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

This could very well be my last speech in this place. As it comes up to just a little over a year since I was randomly catapulted into this chamber, and as we stare down the barrel of a federal election, I thought I'd offer some thoughts on the choices that I've watched this chamber make in my time here. I came here with a desire to bring the voices of young people, with a desire to bring the voices of disabled people, with a desire to serve the green movement burning in my heart and with a hope that I would find here, in parliament, people of goodwill and good faith who, when putting an argument of logic and fact, would mould their opinion to suit the time and the challenge. This is the aspiration of the vast majority of Australians when we look to our parliament. We hope to see our leaders making the choice of truth over lies, hope over fear, and love over hate. Yet, they find, as I have found, that the truth couldn't be further from that.

In this last year, I have watched as a government has come and go, as an opposition has let egregious human rights abuses go by, and as billions have been spent on handouts to the corporations who believe they run this place and, on some days, bloody well do. I have watched as hate has spewed forth in this place and has been met with a faux confrontation which has refused to take ownership of the role that has been played in the creation of it. I have watched again and again as the important issues—homelessness, the affordability of housing and education—have been forced off the political agenda by selfish political manoeuvring, as one side attempts to get it over on the other, as countless hours have been wasted in this place in the pursuit of selfish political gains and as the pale, stale, male mass that this place so often looks like comprehensively fails to comprehend or reflect the needs and desires of the community it serves.

While we have been subject to paralysis, while we have continued to be playing a game in here, and while the major parties have continued to circle each other, wondering what the next media line is that they can get out of each other in the next media cycle, the community has been moving on. The community has been demanding better. I marched alongside 5,000 young people in WA demanding urgent climate action. We joined with 160,000 across Australia and millions across the globe to say: 'Enough is enough—our future must come first. You cannot continue to sell it to the highest fossil fuel bidder.' I have watched as people have stepped into the role of leadership in their community. I have watched as Clinton Pryor walked across the country to tell those who crown themselves leaders in this place the stories of his community and had the door slammed in his face.

The community shares, as I share, the frustration and anger at this disconnect. We are not going to take it anymore. We are not going to be played for fools anymore. As this miserable government staggers to its end, pursued by one of the most lacklustre oppositions in Australian political history, the Australian people have never been more united in their demand for something different—for a movement which says: 'We should look higher. We should be better. We should strive to do more. People come first. Planet comes first. And corporate donations have no place in our system of democracy.'

We are on a great collision course with the desires of the electorate. Way out west, where I am from, there is a movement rising of young people, of women, of people of colour, and of people who reflect the diversity and the energy and the hope of the Australian community. They rise across this country, looking to put their energy and their anger into action and looking to demand something better at the ballot box. I am proud to campaign with them. I am proud to call myself green. I am proud to put myself before the people of WA, the community I love, and make a case for a future for all of us that leaves no-one out, that accepts nobody left behind, that preserves our precious places and that takes action when it is needed, whether that action is politically convenient or not.

Whenever election day comes, I know where I'll be. I'll be in my state, I'll be with my community and I'll be campaigning until the very last moment for the principles which should be at the heart of this place—for hope over fear, for love over hate, for truth over lies and for a future for all of us. I thank the chamber for its time.