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

It is shameful. The best you could do today during question time was to ask these guys whether they'd produce a letter. I mean, for God's sake! Why don't you just give up and go home. It is utterly disgraceful. Folks are so disappointed, and they are rightly disappointed. My generation are staring down the barrel of a climate crisis. The reality that was shouted at you from the gallery upon the opening of parliament—that is our lived reality. We are the generation which will live with the results of your inaction, your craven political cowardice and your disgusting greed. You are gifting to us an unequal and polluted world. And we will not forgive nor forget your betrayal.

This is the moment when the sides are being picked. History records our actions here, and it will look upon neither of you favourably. It is not too late tonight. It is not too late. You could join with the Greens, vote down this damned package and fight for a better Australia. You still can. You still can do that now. You can join with ACOSS. You can join with the social sector. You can join with goddamned John Howard, who advocates an increase in Newstart. I'd never have thought I'd see the day when John Howard was a better advocate for people on Newstart than the Australian Labor Party. What a world we live in! What a brave new political context!

You wonder why you didn't win? Well, today, and tonight, this is exactly why. People want vision. They want hope. They want something to believe in. And they damn well expect us here to fight for them like our lives depended on it—because their lives do! Their lives do. As this miserable measure makes its way through the parliament tonight, none of you can say you do not know exactly what you are doing. When we come back to this place in 12 months time, in two years time, in three years time, desperately grappling with the reality that our economy and our environment are in freefall and we don't seem to be able to find enough money to do anything about it, it will be this moment that began the descent. When you have folks coming up to you and saying, 'Why the hell isn't our parliament fighting for us?'—this is the moment. You could represent your community. You could do what is right. You could fight for a better Australia. But you are choosing tonight—you lazy, greedy rump—to put your own interests and the interests of your corporate donors ahead of the interests of the Australian people.

Let me say this very, very clearly: this is the moment when the mantle of opposition passes from that sad, smoking husk once known as the Australian Labor Party onto the shoulders of the Australian Greens. Ours is now the role of keeping that light upon the hill burning, folks, because you sure as hell aren't in any state to do it! You sure as hell are not. We shall continue our work in this place. People will always have a voice in the Australian parliament while we are here. We shall fight for our planet and for our communities and, together, we will win and we will restore some semblance of what the Australian people deserve to the actions of this chamber.