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

Last week was a significant occasion in Perth. We hosted the Prime Minister and the cabinet in our wonderful city during an unprecedented heatwave. This month alone, Perth has experienced a record seven days over 40 degrees. WA has also hosted 15 of the hottest locations in the world all in one day. I'm sure this wasn't noticeable to the Prime Minister and the cabinet, travelling from their air-conditioned planes to temperature-controlled meeting rooms via government air-conditioned cars. But I am particularly disappointed that neither the PM nor the cabinet ministers saw this as an opportunity to talk about the red-hot elephant in the room.

We have just pulled through the hottest January ever recorded. Up north of Perth, places like Geraldton are hitting nearly 48 degrees while Carnarvon is reaching nearly 50 and still no mention of climate change. Still no reference to the devastating impacts it's having on our community at home in WA. Some members of the cabinet did at least make reference to extreme heat, advising us to stay indoors, stay safe and stay hydrated.

Well, the harsh reality for millions of Australians is that staying indoors probably isn't an option or even can make things more dangerous. We have all heard countless reports of renters sweltering through over-40-degree conditions inside their homes. Tens of thousand of renters do not even have aircon in their homes, let alone the ability to pay the bills to turn it on to be able to manage these incredibly difficult heatwave conditions. I have heard many stories from community members of renters sleeping in soaking clothes so that they can get to sleep at night, or suffering heatstroke simply from trying to do mundane things like cook in their kitchen. No mandate or requirement for rentals to be air conditioned or properly insulated in Western Australia means that renters are forced to put up with dangerous climate conditions. Often in WA, where no-fault evictions still exist, renters are too scared to ask their landlord for help, or, if they do, their landlord simply refuses.

We are in a climate emergency now, and the government must do more to protect our community. It can start by fixing broken rental laws. Across Australia we see nearly 2,500 heat related deaths every year and far more hospitalisations. The change in WA's rental laws can literally be the difference between life and death. Instead of helping our community in vital areas during this crisis—like health care, housing, education and the overall wellbeing of future generations, young people—the government chooses to put more and more money in the pockets of fossil fuel giants.

Last year the Labor government gave $11 billion in handouts to fossil fuel companies. Instead of funding the climate crisis, the government could choose to make going to the dentist free for every Australian. I ask the Senate: what kind of moral compass leads you to the decision that it is better to put $11 billion in the pockets of the climate criminals, of the corporations cooking the place, rather than spending that money making sure that every person in Australia can go to the dentist?

It is unconscionable that the Labor government is still paying out fossil fuel corporations in record-breaking numbers alongside these record-breaking rises in global temperature. Let me make this clear: we spend 14 times more in this country subsidising fossil fuels than we do putting money aside for Australia's Disaster Ready Fund. Corporations such as Woodside do not pay their fair share of tax yet are subsidised to destroy our environment and poison our climate. The bill is staring us all in the face.

The legislation passed by this parliament continues to fail to address the crisis. It is getting hotter and hotter and harder and harder to ignore the government's clear priority in choosing the profits of a few over the safety and health of the people they are supposed to represent. The very fact that the Prime Minister can fly from severe rainfall on the east coast to boiling temperatures on the west coast and still vote in support of upholding these abhorrent policies is exactly why people do not trust politicians. It is incredible how out of touch both the Liberal and Labor parties are.

It is no wonder that so many Western Australians and people across the country feel that the government no longer hears, that Canberra no longer hears, the cries for action from community groups across the nation as the earth literally cooks beneath our feet. They look up at the air-conditioned cabinet rooms and know very well that nobody in there is actually listening.

In the final moments of my adjournment speech, I want to make something very clear. We sit here in a parliament which was built and designed to be the physical manifestation and home of Australian democracy, inclusive and accessible to the people. The reality of the Australian Parliament House in 2024 is that it is not accessible to the 4.4 million disabled Australians that deserve to have their rights upheld and represented in this space and that have the same right as every other person to access this space, work in this space and be elected to this space. In 2024 the Australian Parliament House is an inaccessible workplace. The Jenkins review made it clear that much work is needed to enable this place to truly be accessible and inclusive to the people who vote for and elect members to pass laws in this place, and it is not an accessible workplace right now.

The government has committed to and commissioned an independent report, driven by the Australian Disability Network, to survey Parliament House and to report to the government every single one of the changes that are needed to make this place accessible—from the ramps that are needed to enable people to get around the place to enabling staff members, policy support people, workers, cooks, chefs and some 5,000-plus people that work in this building to do their job, let alone the thousands more who travel to Canberra to advocate on behalf of the community. That report was presented to the Department of Parliamentary Services secretary on 22 December. That report contained over 300 recommendations for change, and, in response to that report, the secretary has requested that the Australian Disability Network make different recommendations because the recommendations made apparently aren't practical. Disabled people will not sit by and allow another generation of folks to be shut out of this place. We will get that report, and we will reveal it to the public.