ADJOURNMENT

Ms WITTY (Melbourne) (19:56): There are some electorates where environmental issues sit on the edge of politics. Melbourne is not one of them. In Melbourne, environmental issues are at the centre of politics because they are at the centre of people's lives.

People care about the climate because they care about their future, they care about protecting nature because they care about the places that make Australia unique, and they care about environment reform because they want a government willing to act. Over the end of August, I hosted two meetings of my environmental reference group in Fitzroy, bringing together environmental organisations, community activists, experts and local residents from across Melbourne.

The goal was to create a space where people could engage directly with the big environmental reforms currently before the nation. I want to thank the Minister for the Environment and Water for providing a message to participants and for engaging in the process. I also want to thank the people in those meetings, who brought years of passion, experience and drive to the discussion on PBC reforms and the safeguard mechanism review currently underway.

In these meetings, what showed through the most was the engagement and passion of everyone involved. They want strong environmental protections. They want a successful renewable energy transition.

They want action on climate change. They want Australia to be a country that takes environmental protection seriously and sees it not as a barrier to prosperity but as part of prosperity itself. That is why I'm proud to be part of the Albanese Labor government, doing exactly that, because for too long environmental policy in Australia was dominated by delay.

Everyone agrees that the laws were not working, but agreement is not action. So the Albanese Labor government chose action. We are establishing national environmental standards, we are reforming Australia's environmental laws, we are building a National EPA, we are investing in renewable energy on a scale Australia has never seen before, and we are doing the complex work of bringing environmental protection, economic development and community confidence together.

This is not always easy. Environmental reform never is. There will always be some who say we are moving too slowly.

There will be some people who are saying we're moving too quickly. But government is not about commentary; government is about delivery, and that is what Labor is doing. One of the things that people in Melbourne expect from their representatives is advocacy, engagement and the opportunity for their voices to reach the rooms where decisions are made.

What gives me confidence is that the people I represent are not sitting on the sidelines of this conversation. Melbourne is helping lead it. The volunteers restoring local habitats, the community groups driving electrification, young people demanding climate action, the experts working through environmental reform and the organisations contributing constructively to government policy are all helping shape Australia's future.

My role as the member for Melbourne is to make sure their voices are heard, to bring Melbourne's ideas into government, to make sure environmental reform works not only on paper but in communities, and to continue pushing for a future built on renewable energy, strong environmental protections and long-term sustainability, because for Melbourne these issues are not separate.

Climate action is economic policy, renewable energy is cost-of-living policy, environmental protection is health policy, and these reforms are ultimately about the kind of country we want to leave to the next generation. That is a future worth fighting for, and it is the future I am proud that Labor is helping build. House adjourned at 20:01