Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

or ALLMAN-PAYNE () (): It is unconscionable for an environment minister to continue to approve new coal and gas projects. Each approval makes the climate and biodiversity crisis worse and it means the destruction of our environment. I recently accepted an invitation to travel to Poruma Island to meet with members of the Torres Strait 8 and young community leaders from Zenadh Kes, who are living the consequences of these decisions. It was a real honour and privilege to spend a day with such an outstanding group of young people who, together with their elders, are working together to protect their island home.

After joining the group for a morning of workshops and important conversations, we began the afternoon sessions with a tour of the island, led by Councillor Pearson, to see firsthand how the ever-increasing erosion caused by sea level rise is bringing the ocean right up to their front doors. Councillor Pearson explained how the amount of land lost to erosion is increasing each year, and he showed us the walls of sandbags that are the only thing standing between people's homes, which are now perilously close to the water's edge, and the rising seas. I also listened to distressing firsthand accounts of islanders having to collect their ancestors' bones from the beach, as their burial grounds are repeatedly inundated by seawater, and I listened to their pleas for no new coal and gas and for government investment in seawalls.

If the Labor government are serious about tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis then, instead of fighting tooth and nail to approve new coal and gas projects, they must consider the damage that will inevitably flow from each approval of a new coal or gas mine, and they must fix our environment laws so the minister cannot ignore the impacts of climate pollution.