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

We live in unprecedented times. Our community is facing an unfolding climate catastrophe, a housing crisis that is continuing to get worse and the follow-on effects of a global pandemic that took so many of our friends, our family members and our neighbours. It's in times like these that our community really shines—people rely on one another, help one another build connections in our society, make communities stronger. My heart is still warmed by the stories of mutual aid groups set up in Perth that helped deliver food, medicine and supplies to those who needed them during the initial outbreak and in the days and weeks and months of COVID-19.

It's in times like these that people should be able to look to their government for support, for encouragement, for assistance. But so often their government hasn't been there for them and has instead forced them to rely on each other. A people's government should always be there to provide the services the community needs when and where they need them—no ifs, no buts, no maybes. It is literally the reason government exists. Make no mistake about it: government has the ability to implement the services that transform our community and people's lives. Most of the time people in decision-making spaces like this one simply choose not to. Programs like Medicare, the NDIS, the PBS and income support provided through JobSeeker have the ability to radically transform the way people are supported and make huge differences in people's lives. Far too often these programs are restricted or legislated in a way that makes them less effective, and that needs to change.

We must extend and defend Medicare so we can return Australia's public health system to a system that is truly public, truly universal and truly world leading. That means making sure people aren't deciding between groceries and going to the GP, making sure we fund dental and mental health care, fully covered within Medicare, and making sure we invest more money in our public healthcare system and pay our nurses what they deserve. We need an NDIS that supports all disabled folks who need it and empowers disabled people to live happy and healthy lives. That means getting rid of these disastrous distinctions that see the elderly and those with psychosocial disabilities excluded. It means properly funding the scheme so that people get the support they need when they need it and so that those supports aren't driven through a lens of simply what costs less.

We can make medications cheaper and more accessible so that people with chronic health conditions aren't put in the position of having to decide between getting the medications they need and facing horrendous circumstances such as bankruptcy or having to go to emergency rooms across the state or across the nation. JobSeeker can be raised—and must be raised—to $88 a day so that folks who need it most have the ability to support themselves and aren't forced to fall below the poverty line. We need to reform and regulate housing so that we can see a reality where people can have the goal of owning their own home. We need to reform the housing system so there is a reality for people in which they are able to live in a home that they are able to afford and where they don't have to choose between bills and food in order to be able to make payments to their landlord. We have seen over decades the building of a so-called market in housing in Australia as the direct result of policies passed through this parliament that see young people unable to afford a home, while the average person in this place, in this parliament, at this time owns two houses. That is a disgrace.

We need to stop opening up new coal and gas plants and move towards renewable energy, because we are living in the midst of a climate crisis that is seeing more and more of our community members and our precious places lost and damaged. Homes should not be the spaces in which the climate crisis acts out its most terrible impacts, yet we are seeing people's homes reduced to ashes and washed away in floods. One-in-a-generation disasters have become one-in-every-year events.

We need to act with the urgency that the moment requires. We could do all this tomorrow. This parliament could pass the laws needed to make these changes. But the reality is that so many in this place simply choose not to. They can find nearly a trillion dollars for tax cuts for the rich and for nuclear submarines but can't seem to make it so that a single mother from Dianella can take her son to the GP without paying out of pocket, sometimes into the hundreds of dollars. This is the status quo that the Labor and Liberal parties want to maintain. Why? Because it works pretty well for them. They get to cruise along, earning their salary and having Woodside and CommBank pay for their campaigns, while the community gets buried. It's a status quo that can change, and the first step is making sure that these people aren't rewarded for their failures in this place.

The community acts together when government won't, and the community has been acting. We've seen the largest peace protests since the Iraq war. We've seen kids leave their classrooms to protest the government's inaction on climate change. We've seen the Labor and Liberal Party vote plummet over the last few decades as constituencies around the country elect people who actually represent them, not corporations. I am more optimistic than I have ever been about where our community is headed, but it is up to all of us to challenge this status quo that for so long has rewarded the wealthy and politicians while leaving so many of the rest of us behind. The Greens will always bring a community voice into this parliament, and we will continue to challenge the systems that punish everyday people.