Month: September 2021

The PM continues to do all he can to duck transparency and accountability with new laws that would overturn a recent court decision by shielding all national cabinet deliberations from public scrutiny.
Greens deputy leader and spokesperson on democracy Senator Larissa Waters said:
“The Morrison Government is the most secretive government in history. They eagerly relied on cabinet secrecy to hide information about Covid decisions, the ‘gas-led recovery’, the women’s safety taskforce.
“The Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled that the National Cabinet was not subject to cabinet secrecy provisions or exempted from freedom of information laws.
“Rather than accept that more transparency was required, the government has introduced the COAG Legislation Amendment Bill to overrule the court’s decision. This government wants to keep its deliberations secret and prevent proper scrutiny of its abysmal vaccination rollout, its shambles of a national quarantine program, and its pandering to fossil fuel donors.
“Australians need to have confidence in the institutions charged with charting our course out of the Covid crisis, for tackling women’s safety and economic security, for discussing climate and energy reforms. All decisions must be subject to proper scrutiny and robust, open debate.
“The PM’s war on transparency and accountability has to end.”
Greens leader Adam Bandt said:
“The Prime Minister is addicted to secrecy. Attempts to shut down decision-makers’ transparency set a worrying precedent.
“The pandemic is the biggest policy challenge that the government has taken on this decade. It should be possible to interrogate the decision-making process that has seen the government introduce unprecedented restrictions on our lives.
“People need to be able to know the justification behind these important restrictions.”

The Greens have slammed the Morrison Government for politicising science in an attempt to deny the dangerous decline of the Great Barrier Reef.
Documents obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information laws reveal the Morrison Government coerced an independent science agency to rush the release of a major scientific report.
The Government then leaked the report to selected media outlets to assist a lobbying trip to stop the Great Barrier Reef being declared in danger by UNESCO.
Greens spokesperson for Healthy Oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson said: 
“Yesterday the Liberals teamed up with One Nation to block Senate scrutiny of their shameful campaign to deny the Great Barrier Reef from being declared in danger, and today we learn why.
“This Government will go to extraordinary lengths to deny climate change. Environment Minister Sussan Ley has proven to be content to gaslight us by interfering with scientific processes.
“How would you feel being a scientist who has had your life’s hard work bastardised by a Government intent on abusing it for political gain?
“This Government’s sorry crusade to protect its appalling reputation on climate change – and the interests of their fossil fuel donors – is the most shameful thing I’ve seen in my time in politics.
“This Government has spent years ignoring and attacking science, now they’re politicising it. This raises serious questions: what did Sussan Ley promise the UNESCO World Heritage voting nations in return for not listing the Reef as in danger? For what possible reason would the Government want to hide the truth, except to avoid embarrassment on climate inaction and to help their fossil fuel donors?
“The Greens will not stop fighting to expose the truth on this matter ahead of UNESCO’s review of the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status in February 2022.”
Greens deputy leader and Queensland Senator Larissa Waters said:
“If the government had as much enthusiasm for actually protecting the Great Barrier Reef as it did for hiding its failure to protect it there wouldn’t be a need to declare the Reef ‘in danger’!
“Pressuring an independent scientific agency to join its appalling propaganda campaign is, sadly, just the kind of dodgy behaviour I’d expect from a government that will pull every dirty trick in the book to dodge accountability.
“It’s astonishing that a government that purports to be all about jobs, job, jobs would be so willing to kill off 60,000 of them by doing nothing to prevent the decline of the Reef.”
 

