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

If you've ever wondered what you'd be doing at the start of a collapse of global industrial civilisation, it's what you're doing right now. Climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse are upon us.

How is this parliament responding? Well, the opposition is mired in a debate. They're mired in climate denial, discussing whether they should abandon their net zero emissions commitment. The government, while preening its climate credentials, has an emissions reduction target that is pathetic in ambition, bears no relationship to science and is never even going to be met. It's approving new coal and gas mines hand over fist, clear-felling native forest as fast as it can and continuing to use public funds to encourage corporations to burn fossil fuels. Both the government and the opposition passed draconian laws to imprison people who seek to peacefully defend nature and save the climate.

The solutions are so, so simple: stop approving new coal and gas mines, transition rapidly to renewables, stop clear-felling and burning our native forests, electrify our transport systems, end public subsidies for burning fossil fuels and end the government sanctioned destruction of nature—that we are not doing these things speaks to an abject failure of our political system and of all of us. If the politics can't end the existential threat, then more and more people will look for another way. The cracks in the social contract that binds us will continue to widen. Colleagues, the time for urgent action is now. If we're not going to act now, then when will we ever act? If we're not going to act, the price of our collective failure does not bear thinking about.