Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Everyone should be able to put a roof over their head without having to choose between keeping it there and being able to eat. Everyone should be able to have access to a good education without plunging themselves into debt; everyone should be able to live free from poverty and in an environment that is clean, with precious places that are protected to be passed to the next generation; and every First Nations person should have their sovereignty recognised in a community that tells the truth about its history and is travelling that journey of justice and healing. These are universal human hopes. These are universal human rights, and communities come together to lend their power to representatives to make these rights a reality.

Yet here in Australia the major parties, instead of serving the community, have served themselves and their corporate donors for decades. This betrayal is being perpetuated around the world, and as a result our climate is in crisis, inequality and poverty are rising, an entire generation is worried for our future and the wrongs done to First Nations people continue and are being made worse.

Against this backdrop, communities from Europe to the United States are rising up, pushing back and creating solutions as big as the challenges we face. These global movements for change are bound together by a shared vision of a relationship reforged between the community and the decision-making spaces that we empower. They're demanding that this relationship be grounded in an acknowledgment that we all share this blue planet together. These movements for a new beginning, for a new approach and for a green new deal draw their strength from the knowledge that, no matter how rich a corporation is or how many politicians it owns, when people come together powered by hope change is possible. Our Green movement is building that vision with community right here in Australia. Together, let's build a future for all of us. I thank the chamber for its time.