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

Last Friday I was very proud to support thousands of heroes who gathered in my electorate of Melbourne for the School Strike 4 Climate. There were of course the witty signs—'I've seen smarter cabinets at IKEA' and 'ScoMo stop gaslighting us'—but there were also serious ones: 'Save our planet, save ourselves', 'Gas is as dirty as coal', and of course the devastating 'You'll die of old age; I'll die of climate change'.

These students are heroes. I applaud them for taking to the streets to make their voices heard, but they shouldn't have to do it. It should be the government who should be acting. We should not look to these students simply for hope but instead saying to them that we owe them a responsibility. Their demand was, 'Fund our future, not gas.' But what do they get from this government? They got a budget that included $50 billion in handouts to coal and gas, $1.1 billion for new coal and gas projects and $600 million to build a new gas-fired power station. The students are saying what the United States government is saying and what the world scientists are saying: there is no room for new coal or gas. We must start phasing out the coal, oil and gas that we've got, and we certainly shouldn't be taking public money from schools and hospitals and using it to fund projects that will fast-track climate collapse.