixing the Reef’s health.

“The government must not be allowed to hijack this UNESCO mission and turn it into another propaganda exercise. 

“The Greens are calling for the government to publish the details of the monitoring mission, publish the itinerary, and make sure that reef scientists, other experts and environment groups can be allowed to provide input.

“We have also sought Government permission for me to be able to brief the monitoring mission representatives, as I did in 2012 on their last visit. Many other groups have sought permission and are yet to hear.

“On this government’s watch we’ve seen three mass bleaching events, with all evidence pointing to yet another unfolding right now.

“Instead of protecting, they’ve been politicising, twiddling their thumbs on climate and water quality while desperately lobbying foreign governments to avoid a World Heritage ‘in danger’ listing.

“We again call on the government to act immediately on the climate crisis, the single greatest threat to the Reef and the 64,000 livelihoods that depend on it, by putting an immediate stop to all new coal and gas projects.”

Greens spokesperson on healthy oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said:

“The Morrison Government will go to extraordinary lengths to deny climate change and its own role in the relentless destruction of the Reef.

“Their successful sabotage of last year’s UNESCO process through lies and obfuscation, including coercing an independent agency to rush the release of a major report, was a sorry and shameful spectacle.

“The Greens are the only party with a serious plan to save the Reef. We’d ban all new coal and gas, create a $2 billion grant fund to improve water quality and properly fund the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.”

Greens spokesperson on environment and water, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:

“Time is up for playing blatant PR games with the health of the Reef. Climate change and pollution has left Australia’s most iconic natural asset in peril, and the rest of the world has a stake in knowing the truth. 
 
“The Morrison Government has tried at every turn to hide and spin the real state of the Reef – to avoid the obvious question of climate action. They must now commit to providing a genuine, open and transparent opportunity for the UN mission.”

“The Closing the Gap Report tells us the same thing every year: treating the symptoms of
colonisation doesn’t work. We need to address the cause of the injustices we face through
Treaty,” said The Greens spokesperson for Justice and First Nations: Gunnai, Gunditjmara
and DjabWurrung Senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe. 

This comes on National Close the Gap Day 2022, as the rate of First Nations children in
out-of-home care is increasing. First Nations and non-Indigenous Australians continue to have
an unequal life expectancy. Aggressive policing results in too many Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people being locked up in prisons that do not have independent oversight to
safeguard their human rights.

“Treaty is an opportunity for us to tell the story of who we want to be as a country. We need
to explore, understand and reckon with our past to unpack the impact it continues to have on
First Nations people today. Co-design doesn’t work. Shared ownership doesn’t work.” 

“The continuing high rate of suicide among First Nations people shows that too many of us
cannot see a future in the current system. The system wasn’t designed to keep us alive,
because ultimately, it’s killing us.”

“The Morrison Government has continued a long legacy of taking decisions about our health,
our education and our Country away from us. We can put First Nations people back in the
driver’s seat, by backing community controlled services and decision-making.”

“First Nations people know what’s best for our communities. We have the solutions. Treaty
will restore our right to make decisions for ourselves. Our people are strong, and just like
everyone else, we thrive when we’re free to set our own course.”

“We are sick of hearing about this gap, we want action. We demand the recommendations
from the Bringing Them Home Report and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in
Custody be implemented. Stop wasting our time.” Said Thorpe.

The Morrison Government’s plan to make private health insurance simpler and more affordable for all Australians is continuing to move ahead through landmark reform of the Prostheses List.

The multi-year reforms are anticipated to deliver total savings of approximately $900 million for consumers and the private health insurance system through significant reductions in prices for medical devices.

This will be achieved by better aligning the prices of medical devices between private and public hospitals and delivering structural reforms that better focus the Prostheses List for the future on high-cost and innovative medical devices.

The List, established in 1985, sets the minimum price insurers must pay hospitals for a surgically implanted prosthesis received by a private patient in a privately insured episode of hospital treatment. Examples of prostheses are replacement hips and knees, cardiac implantable electronic devices, such as pacemakers, and human tissue.

Since 1985, the Protheses List has grown in both size and complexity, now including more than 11,600 items.

In 2019-20, more than 3.1 million prostheses on the list were supplied at a cost – to private health insurers – of approximately $2.1 billion.

The Government is reforming the list to better align prices in the private system with those paid in public hospitals, and comparable international markets. Prices for medical devices vary and recent analysis shows that they can be up to 145 per cent higher than the cost of the same items in the public health system.

These reforms will improve the affordability and value of private health insurance for Australians by keeping downward pressure on premiums, while still maintaining access to high quality medical devices.

These reforms will help to continue to deliver record lower premiums changes for consumers.

The Morrison Government’s ongoing reforms to private health insurance have contributed to the lowest annual average premium change for consumers since 2001, which will be 2.70 percent in 2022.

To support the implementation of the reforms, I have completed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA).

The Government recognises it is important to provide predictability for the medical technology industry and this MoU sets out a process to ensure a more seamless implementation of the reform arrangements and will ensure the commitment of the medical technology industry to the success of the reforms.

In particular, the MoU provides clarity to industry about how items on the List will be costed, setting in place a process to reduce the gap between the cost of medical devices in the public and private health sectors over three years.

The MoU also clarifies the process for the implementation of new funding arrangements for general use consumable items which will also delivers predictability for patients, hospitals and insurers. These items can be better funded through bundled funding arrangements which are being designed with the sector.

I thank all stakeholders – including consumers, private hospital networks, private health insurers, clinicians and the broader medical technology industry – for their continued commitment to these reforms and for engaging constructively with the Government for the benefit of Australians with private health insurance.

Further detail regarding the reforms is available at https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/private-health-insurance/the-prostheses-list/prostheses-list-reforms-and-reviews

The Australian Government has appointed a new Chief Executive Officer for Australia’s primary authority on radiation protection and nuclear safety, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).

Dr Gillian Hirth has been appointed as the new CEO of ARPANSA for a five-year term.

Dr David Gillespie, the Minister with oversight of the agency, welcomed Dr Hirth to the important role.

“Dr Hirth has the strong technical and regulatory expertise and experience needed to ensure Australia maintains the highest standards of radiation and nuclear safety,” Dr Gillespie said.

“Dr Hirth will have regulatory oversight of key national facilities including Australia’s research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney and the establishment of a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility. She will also provide advice on nuclear safety and contribute to strong stewardship arrangements for Australian nuclear-powered submarines.”

Dr Hirth has served as Deputy CEO of ARPANSA since 2017 and is currently the Chief Radiation Health Scientist.

She replaces Dr Carl-Magnus Larsson, who is retiring after 12 years heading the agency.

Minister Gillespie paid tribute to Dr Larsson.

“Dr Larsson has raised the international profile and reputation of Australia and ARPANSA as a leader in radiation protection and nuclear safety,” Dr Gillespie said.

“Dr Larsson increased the agency’s transparency and consulted closely with the community on regulation. He has also overseen progress towards a nationally uniform approach to radiation regulation across Australian jurisdictions.

“I wish him well in his retirement and thank him for his enormous contribution.”

For more information on the role of ARPANSA, visit www.arpansa.gov.au.