Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I note the report tabled yesterday, following the inquiry into the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023, and the government chaired committee's recommendation that the bill not pass. That recommendation is as disheartening as it is predictable from a government trying to make itself the smallest possible target, a government constantly dodging its responsibility to young people in the face of climate change.

The Greens tabled our dissenting report recommending this bill should pass. The government's arguments against the bill serve as nothing more than a smokescreen for its true intention: to avoid accountability, to avoid scrutiny and to protect the voices of the fossil fuel lobby and donors that line its pockets. Meanwhile, the futures of young people hang in the balance as they await decisions made by leaders more interested in self-preservation than in protecting our young people. If the government truly believed in the principle of intergenerational equity it would engage in good faith with the young people driving this bill. If the government truly believed that this legislation was not fit the purpose, it would seek to amend it. Instead it has dumped it in the too-hard basket, giving up on the climate and our young people. In refusing to support this bill, the Albanese government put themselves on a unity ticket with the former government, which took young people to the Federal Court to argue that they didn't have a duty of care.

Securing the future for our young people deserves action and ambition, not an endorsement of the status quo. Anjali, Hannah, Jess and Daisy, the young people who have driven the campaign to date, have exposed a grim reality. In this place, a proposal can have support from Australia's medical sector, young people, peak education and legal bodies, and advocacy organisations—it can even have the support of some of the government's own politicians—yet the major parties still fail to show the climate leadership that Australians deserve. Shame!