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

This is an important suspension today because there is no greater issue facing the future of our country—indeed, the future of the rest of the world. I want to address my comments to the children who are watching us in the gallery today: this report paints a warning sign and a very bleak picture about your future. I want to say—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle—to the kids up there watching that we have a responsibility to secure your future, to look after the planet for you and your children and to ensure that we take seriously the warning signs that have been given over and over again by scientists and that we act on them. This report shows clearly that runaway, dangerous climate change is here, and rather than sprinting, as the authors of the report have said, we are simply walking—we are sleepwalking into climate catastrophe.

We know what needs to be done. This report outlines clearly what needs to be done. We have to stop expanding fossil fuels and we have to phase out our current use of and the dirty pollution from coal, gas and oil. We need to get out of coal by 2030, this report says very clearly. We can't keep spending taxpayers' money and public subsidies on the fossil fuel industry. For every dollar that we're spending on fossil fuel subsidies, we need even more to be spent on responding to the climate crisis that is here, right now, already. We've seen some debate over the last few days about the enormous amount of money, the $370 billion, that Australians are going to fork out for submarines in this country because of a threat, we are told—a huge global security threat. Well, there's nothing more threatening to our survival as the human species on this planet than climate change. Where are the billions of dollars that are coming from wealthy countries to address the climate crisis?

We know that the climate has already changed. We're already dealing with the threats to our livelihoods, our homes, our jobs, our economy. We've seen the floods. We've experienced the heartache of people's homes being destroyed, their businesses being demolished and, sadly, the loss of lives. The fires are still burnt into our recent memory. What the scientists are telling us already is that before we know it we are going to be back there again. It is not negotiable to sit here and take piecemeal action on the climate crisis. We need to make sure that we take these warnings seriously so that we can actually address the crisis that we are confronted with. It has been greed and complacency that has ruled the day, and it's time it stopped.