Our Government will ensure Australia’s Paralympic athletes receive payments for winning medals at the Tokyo Games in line with the payments to our Tokyo Olympic medallists.
The decision ensures Paralympics Australia can recognise our champion Paralympic athletes in line with payments made by the Australian Olympic Committee to medal-winning athletes in Tokyo.
Australia’s para-athletes have represented our nation with great distinction and pride in Tokyo, delivering performances that have buoyed millions during what is a difficult time for the nation.
Australia is eighth on the overall medal tally with 60 medals and four days of competition still to come.
Like their Olympic counterparts, Paralympians often have to make major sacrifices in their lives foregoing family and work to train and compete nationally and internationally.
The Morrison Government is committed to working with Paralympics Australia and other national sporting bodies to grow corporate sponsorship for para-sports.
This additional commercial revenue could ensure Paralympics Australia can sustainably make medal bonus payments to athletes at future Paralympics.
The Morrison Government is proud to support our athletes in achieving their Paralympic dreams and was already delivering record levels of Government support for our Paralympic high-performance athletes.
The Government is the major funding source for para-sports and in the five years leading up to the Tokyo Paralympics, the Government has provided $88.8 million for para-athlete high performance programs.
Commonwealth Government Paralympic high performance funding has in fact increased by 40 per cent since 2012.
The Government has also provided significant funding for para-sport infrastructure and in the 2021/22 Budget we provided Paralympics Australia with $3.5 million to cover extra Paralympic travel costs associated with the Tokyo Games caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The Greens say that the Government’s approach to vaccinating First Nations people, disabled people and aged care residents, has been unacceptable and once again led to a tragic death that could have been prevented if adequate planning and support for experts was given when it was asked for.
Communities should not have to be begging for support, Greens spokesperson on Health Senator Rachel Siewert said.
We are more than a year into this pandemic, the Government cannot say they weren’t warned about how devastating a COVID outbreak would be in First Nations communities.
Why didn’t Ministers do more to prevent COVID outbreaks in First Nations communities?
Priority groups were meant to be vaccinated first, but the Government’s approach to vaccinating those groups has been haphazard at best, bordering on just plain negligence.
We cannot be talking about ‘opening up’ or easing restrictions when this Government cannot even ensure the safety of First Nations people, despite very clear warnings.
DjabWurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara Senator for the Greens Lidia Thorpe said: 
The Morrison government is putting First Nations peoples lives at risk by failing to listen to us. Overcrowded housing, food insecurity and an under-resourced healthcare sector in regional areas hurt us before the pandemic.
This pandemic has put a spotlight on government neglect, that has existed for decades.
The Maari Ma Aboriginal Health Corporation gave the Morrison government warnings and strategies for managing COVID-19 in western New South Wales 18 months ago. This was ignored, and now Wilcannia has the highest transmission rate in NSW.
Just last month, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation was excluded from a national COVID-19 vaccine task force meeting, despite Aboriginal health services being primarily responsible for delivering vaccines to First Nations people.
How much proof do you need that this top-down approach isn’t working?
Non-Indigenous peoples vaccination rates are double ours in most states and territories. This shows First Nations people that we are not a priority for this government.
The Australian government hasn’t looked after First Nations people since colonisation, so this government needs to hand over control of our affairs back to the people.
People on the ground know what’s best for their communities.

On Equal Pay Day the Greens have called on the PM to act immediately to close the gender pay gap, with the gulf between men’s and women’s earnings increasing during the pandemic.
Greens deputy leader and spokesperson on women Senator Larissa Waters said:
“Today is Equal Pay Day, representing the 61 extra days that women have to work to earn the same average income as men in the last financial year.
“Workplace Gender Equality Agency data shows the gender pay gap has worsened by 0.8% in the last six months. There is now a national gender pay gap of 14.2% – and it’s even wider for First Nations women, women with a disability and women of colour.
“And yet we have not heard a peep from the PM or the relevant Minister in response to new data from its own agency. Usually it’s nothing but spin from this government. Now, silence.
“Six months ago the PM announced a confetti of new women’s Ministries and a Ministerial Women’s Taskforce. But when are we going to see some policies to actually close the gender pay gap, rather than treating this and other women’s issues as political problems to be managed?
“PBO costings show the stage 3 tax cuts rammed through by the Morrison Government – with support from Labor – will deliver twice the income benefits to men as to women, further worsening the gender pay gap. Why is Morrison still ignoring impacts on women and entrenching sexism in our tax system?
“Morrison’s pandemic recovery policy has favoured male-dominated industries, with uncapped support programs for construction, while female-dominated industries like childcare got only temporary support, and industries like the arts were entirely left out.
“Women have borne the brunt of COVID through work in the home and in health and aged care, retail and sanitation services. Why are women still an afterthought to the PM?”

The Greens have today introduced legislation to establish a Federal Environment Watchdog to enforce Australia’s environment laws.
Greens Environment Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:
“Australia’s environment laws are failing to protect our wildlife and natural places. Our environment laws not only need strengthening they need to be enforced.
“Time and time again we’ve seen governments fail in their duty to protect the environment. It’s clear for all to see that the the Morrison Government can’t be trusted to do the right thing to protect our environment and wildlife.
“The Greens bill introduced today for the establishment of a Federal Environment Watchdog would deliver a much-needed independent cop on the beat to deliver accountability, compliance and enforcement of our laws.
“A Commonwealth Environment Protection Authority is long overdue. It defies logic that 20 years after the establishment of the Environment Protection Biodiversity and Conservation Act there is still no independent enforcement of those laws.
“The once-in-ten-year review of our environment laws by Professor Graeme Samuel was clear that our natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. Professor Samuel said the current environmental trajectory is unsustainable and one of the ways he recommended the failings be addressed was with a strong, independent cop on the beat.
“The recommendation came after a scathing Auditor-General report which found the Environment Department was failing to properly administer the EPBC Act including an absence of effective monitoring, reporting and evaluation arrangements for controlled actions.
“Yet all the Morrison Government has delivered in the last year is a reincarnation of Tony Abbott’s environmentally destructive reforms from 2014, completely ignoring Professor Samuel’s review.
“The Morrison Government wants to make it even easier for mining companies and big developers to get approval for projects that will destroy the environment and harm our native animals.
“Without independence from the Minister and the political party they belong to, which is beholden to their political donors in the mining, development and logging industries our laws will never be upheld in the way they should.
“Failure to enforce the laws is a death sentence for Australia’s koalas and wildlife.
“I urge the parliament to support the Greens bill and back the future of our environment and wildlife.”
Information on the bill can be found here.