STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (12:25): Good on you, Jett. It is my absolute pleasure to read out two speeches from young people as part of Raise our Voice in Parliament. The first is from Naomi, who is 13 years old.
She wrote: Have you ever realised how bushfires are getting bigger, floods are becoming more frequent, and we are slowly losing our wildlife? For me, the main issue impacting our future is climate change. This issue is close to my heart.
I have grown up in a world where I have heard about climate change, but only as I got older did I realise how much it could impact my future. I wonder whether the environment I know today will ever be the same. More than 700 species face extinction from climate change.
And we aren't helping. Australia is responsible for 1% to 1.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, equal to 437.5 million tonnes, or 14 to 15 tonnes per person. When we account for fossil fuels we export, such as coal and gas, our contribution rises to around 4.5% to 5% of global emissions, or 1.7 billion tonnes.
Surely this is something we can decrease. If we don't take action, the future looks grim. Young people can feel powerless about the future.
But we can slow climate change by setting stronger climate goals and taking action. Together, we can protect our future. Thank you, Naomi.
The second speech is from Klara, who is 15: My name is Klara, and I am part of a generation trying to plan a future that feels more out of reach every day. Right now, the cost of living is rising faster than we can keep up. Groceries cost more.
Transport costs more. Even basic things feel harder to afford. For young people, this doesn't just mean cutting back.
It means missing out. It means more stress at home. It means fewer chances to feel independent in the future.
At the same time, housing feels impossible. Renting is unstable and expensive. Owning a home feels like something that might never happen.
We are being asked to work hard for a future we can't clearly see. These issues are connected. If we can't afford to live now, how can we build a future later?
I want a future where young people can afford the basics and have a fair chance at a stable home. Parliament must act by lowering the cost of essentials, investing in more affordable and social housing, and making renting fairer and more secure for young people. Because right now, we are not just struggling to live.
We are struggling to believe in what comes next. Thank you, Klara. I want to thank Naomi and Klara because it has been an absolute privilege to bring these young voices into parliament, and I can only hope that their messages are heard and acted upon.
Naomi and Klara have put into words what so many young people are feeling today. They're worried about the world they're inheriting, and they are worried about whether they can afford to live a decent life. They are right to expect more from us in this place.
They shouldn't have to beg politicians to take their futures seriously. This week marks three years since the beginning of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. It is a solemn anniversary.
It marks three years of unimaginable suffering; three years of families being torn apart, homes being destroyed and families being killed; and three years of Palestinians being denied basic necessities, including food, water and medical care, although we know that was happening before. This week, I spoke to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Professor Michael Fakhri.
Professor Fakhri has spoken about Israel's deliberate, rapid and violent escalation in its starvation campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. Children continue to face the devastating consequences of hunger, malnutrition and the destruction of the systems that they depend on to survive. Starvation is not an unfortunate side effect when food and humanitarian assistance are deliberately obstructed.
My colleagues and I have been coming into this chamber for three years, demanding some pretty simple things: meaningful sanctions on Israel, an end to the two-way arms trade, urgent humanitarian aid that is allowed to reach those people who so desperately need it, and the courage to call this what it is—a genocide. For three years, Australia has dragged its international reputation through the mud, abandoned the vast majority of Australians demanding action against the Israeli regime and failed to act in the face of unimaginable violence being waged against Palestinians.
On the weekend, thousands of Australians came together to once again march for Palestine, to march for peace and to march for justice. They marched because they refuse to accept that Palestinian lives matter less. They marched because they know that the words of concern mean nothing without action.
The Albanese government can keep hiding behind expressions of concern while refusing to use the levers we have as a global middle power to hold Israel to account. We have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia, yet only a handful on Israeli individuals. This government has the power to do more.
It has a choice not to, and that choice will be remembered. Just this week, the government and the coalition voted down another attempt to bring this urgent issue before the Senate. And still there is no commitment to the passing of the urgent Red Lines Package.
I want to thank the tireless advocates and the communities who continue to march weekend after weekend. Thank you to the aid workers, human rights experts, genocide scholars and journalists who refuse to stay silent. But is it any wonder that this Labor government refuses to stand up for peace?
We have shackled ourselves to the warmongering administrators in the US and Israel and then watched as Australia's commitment to international law gets buried beneath our so-called alliances. Look at what is happening in the United States. Trump wants to turn an execution into a televised spectacle—a man strapped down and shot by a firing squad, beamed into people's homes and onto their phones.
What an absolute disgrace! A human being being shot dead is turned into a spectacle for public consumption. A life is being extinguished, and the machinery of the state is ready to broadcast it—disgusting stuff.
This is the politics of cruelty, and Australia must have no part in it. The live stream must be blocked from here. Amnesty International has condemned the proposal as a gross disregard for human dignity and called on the Albanese government to intervene directly with Washington.
Once again, what are they met with by this Albanese government? Only words. Words alone do nothing, and we are sick of hearing this government expressing concern, issuing solemn condemnations, then carrying on as usual with a strategic relationship that leaves us shackled to Washington.
No Australian should have this execution shoved into their feed. No child should open their phone and be confronted with a person being killed. Yet our prime minister remains Trump's lapdog.
He has tied Australia's defence future to a president who bullies allies and tramples international norms, and other countries simply fall into line. This country falls into line. Through AUKUS, Labor is pouring billions and billions of dollars into a submarine deal that puts our future into Washington's hands and keeps it stuck there.
That is the price of this deal: our money, our sovereignty and the lives of Australians who could be sent to fight in a war that serves Washington's interests, not ours. And for what? So the Prime Minister can keep clinging to the coat-tails of a president who treats human lives and international law with utter contempt?
We have seen where this road ends. We have seen the bodies. We have seen the devastation and the lives shattered when powerful governments decide that their military ambitions matter more than human beings.
Block the live stream. Block our dependence on Trump and the US. Put human lives ahead of military deals and Australia's independence ahead of Washington's demands.
Finally, I want to comment on a report that I launched with Prosper Australia this morning. The Greens have been banging on about the need to tax our gas exports by a minimum 25 per cent to raise $17 billion per year. Today, Prosper's report laid bare that there is $45 billion across the resources sector that is not being gathered and is not being returned to the Australian public to improve our schools and hospitals and make child care free.
This Labor government continues to fund the pockets of its donors rather than tax our resources industry properly. Thank you to Prosper for that report. We'll keep fighting to get the outcomes Australians deserve.