Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to thank and acknowledge all of those people around the country who are providing the real opposition to the Abbott government. If it is your view that democracy is about putting a piece of paper in a box once every few years and hoping for the best, then you are really leaving that concept of opposition to the politicians who file in here for 19 weeks of the year.

I don't think that idea has ever been tenable, but everywhere we look the flaws in this hands-off model of delegated democracy are becoming more evident by the day. Parliament alone has not been able to stop Prime Minister Abbott waging a debilitating assault on the solar and wind energy industries that are finally reaching critical mass around the world. Parliament has not stopped the gruesome human rights abuses carried out at the behest of Minister Scott Morrison. It has blunted, but not halted the sadistic budget measures that have targeted some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

So tonight I want to pay my respects to all of those people whose view of democracy and political agency is more expansive than numbering boxes on a piece of paper from time to time, to celebrate your hard fought successes and honour your irreplaceable losses. Those who stood in the way of machinery at Challar Forest, Walmadan and the Weld Valley, who are standing today at Maules Creek, the Pilliga, and East Gippsland, you speak for me. To those gearing up for direct action clashes at Point Peron and the beautiful Beeliar wetlands, you represent an extraordinary lineage of Australians stepping up in defence of country that stretches back for as long as people have lived here.

To Jon Moylan and your supporters, and everyone who spent this year turning the divestment movement from a an interesting idea into a material financial risk to those fossil interests and their investment backers who would otherwise risk everything, I cannot thank you enough.

If you work or employ people in the clean energy sector and are coming to grips with the idea that your government might not just be indifferent to your industry but actively hostile, all I can say is: please, hang in there. It matters to us all that your industry succeeds.

These so many in this community whose names we will never know who stand up for those who need a hand, even when they have very little themselves. These are the people for whom this government's extraordinary budget initiatives are not measured in statistics, but in lives. Getting to know Jon and Nic Shapiro, Bevan, Owen, Mort and others of those in my hometown dealing with the dark side of the housing boom has been one of the most moving experiences of 2014. Instead of being crushed by homelessness, you banded together and fought back and have taught us all about what compassionate resistance and defines to callous government policy actually looks like.

To all of those at all levels of community building, from planners and developers to public transport advocates and architects, and all those who see our cities and settlements not just as they are, but how they could be, thank you for your inspiration, expertise and support.

Most of all, I want to acknowledge the original sovereigns and custodians of this ancient land for your patience and extraordinary courage in the face of continued appropriation of country and erasure of your history.

Sometimes this year I have felt beaten down by the sheer relentless aggression of a government that lied its way into office and seems to announce one harmful or casually abusive new initiative every single day. I cannot remember an Australian executive so brazenly, unashamedly owned by the big end of town as this government—and it shows nakedly in decisions at every level, from tax and welfare policy to public transport and energy strategy.

And this government failing. The people who gave up months of their lives to help hold our Western Australian Senate seat this April know it. The team who posted a historic effort and several wins for the Victorian Greens this last weekend, they know it too. The press gallery knows it. Rupert Murdoch knows it. The polling companies know it. For reasons unintended, this government is unifying the Australian community. To everyone engaged in this project of taking our country back, not from this government or the individuals—and there are many good people inside the Liberal and National parties, and I know that from many years of working in this building—so not from this government but from the ideas that propel it, my warmest thanks and best wishes for a restful and peaceful break, time with families and loved ones. If you are part of the opposition to this government, whether you are in this building or outside it, thank you for everything that you do.