Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are only paper petitions for presentation today, as no electronic petitions have closed for signature since last week's report. One of these petitions relates to child labour in the chocolate supply chain. Another relates to Falun Gong practitioners in China, and the third relates to Australia's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and has more than 2½ thousand signatures. The principal petitioner, Dylan McCarthy, is a high school student from Wentworth Falls in my electorate of Macquarie. I met with Dylan before this sitting fortnight to receive the petition he's been gathering signatures for all year as part of a school project. It's been the result of many hours, and days, of work to disseminate the petition and gather signatures. Like so many young Blue Mountains residents, he's backing strong action on climate change, and I'm very pleased to be presenting this petition.

With the rise and convenience of electronic petitioning, it's not surprising that paper petitions now make up a small minority of petitions to this House. Nevertheless, they provide a unique quality. The paper often bears physical marks of the act of grassroots petitioning. Some pages may be well-worn after passing through numerous hands or after being attached to a clipboard. There are often many ink types on a page, and, of course, there is a multitude of handwriting styles. Some petitions appear to have been created by, or signed by, children. This is completely legitimate, as there is no age limit to petition this House. The paper petition remains a tangible and important element of our petitioning system.

Being the last sitting week scheduled for 2024, I thank my fellow committee members for their work considering petitions and facilitating the petitions process. I also thank ministers for the responses provided to petitions during the year. And, of course, I thank the secretariat, who assists us so ably in our work. After this week, the committee will look forward to 2025, when we will consider further petitions and responses that will have come in over the break in sittings.

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