Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I stand today to speak in favour of this MPI put forward by my colleagues. What we saw yesterday in Queensland was a disgrace—an attack on the freedom of press in this country. It was an attack on the freedom of everyday Australians to have their voices and their concerns heard about what goes on—the decisions that their government makes. Australia is a wonderful democracy; we are a free and open democracy. Transparency should be at the heart of all of this. The idea that protesters are being intimidated from being able to peacefully show their discontent with government decisions or company actions—let alone the police crackdown on journalists who are simply doing their job and reporting on these protests! What is the government afraid of? What is the government afraid of that they don't want the rest of the country or, indeed, the world to see?

Rather than shutting this down, what we've seen is that Australians are very, very wary. The moment a government comes in and tries to silence people, you know something's actually going on. The moment a government comes in and says, 'We are going to send in the police force to shut down the protests and to shut up the journalists,' you know there is actually a real problem. This is in a long line, of course, of erosions of press freedom in this country over the last number of years. Thankfully, just moments ago here in the Senate, we've seen this chamber establish an inquiry into press freedom in this country. Thank goodness, because we need to get to the bottom of what's really going on and what laws need to be in place to ensure journalists can do their job without fear or favour. But of course this is much bigger than this, because what we saw yesterday in Queensland is a demonstration of the heavy handedness of not just this government but the Queensland government and what is to come if decent Australians don't stand up and demand their rights to have their voices heard and to protest peacefully.

This is happening at a time when our television screens at the moment are full of footage of what's going on in the streets of Hong Kong, where everyday citizens are putting their positions on the line, their lives on the line, for democracy. They are fighting for democracy, and they are fighting for the right for a free and open press and the right to dissent peacefully without the fear of retribution.

Here, in Australia, I hear my colleague, Senator Canavan arguing that there was an election. Well, yes, there was an election and yet many, many people—millions of Australians—did not vote for the policies of this government. Many, many Australians are very concerned about the policies of this government, particularly when it comes to the issues of climate change and approving one of the world's largest coalmines—which is, of course, Adani. This is what's wrong with this government. As I stand here defending the rights of everyday Australians, whatever view they hold, to protest without the fear of arrest and intimidation, as I stand here today in support of journalists being able to just do their job, I can hear the screeching from members of the government who think that because they won an election it should be a free-for-all. Because they won an election, they are so arrogant that they think nobody else's view should matter. That is how these people rule. They are a group of self-entitled grubs. They think no-one else should be able to have their own opinion, protest peacefully or report on these protests, because they hold the keys to the Lodge.

That is the arrogance of this government, the hubris of this government. We can see it all over the place. Even the Prime Minister has had to tell his own colleagues in the party room today to pull their heads in because the arrogance is getting out of hand. You've now got members of the government arguing that we should have nuclear power in Australia; that we should change the government's policies on super; and that we shouldn't have members like Senator Dean Smith, who stood up yesterday in this place with his own voice and his own conscience and argued that Newstart should be lifted. But what's happened? No, the Prime Minister wants to rule with an iron fist. The result is that it trickles down to individuals right around this country, everyday citizens and Australians who should have the right to stand up for what they believe in and to stop dangerous projects that they see are going to impact on the future of their kids.

The Adani coalmine is an issue that affects every Australian. It's not just for people like Senator Canavan over here to say, because he's now on the front bench, that it should be his way or the highway. It shouldn't just be that this government can intimidate individual citizens to stop them voicing their opinions and send chills through media agencies across this country and indeed overseas, because they shouldn't report on protests, they shouldn't report the facts of what's going on and they shouldn't ask questions of the government without fear of being charged, locked up and arrested.

We don't live in a police state. I know Senator Canavan might want us to, but we don't. We don't live in a police state; we live in a free and open democracy, and our citizens have the right to stand up, to have their voices heard and to protest peacefully. I call on them to continue to do that, because, at a time when we are facing such a crisis when it comes to our climate; our environment; and, as we're seeing the erosion of freedom of the press, the freedom of everyday Australians to have their own opinions and voices heard, this is a moment to stand up and stare down the government, who think it should be their way or the highway. Well, no, we're not going to stand here and let the government run roughshod over everything. We're not going to stand here and allow the government to intimidate everyday people to stop them from having their own opinions and standing up for their own land. Of course, this government doesn't even think that farmers should have the right to say that they don't want mining operations in their own backyard. This government doesn't believe that everyday Australians should be able to stand up and protest against spending billions of dollars to prop up the coal industry. This government doesn't think that journalists should be able to report the facts without fear or favour. That is what is going on here today.

You can hear the hubris from the other side. Senator Canavan thinks it should be his way or the highway. That is the arrogance of this government. That is the arrogance of the Morrison government. They think it should be their way and nobody else's. What they're doing is putting at risk not just our environment and climate but also our democracy.

Earlier today during question time, I asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Payne, what she is going to do to help relieve anxiety around the erosion of press freedom in this country. We've had four French journalists held for several hours, arrested and charged all because they were simply reporting on a peaceful protest—a peaceful protest that happened to be against a project that this government is in love with. This government—members in this place—has taken donations from the company that wants to set this project up. No wonder they don't want anyone either in Australia or overseas knowing about what's going on. This is a danger not just to our environment; this is a danger to our democracy. Unless we protect the rights of people to protest, to dissent, to ask question and to report the facts whether or not the government like them or not, then we are on a slippery slope towards the type of arrogance and iron-fist rule that this government think they already have the capacity to do. Well, you don't. We're all watching and we're going to call it out.