Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Just as the Labor Party won't support this bill, neither will the Australian Greens. Senator Bernardi, in framing this legislation, has simply cherrypicked his favourite rights—the ones he thinks should be prioritised against and over other rights—and he's stuck them into this piece of legislation in what can only be described as a thought bubble. So, newsflash for Senator Bernardi: balancing various rights, particularly those which may from time to time fall into conflict with each other, is an extremely complex task and that is why in Australia we need a charter of rights.

Ultimately, the rights of Australians ought be embedded in the Constitution but, as an interim step, the Australian Greens are suggesting legislating a charter of rights because we remain the only liberal democracy in the world that does not have some form of legislated or constitutionally enshrined charter or bill of rights. And of course what that means is that parliaments, driven by governments, can continue to erode the fundamental rights of citizens in Australia, and that is exactly what is happening.

Before I explain how that has happened in recent times, let's go back a couple of decades and think about the over 200 pieces of legislation that have passed through state, territory and Commonwealth parliaments in that time which erode fundamental rights and freedoms in Australia. The overwhelming majority of those pieces of legislation that erode those rights and freedoms that Australians have in the past fought and died to protect and enhance have been delivered by both major political parties because there is a bipartisanship on national security matters that is driving this erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms. We are walking down a dark and dangerous path to a police state and a surveillance state in this country, and we are being taken there by the collusion between the ALP and the LNP.

More recently, in fact within the last month, this chamber has passed draconian ag-gag laws. They were again passed with the support of both major parties in this place—in the case of the Labor Party, in direct contravention of the platform they took to this year's election, which made it very clear that Labor were promising not to support ag-gag laws. And yet, within a few short months after polling day, the Labor Party came back into this place and supported extremely draconian ag-gag legislation.

This is important because we are seeing on our streets a significant rise, a blooming, of civil disobedience as more and more Australians take to the streets and demand real climate action from their leaders, from their governments and from their parliaments. And good on them for doing so, because the major parties have had their fingers in their ears for far too long on this issue of climate change and on the issue of protecting nature. We are in an emergency situation. We are facing calamity within a few short decades—potentially, sooner—unless we act to reduce emissions radically.

That's what the people on the streets are telling us. They are telling us to be honest about the emergency. They are telling us to put in place policies that bring our emissions down on a radical downward trajectory. And they are asking us to make sure that the transition—and there has to be a transition—is a just transition, that we do everything we can to look after people along the way.

So we're seeing the environment movement growing, the climate movement growing and the movement to defend wilderness and protect nature growing, and yet major parties in this place are doing everything they can to make protests illegal. We see it in Queensland: absolutely draconian anti-assembly legislation, straight out of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen handbook. This was brought in by a Labor government. We've seen in Tasmania draconian anti-protest laws that were actually knocked down, in part, by the High Court last year, after former senator Bob Brown took an action in the High Court to challenge those laws. And we've seen the ag-gag legislation passed through this place within the last month that criminalises the use of an internet site or a phone service in order to encourage peaceful protest on private land or on public land leased to the private sector.

So the Labor and Liberal parties know very well that they've lost the popular battle over their climate policies. People do not want to see new coalmines built, yet the two major parties both support the Adani mine. People don't want to see the 356,000 hectares of high-conservation-value Tasmanian forests that the Tasmanian parliament agreed in 2013 should be put into national parks and reserves logged. But the Labor and Liberal parties both support the industrial strip mining of those forests—a crime against the climate supported by both major parties.

So free speech and free assembly, and the right to peaceful and nonviolent protest, are under significant threat in this country. In state and territory parliaments and in this parliament we are seeing laws passed which would make it more difficult for people to exercise their democratic right to have a say and their democratic right to peacefully protest. And as the movement grows, as the climate movement blooms and as the movement to protect nature swells in number, we will see these laws more and more regularly come into conflict with the actions of ordinary Australians. That's whether they be elderly people who are saying, 'We helped to make the mess, now we've got to be part of cleaning it up,' or whether it's younger people who are saying, 'We are not prepared to sit by and let you steal our future without a fight.' All of those people and their actions—their good actions, their selfless actions—are being placed at risk by collusion between the LNP and the ALP to continue to remove fundamental rights and freedoms in this country.

I say to the major parties: you can pass all the laws you like in this parliament but you're not going to stop the civil disobedience that is growing exponentially in Australia, where people stand up and say, 'Enough is enough!' They stand up and say, 'No new coal, no new gas and no new oil extraction.' They are standing up and saying, 'No more strip mining of our native forests for woodchips.' They are standing up and saying, 'We're in a climate emergency. We're in a biodiversity crisis, and we demand action.' The number of people participating in those actions on our streets will grow and grow and grow until the major parties in this place start to pay attention.

But I'm sorry to say, the major parties are a long, long way from paying attention on these issues, and that's why the movement will keep growing. That's why you will see more and more people getting arrested. And I support them in what they're doing, because they are taking these actions not because they think it will benefit them but because they understand that we're in an emergency and they want to see policies put in place that look after future generations, whether it be looking after nature, protecting wilderness, keeping the carbon in the forests, keeping the coal, oil, and gas in the ground, telling the truth and being honest about the calamity that we are facing unless we take strong action. Those are the messages that are driving this increased civil disobedience. And no matter what draconian laws you pass, ultimately the people are going to win this one. The vested interests, the corporate donors that buy so many outcomes in this place through their dirty money and their dirty donations, are going to lose ultimately, because when enough people take to the streets, the major parties will have to listen. And I look forward to that day.

I say again for Senator Bernardi to cherry-pick these rights and try to insert them into this bill is an insult. It's an insult, for example, to the refugees who are still exiled on Nauru and in PNG. It's an insult to those people who, for 6½ years, have had their liberties removed, their freedoms denied and their human rights trampled. We've broken people. We've seen people murdered. We've seen sexual abuse and rape, including sexual abuse of children. We've seen a terrible, dark, bloody chapter in Australia's history supported by both the major parties in this place, where people's rights have just been ignored and walked all over. Yet Senator Bernardi, who supported those policies every step of the way, wants to come into this place and set himself up as some kind of champion of rights. The Greens are not going to have a bar of Senator Bernardi's attempt to set himself up as some kind of rights champion. This bill doesn't do that. It might try, but it fails. What it does do is show clearly the kind of rights that people like Senator Bernardi want prioritised above other rights in this place. While we do need to have a discussion about how we prioritise rights in Australia, importantly, that discussion should happen while we are considering a charter of rights. The way to have the conversation about rights in Australia is in a respectful, calm and considered way, as we determine what rights should be enshrined and protected in a charter and how we should enshrine and protect those rights. So we won't be supporting this legislation, and I now move the following second reading amendment:

Leave out all words after "that", insert:

"The bill be withdrawn and redrafted to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedoms as outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."