Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The government don't care about workers. They don't care about the economy. They don't care about protecting the planet for future generations. Their vision for the future is one of low wages, of job insecurity, and of profits over people. They want to use the COVID-19 crisis to enrich their corporate donors and fight culture wars, and not much else. Rather than creating the jobs of the future, they are pushing a so-called 'gas-fired recovery'—a totally backwards idea, brought to you by the government's mates in the gas industry. This will supercharge carbon emissions and worsen the climate crisis. It will subsidise projects that decimate nature, Aboriginal heritage sites and farmland. Expanding the fossil fuel industry won't create the jobs we need to build a better world.

If you lot need some help coming up with ideas to create decent, meaningful, well-paid jobs, the Greens can help. Our Invest to Recover package will deliver around one million jobs, look after the wellbeing of everyone in the community and our environment, and set us up for a fair, sustainable future. These jobs will be about building new, sustainable, social homes, slashing public-housing waiting lists, easing pressure on renters and improving housing affordability. As an engineer I know that we can revive Australian manufacturing and chart a course to becoming a renewables powerhouse. We could create a caring economy and a creative society. The pandemic has knocked us sideways, for sure, but it has also opened up a window to imagine and build a world that is better, that is fairer and that is more equal. Let's not waste this chance.