Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This great ancient continent that we share contains upon its shores, among its lands and in its oceans some of the great natural wonders of our planet. We have heard during the life of this parliament—and I'm sure we'll hear about it again in the course of this debate—about the stewardship and the care for country of First Nations people, who have brought and guided the land through the longest continuing human culture on this planet. For tens of thousands of years, the unique biodiverse regions of this ancient continent were kept in balance and nurtured life. Our oceans and rivers teemed with life. In the last 200 years or so of European occupation and exploitation of this ancient continent so many of these wonders have been brought to the brink.

Senator Whish-Wilson brought to the chamber tonight an opportunity to discuss a reality and a fact. The fact is that the burning of fossil fuels—of coal, oil and gas—in Australia and across the world brings us to a moment right now when the best scientists in the world are telling us that the year we have just lived through, 2023, was the hottest on record by far. The great reefs of this continent, the crown jewels of our oceans, are dying. They're bleaching. They're being swept away.

In the last eight years alone, the Great Barrier Reef has bleached no fewer than six times, and the link between these catastrophic events and the burning of coal, oil and gas is indisputable. Yet, from Queensland right across to the coastline of Western Australia, we have Labor governments at a state level, a Labor government now in the national offices of this parliament, a Labor prime minister and a Labor environment minister not only failing to protect these precious wonders but failing to work with those First Nations peoples, who for countless generations stewarded and supported and sung that country. In fact, these administrations are actively enabling the destruction of these reefs and actively enabling these natural wonders to be swept away, robbing future generations of the opportunity to swim in them, to walk on them and to sit within them and reflect upon what it means to be human and share a moment on this planet together.

Right now in Western Australia, along our glorious Kimberley coastline, we have a Labor government at the state level working to promote the business interests of a massive gas corporation, Woodside Energy, which thinks it runs our state and our politics. Why does it think this? Because it does. Donations given by Woodside Energy buy the support of the Liberal and Labor parties of Western Australia for whatever Woodside wants. Whatever Woodside Energy wants, it gets in Western Australia, and it gets it because it donates. It is state capture, pure and simple, and it's sick. In Queensland we have a state government which seems to want praise from the rest of the nation for doing what anyone would reasonably consider was a bit below the bare minimum. It pretends to be saving the Great Barrier Reef while continuing to approve the very coal, oil and gas projects that are destroying it.

Well, the people have had enough. Despite what the Woodsides of this nation believe and despite what the premiers, prime ministers and environment ministers which some companies buy may believe, these precious places are not the playthings of corporations. They are not assets to be stripped, mined and sold. They are ours, collectively, and held in trust. When threatened by politicians and corporations, the people together will defend them in the name of their inherent right to exist and the right of the future generations to glory in them.

In Western Australia we have a proud history of protecting our glorious coastline, particularly from Woodside. In 2013 we came together to defeat the James Price Point proposal, and, once again, we are coming together to defeat the monstrous Burrup Hub proposal. If it requires people to go to jail, to put their bodies and lives on the line to block this project, they will and they are, and I pay tribute to them tonight. If it requires people from Fremantle and people from Perth and people from Esperance and people from Bunbury and people from Broome and Carnarvon to come together to defeat these projects, they will and they are.

Over in Western Australia there is right now a coalition building, the Save Scott Reef coalition. Backed by our environment groups, backed by our environmental defenders, people are coming together to defend our magnificent coastline, particularly from the elements of the Burrup Hub proposal, the Browse and the other elements of the Woodside proposal which would see Scott Reef put at risk of catastrophic oil pollution. That would see the pygmy blue whales that call Scott Reef home put at risk, and the green sea turtles—the wonders of which are listed by federal environment law as being vulnerable and at risk.

The national environment minister has within their power the ability to deny approval for the expansion of the North West Shelf and the expansion of the Browse offshore gas field project and they must use those powers to stop this project. We cannot continue to approve gas and coal projects in this nation which we know will push our environment to the brink—which would push us over the edge into two degrees of warming. We cannot do it. The community look to political spaces to take that action, and, if those spaces are captured by corporate interests, we will take that action regardless. We are not going to sit by while corporations destroy these natural wonders and push our planet to the brink.

If discussion of these topics makes people in this chamber feel uncomfortable, well, I have a plain and simple message: get used to it, because the Greens are not going to stop. The community is not going to stop. We will not relent in our defence of the natural world, the precious places, the cultural heritage of First Nations people. We will not relent in pushing back against the corporations that seek to buy our democracies nationally and at the state level, and we will not relent in calling out the hypocrisy and the dishonesty at the heart of a party, the Australian Labor Party, that would put itself forward as a defender of the environment while simultaneously approving projects which destroy the environment.