Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor cannot be trusted on the environment. If that wasn't clear before, it is crystal clear now. Labor is rushing through a bill to trash environmental laws. They've already ditched their promise to strengthen nature protections, but they're not stopping there. They now have the audacity to water them down, and for what? To give big corporations free rein to pollute our environment as they profit from the destruction of the planet. Prime Minister Albanese caves in all too easily to the mining industry, to the coal and gas corporations, to the salmon-fishing industry and to Mr Dutton. In this last week of parliament before the election, Labor could have been working with the Greens to wipe all student debt and to put dental into Medicare. But instead, under the cover of the budget, they are working with the Liberals to gut our environmental laws.

In Tasmania, the multinational fish-farming corporations are poisoning our waterways, polluting coastlines, suffocating salmon in oxygen-starved waters and driving an ancient fish species into extinction. Salmon farming is indeed the factory farming of the sea, and it is destroying the homes of endangered species like the red handfish and the maugean skate. Instead of protecting rivers, bays, oceans and species, Labor is protecting big, toxic salmon-farming corporations and their profits. Peak environmental organisations, including Greenpeace and the ACF, have called Labor out for leaving our environment worse off than it was at the last election. If nothing else, it should be shamefully embarrassing for Labor to be worse on the environment than Mr Morrison's Liberals were. Neither Labor nor Liberals can be trusted on the environment.

That is why people are sick and tired of the two-party system. They are sick and tired of being taken for granted. People are ready to smash the two-party system once and for all. They know how cooked the system is when, in the midst of a boiling, flooding and burning world, Labor has approved more than 30 coal and gas projects. They know how broken the system is when the big supermarkets here are the most profitable in the world and people are skipping meals. They know the two parties work for corporations and billionaires like Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, not everyday people. They know how cooked the system is when Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza with full impunity from both of the big parties. People know how broken it is when Islamophobia is rife in the country and little or nothing is done to combat it. I remind the Senate of Senator Sharma's shameful claim that there is 'a fictitious Islamophobia which was not going on'—and not a word of condemnation from anyone in this place. Imagine if that had been said about any other group. You would all have been up in arms.

Here's a newsflash for you: Islamophobia exists and it is extensively documented. The latest Islamophobia Register's report documents the steep rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate. Over a two-year period, 700 Islamophobic incidents were reported—one a day—and there would be so many more that were not reported. Muslim women are overwhelmingly the targets of this vile hate. Muslim women are being spat at and punched in the face and are having their hijabs torn off. Racist graffiti is rampant, and two mosques have now had threats referencing the Christchurch mosque massacre, where an Australian man with an extreme, far-right, white supremacist and Islamophobic ideology murdered 51 Muslims. But, to the Liberal Party, Muslim lives simply don't matter, and we've known that for a very long time. And Labor just sits on its hands, treats us as second-class citizens and offers us platitudes once in a while. Labor could have fully funded the National Anti-Racism Framework in this budget but did nothing.

We've had enough. We're not some passive bystanders or hapless victims. People are organising and mobilising. People know that they don't have to contend with the dangerous Trump-mirroring, fearmongering Liberals, nor will they give the morally compromised Labor government, one mired in mediocrity, a free pass. They know the Greens will always be a strong voice for people and planet. In minority government, the Greens will keep Dutton out and will put the heat on Labor to deliver for people, not for corporate profits. Bring it on.