Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute load of tripe we were just subjected to by Senator Chandler—absolute tripe! I'll make one point. You know the most important measure of the Labor-Green government in Tasmania? Carbon emissions. Carbon emissions in Tasmania sank during that period so that Tasmania became a net sequesterer of carbon emissions, helping the world address the greatest public policy challenge of our time.

I thank the Labor Party for bringing this matter of public importance on. I want to start by saying this: it is no surprise that this government is trying to introduce legislation that would make work less secure and make it easier for employers to cut pay and cut conditions, because that is exactly the outcome that the neoliberal ideologues on that side of the chamber seek to achieve. That neoliberal ideology celebrates the power of the market and the freedom of people to act in those markets without restriction. But what this ideology really boils down to, for most Australians, is: you're on your own. If you can't negotiate secure work for yourself or better pay and conditions, well, that's just how the market values you, they would have it. People—they would have it—will just have to live with it. It's a dog-eat-dog system, a system where you either sink or you swim, and, if you're sinking, you'll get no help whatsoever from government. It is pure, debased Darwinian economics. That's why, after 30 or 40 years of privatisation, deregulation and adherence to trickle-down economics, workers today are—