Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in deep solidarity with Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai, two proud Torres Strait elders who led the class action claiming that the Australian government breached its duty of care to protect the Torres Strait Islands from climate change. As a senator for Queensland, I've travelled to the Torres Strait several times to speak with people on the front lines of climate collapse. I've seen these places—places that are now drowning, inch by inch, under rising seas caused by climate change.

Unfortunately, the case failed because the common law of negligence isn't a suitable legal vehicle—not because they were wrong, not because the science is uncertain but because our system protects fossil fuels more fiercely than it protects our planet. Justice Michael Wigney noted:

There could be little, if any, doubt that the Torres Strait Islands and their traditional inhabitants face a bleak future if urgent action is not taken …

Just today, the International Court of Justice has ruled that countries who fail to tackle climate change are at risk of breaking international law.

While these island communities fight to save their homes, this Labor government is greenlighting new coal and gas projects like Woodside's expansion of the North West Shelf, a carbon bomb that would lock in gas use and exports out to 2070. How can you claim to care about climate change while approving more climate destruction? How can you look Torres Strait families in the eye, families who are already watching shorelines vanish and planning for forced relocation, and tell them that you're doing what's necessary?

Let me be clear. This is climate violence. It's cultural erasure, and it's happening because the Labor Party has become the cheap political vanguard for fossil fuel companies. The major parties thrive when you lose hope. They want to make you feel like you're out of options, feel like hope for your future is naive and think that a stage managed climate collapse is the best you're going to get.

If you're watching this, my plea to you is this: don't give up hope, don't let the major parties lull you into accepting the climate collapse and don't listen when they say they're taking climate action while they're committing to the largest gas expansion in living memory. No more excuses; no more empty targets. The time for real, science based climate policy is now. And to the people of the Torres Strait: we see you, we hear you and we will fight alongside you. Your homes are not expendable, your culture is non-negotiable and your future is worth more than a gas company's profits.

Senate adjourned at 17:47