Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today it became official: Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, is no longer our Prime Minister. For many people right around the country this is very welcome news. It is welcome news because the country now has a chance for a new direction. Australia deserves better than the degrading, offensive and damaging politics that we experienced under the former Prime Minister's leadership. It started almost on election eve when he made the promise, which many people saw through straight away but many people believe, that there would be no cuts to health or education, no changes to the pension and no attacks on the SBS on the ABC. Almost every one of those promises lasted barely a few months before it was broken.

Then came the infamous first budget. In that first budget we saw the true colours of the Liberal-National coalition. What became very apparent was that the Liberal-National coalition when they got elected had confused people voting against Labor with people voting for them. They just presumed that there was a whole agenda of redistribution of wealth away from everyday Australians upwards to their mates who helped them get elected that they could just pull out of the bottom drawer and plonk on the table in the first budget and people would swallow it.

We saw higher education subjected to the whims of the market and you would have been graduating with $100,000 of debt just for the privilege of going to university. We saw them say: 'We are not going to take on the likes of Gina Rinehart and ask them to pay a little more. We are quite happy to continue to give her tax breaks, but we are going to try to balance the budget by asking everyday Australians to pay more to see the doctor.' On and on it went and they crossed the line. People right around the country, including here in parliament, stood up and said: 'No, there is an egalitarian heart that beats in Australia and we want Australia to be a place where everyone can get a good education and where everyone can go to the doctor no matter how much they earn.' People in this parliament and people in the community stared them down.

But of course that was not the end of the attacks. We saw the attack on the renewable energy target. Again this government promised that they would not touch that. One of the first things they did was come out and say, 'We have actually got too much solar power in this country and too much renewable energy and we want to wind it back.' Every other country sees growth in their solar power and renewable energy as a sign of success, but this government said, 'We want to wind it back.' Well, they were stared down and beaten by the community and beaten by people in the parliament.

The now Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has said he will respect the public's intelligence and seek to lead by persuading and engage in debate about complex issues. This is a good start. It is not what we are used to. The test will be whether that extends to the things that matter most. Things like real action on climate change. We know that, if every country in the world signed up to the kind of measly pollution cuts that this government is proposing, we would warm the world by over four degrees. Scientists are saying that if you do that you will have a planet that will not be recognisable.

We will find out whether the courage to respect the public's intelligence and lead by persuading extends to equal marriage for all couples, to releasing children who are locked up in detention or to strengthening the social safety net in this country. Sadly, the early signs are that we Greens are going to have our work cut out for us in keeping this government and this new Prime Minister accountable because when I asked the Prime Minister about climate change in question time today the first thing he did was rush to defend the Abbott government's woeful position on climate change and when he was asked about equal marriage he rushed to defend Tony Abbott's position on equal marriage. So far, in the short period of time we have had, the signs are not good. The Prime Minister still does have a chance to impress. The Prime Minister still does have a chance to shift debate in this country. The Prime Minister still does have the chance to live up to that promise of leading by persuasion and respecting the public's intelligence. We will be watching with great anticipation.

What is also clear is that, regardless of who is Prime Minister, there will be a place in this parliament for the Greens for continuing to stand up for a sustainable, equal and caring Australia. We will continue to stand up for equal marriage. We will continue to stand up for the action on climate change that the science requires. We will always keep up the fight for the Australia that many people around this country believe in.