Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Seemingly insignificant, everyday moments can change our lives.

There was a moment that changed the direction of my life.

One Sunday afternoon my 12-year-old son and his friends were chatting to me about climate change, and trying hard not to be alarmist I said that it was something they were likely going to have to deal with.

One beautiful boy with a flash in his eyes turned to me and heartily said, 'Yes, because you adults have failed us'—no malice—just a simple statement of fact.

I had to agree with him.

Fast-forward three years, after promising myself to do whatever I could to not leave it to our children to clean up our mess, I had gone from being a GP to an MP. But that's a story for another day.

As parents, we strive to give our children the best possible lives—safe, prosperous, happy and healthy lives.

But young people today are going to be the first generation in modern history to be worse off than their parents.

Centuries of progress are being undone.

Our children, grandchildren and future generations of Australians will inherit a world facing converging crises that we—the current generation of leaders and policymakers—are quite simply responsible for.

Climate breakdown.

Environmental destruction that would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.

An extinction crisis.

A housing crisis, where for too many Australians the dream of owning their own home has become nothing more than a pipedream.

Epidemics of depression and anxiety, of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

We've let gambling infiltrate the everyday lives of our children.

Growing homelessness and poverty; growing inequality and, of course, growing intergenerational inequality.

Nor is this list exhaustive—but you get the point.

These things—these multiple disasters—have not happened overnight. They have been decades in the making.

But decade after decade—despite decision-makers and governments knowing about the seriousness of these problems, knowing the causes, and often even knowing the solutions—they have not acted or had been unable to act in a way that prevented these problems from occurring or relentlessly getting worse.

Instead we've seen repeated short-term, bandaid solutions and policies that have been futile, or have even made the situations worse.

So what is the cause of the repeated policy failures on so many different fronts? What is to blame?

Well, it's clear—the way we make decisions, the way we plan is failing us.

The systems, the structure and the culture that promote short-term thinking, short-term solutions and short-term populism over long-term vision and planning are the crux of the problem. Add to that siloed, blinkered decision-making and you have a recipe for repeated failure.

Over the past three years I've witnessed firsthand the way individual portfolios and ministries of the same government may often work at odds with each other—in competition rather than in concert, where the goals and policies of one undermine the goals of another.

In facing so many crises, the much used maxim 'the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome' has never been more relevant. We must change, and that is what my bill offers today: a different way forward.

This bill is heavily based on the groundbreaking work being done in Wales. Wales introduced the Well-being of Future Generations Act and Commissioner for Future Generations in 2015. The very first step was to develop a vision for the future of Wales, to hold a national conversation to establish what type of Wales they wanted to hand down to their children and future generations. As Sophie Howe, the former Commissioner for Future Generations in Wales, said, 'It should not be revolutionary for a country to have a shared vision for their future.'

But many countries, including Australia, do not. Norway, on the other hand, does have one. It has a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund for the people of their nation to prosper into the future.

We have nearly a trillion dollars in debt. So this bill introduces a framework to change this, to make sure government and public bodies work together to ensure that they take the wellbeing of future generations of Australians into account in all their decision-making. This is not an easy reform. It will require broad cultural change, especially from our leaders.

So, how will my bill change things? It's based on the fundamental principle that the needs and wellbeing of the current generation should not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and wellbeing.

The bill does four things. It creates a legislative framework that ensures that intergenerational equity and wellbeing are taken into account in government and other public decision-making. It imposes a positive duty on government and public bodies to take into account the long-term impact of their decisions. It establishes an independent statutory commissioner for future generations to make sure everything this act is trying to achieve is achieved. Lastly, it will start a national conversation on the wellbeing of future generations in this country.

The commissioner will lead a public consultation process to include a wide diversity of voices to make Australians active co-creators in this new vision for Australia's future. Crucially, it will establish new ways of working that embed long-term considerations and focuses on prevention. It will ensure collaboration and integration of policies of different public bodies and portfolios so that the policies of one do not undermine the policies and wellbeing goals of the other.

Australians want politicians to start thinking beyond their own re-election prospects. They want long-term solutions, they want vision and they want hope. We owe them that much.

I'd like to take this moment to thank the many partners who have joined with me to make this bill possible, particularly Taylor Hawkins, who has made this process truly inclusive. I thank you so much. I would like to cede the rest of my speaking time to the member for Bass. Thank you.

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