Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Today marks 157 days since the federal election on 7 September last year, and it means we are about 15 per cent of the way through this government's one and hopefully only term in office. On a personal level it has been a challenging time. Mr Acting Deputy President Smith, as a Western Australian you will be aware that the election of Western Australian senators to this place is at this time still unresolved and before the courts. I am sure I speak for people right across the political spectrum—members of parliament, their staff and families, and those voters of Western Australia who have had their confidence in the electoral system shaken—in saying the sooner this gets resolved the better. If, indeed, the only path to resolution is a fresh election for the Western Australian Senate, then the Greens are ready.

On a political level it has been a challenging time as well, although in a very different way. I first want to acknowledge this government's strengths. For its outstanding representation of wealthy, middle-aged, white, Catholic, heterosexual men, it is impossible to ignore the strength that this cabinet brings to bear. We knew from the moment the Prime Minister appointed himself as the Minister for Women, while abolishing the position of science minister, that we were in for a wild ride—and, of course, you have not disappointed. For a while, as government MPs lurched from one wedding expenses scandal to another, I allowed myself to imagine that perhaps their displays of incompetence would be confined to Australia. Australians are a forgiving lot. I thought maybe people would cop Mr Barnaby Joyce attending the weddings of Indian coal billionaires and flights for Liberal Party MPs to attend crucially important cricket matches at taxpayers' expense as long as everything was kept quiet and low-key—because, after all, you promised a grown-up government and a government of no surprises. I can just imagine the Indonesian government's surprise when we accidentally invaded their territorial waters a short time ago. If you want to transform Australia into a systematic regional human rights abuser, I guess you are going to have to break some eggs. Presumably, as long as we keep tapping the phone of the President of Indonesia's wife, we will be able to keep an accurate gauge of just how surprised they continue to be.

The Prime Minister appears to be cultivating the impression that he does not know what is going to come out of his mouth until he hears it. It might be applying his sophisticated geopolitical analysis to the nightmare unfolding in Syria as 'baddies versus baddies' or—and here is a local example—justifying the withdrawal of all Commonwealth public transport funding as 'a mental health initiative'. The Prime Minister, when in opposition, said better roads mean better communities; they are good for our economy, good for our society, good for our physical and mental health. This kind of thing must drive the Prime Minister's media advisers absolutely mad. But everyone stuck in a traffic jam from here on can breathe deeply the carbon monoxide and know that your world-class public transport services have been cancelled until further notice because our PM has declared that there will be no rapid buses or light rail under a government he leads.

We launched our campaign for light rail in Perth in the run-up to the 2007 election, and it has been one of the best campaigns that I have ever had the privilege to work on. We took it from a 7-page sketch to a serious project with half a billion dollars of Commonwealth funding committed and a small but very motivated project team working—credit where it is due—under the Barnett state government. Premier Barnett spectacularly dropped the ball and, in the smoking wreckage of the state's AAA credit rating, light rail was one of the state's first casualties. The Greens are determined to pick it up and run with it, and we will get it built sooner or later. We used the idea of fast electrified public transport as the basis for a project called Transforming Perth, which is a joint study with the Property Council and the Australian Urban Design and Research Centre, who put us in touch with urban theorists and also those in the development industry who knew a little bit about developing cities along public transport networks. The study looks at what a transformed city could be if we created diverse affordable housing along public transport arteries. It has been a remarkable collaboration.

Looking at overseas examples for the last few years, and amazing innovations in renewable energy, some of them from right here in Australia, has given the Australian Greens enormous optimism about the future of the clean technology sector. Our work with engineers and those from Sustainable Energy Now, in WA, in the development of the Energy 2029 clean energy plan for 100 per cent renewable energy for the south-west grid has similarly set up a cause for optimism in just how much progress we could make in Western Australia given the opportunity—even as this very government gears up to deliberately bankrupt the clean energy industry in this country.

There is so much optimism around the world, and there is so much energy that can be leveraged towards the renewable energy or the clean energy transformation of our cities and regional areas, that it is really difficult to comprehend the systematic hostility that is being brought to bear in the attack on clean energy—on everything from household PV right up to large-scale utility baseload, or better-than-baseload, solar industry—that seems to be implicit in your attack on the Clean Energy Act and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

So, as disaster prone as this government appears to be, something else is up. The lurching around, the gaffes, the unforced errors and the increasing signs of dissent from within the coalition's own party room could lead us to think that this will be a government that is buried under its own incompetence and gone in another two and a half years. I wish that were true. But I am not sure that it is, because I think what is going on here is much more dangerous. What looks random and chaotic is actually quite systematic. The government is working its way down the Institute of Public Affairs hit list of 75 radical ideas to transform Australia. I noticed they topped it up with another few dozen. This is not by any means a random list. It speaks to the systematic entrenchment of inequality, with attacks on trade unions and the national broadcaster, the privatisation of SBS, and the ruination of the environment. It is a manifesto of sorts for the unregulated corporate takeover of the country in order to liquidate its natural assets as rapidly as possible, no matter how many species go to the wall, no matter how many families slide into working poverty.

Of course, it does not have to be like this: we elected this government and we can unelect them. We cannot rely on this government to self-destruct. I was one of those who naively thought that they might do so from opposition and that the kinder and gentler and more moderate face of the Liberal Party might be revealed. It was unlikely then, and I think it is impossible now. What we need over coming years is old-fashioned organising to swing the pendulum back very, very hard. The only way to do that is to unite the disparate parts of civil society in opposition to the extremists that are running the show today.

Five months on and I think Australia is suffering from a remarkable case of political buyer's regret. That is what the polling seems to be showing. We do not have time for your government to get it, to rediscover that renewable energy—even as you have managed to preside over the implosion of the skilled manufacturing sector in this country—and that affordable, sustainable modular housing and that affordable, locally fabricated, renewable energy plants may be the answer staring you right in the face for skilled manufacturing employment in this country. I am not sure we have time to wait around for you to get it. We are going to need to drive the renewable transition despite this government, not because of it. So if there is a by-election in Western Australia, by all means send your Prime Minister to WA, and we will put federal politics through a Western Australian lens. It is very, very rare, as you will know, Mr Deputy President, that that happens. Then we will find out just what people are thinking about the damage that you have done in the last short 157 days.