Month: September 2023

The 7th Australia-China High Level Dialogue will be held in Beijing on 7 September, providing a platform for senior representatives from industry, government, academia, media and the arts to exchange perspectives across the breadth of Australia and China’s bilateral relationship.

The Dialogue is an opportunity for constructive discussion between stakeholders on both sides of the bilateral relationship across a range of issues, including trade and investment, people-to-people links and regional and international security.

Former Trade Minister, the Hon Dr Craig Emerson, will co-chair the Dialogue as the head of the Australian delegation.

Reflecting bipartisan support for the Dialogue since its establishment, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon Julie Bishop, will participate as a delegate and session lead.

Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ms Jan Adams AO PSM, will also attend as part of the delegation and participate as a session lead.

The Dialogue has contributed to Australia’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China since it was first held in 2014.

The National Foundation for Australia-China Relations and the Chinese People’s Institute for Foreign Affairs co-host the Dialogue. China’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Honorary President of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, Li Zhaoxing, will co-chair and lead the Chinese delegation.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong said:

“This is first time the Dialogue has been held since early 2020 and it represents another step towards increasing bilateral engagement and stabilising our relationship with China.

“The resumption of the Dialogue was one of the outcomes of my meeting with China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing in December.

“It provides an opportunity for representatives from both countries to discuss our perspectives and how we can grow our cooperation in areas of shared interest.”

Hon Dr Craig Emerson said:

“Since it was established, the Dialogue has been an opportunity to deepen mutual understanding with Chinese participants and to find common ground.

“I am proud to lead the Australian delegation and contribute to the Albanese government’s efforts to stabilise the relationship with China.”

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has today approved the fourth coal project this year, at the Gregory Crinum Coal Mine in the Bowen Basin, to run until 2073. 

This follows project approvals for the Isaac River Coal Mine, the Star Coal Mine, and the Ensham Coal Mine.

Last week’s emissions update found that fossil fuel emissions continue to rise under Labor, their weak 43% by 2030 target won’t be reached until 2037, and Australia won’t hit net zero until 2080.

Even if Labor’s 43% emissions reduction target was reached, it is consistent with a global temperature rise of over 2C, in breach of our Paris Target commitments. 

Leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt MP said:

“Labor is making global heating worse by opening new coal mines,” Mr Bandt said.

“Tanya Plibersek has just approved a new coal project that will run until 2073, when we’re meant to be reaching net zero. That’s another 50 years of coal, when the science tells us we can’t open any new coal or gas mines.

“The science is crystal clear. If we’re going to stop the world going over the climate cliff, we can’t open up a single new coal project, but Labor has approved four.

“With Labor opening new coal and gas mines, it is no surprise that emissions are continuing to rise under Labor.”

Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens Environment Spokesperson, Senator for SA said:

“Another day, another coal mine approved by the so-called Environment Minister.”

“Every time this Government approves a new coal or gas project they are risking our River Murray, our Reef and the safety of our children.

“Our environment laws are broken. We need laws that stop  native forest logging and the stop pollution that fuels the climate crisis.

“The Minister has promised to fix our environment laws this year and that must include making sure they account for climate change when assessing these projects, at the very least.”

In his speech at the National Press Club today the Minister for Industrial Relations Tony Burke signalled the government’s intention to criminalise wage theft but there was no mention of a glaring problem that costs Australian workers $93 billion a year in unpaid overtime.

Minister Burke’s outline of the next round of IR reforms in the Closing Loopholes Bill to be introduced to Parliament next week ignores a major loophole in our employment laws. The unrestricted access employers currently have to workers outside their paid working hours is costing the average Australian worker six weeks of unpaid overtime per year.

The Greens want to see a right to disconnect in our workplace laws to further protect Australian workers from ongoing wage theft.

Senator Barbara Pocock, Greens spokesperson on Employment said:

“Australian workers need a right to disconnect to stop wage theft and close a critical loophole for undercutting wages.

“Australian workers do an excessive amount of unpaid overtime, in large part because they are always contactable. Workers should have the right to turn off their phones, block their bosses’ calls, and switch off their emails when they’re finished work for the day.

“With so much workplace technology intruding into our lives outside work we need some legislated protections that will allow workers to get their lives back. So many ordinary Australians have caring responsibilities and need to be able to give their full attention to their families and those they care for, as well as to recharge their batteries and do the things that are important to them.

“We need a more productive workforce and the best way to achieve this is by working smarter not harder. And this means having a right to disconnect from workplace distractions when we are on our own time.

“I’m also keen to see more detail on proposed protections for workers in the gig economy which are not just the people who deliver your meals but also the workers in the care economy who look after your children or your grandparents.

“While Minister Burke signalled some minimum standards for gig workers including a minimum wage, there are some other big issues that remain unaddressed including minimum hours, pay during wait times and health and safety compensation.

“The Labor Government could be ushering in a new class of underprivileged workers with the introduction of employee-like workers if these protections are not included.”

The Australian Greens are demanding urgent action be taken in Australia’s corrections system to address a mental health crisis and prevent further deaths in custody.

A coronial report into the death of 30-year-old First Nations man Mr Blanket, handed down by Coroner Philip Urquhart in Western Australia, has highlighted a ‘chronic shortage’ of safe cells.

Mr Blanket died in his cell at the privately run Acacia Prison in 2019, after his mental health deteriorated and he experienced multiple episodes of psychosis and self-harm.

WA Greens Senator, First Nations portfolio holder and Yamatji-Noongar woman, Dorinda Cox said:

“It is simply unacceptable that someone has been able to take their life in prison because there are not enough safe cells available, particularly for those who are also vulnerable due to their mental health.

“The evidence shows there were many failings of the current system including failure to provide previous mental health assessments to Acacia’s mental health service providers, that Mr Blanket expressed suicidal ideations to prison staff, and his mother had told prison staff of his suicide risk, but wasn’t listened to.

“Red flags were missed despite Mr Blanket having a history of self-harm and attempted suicide and Mr Blanket was not moved to a safe cell in time.

“It is time for the what the coroner described as a ‘chronic shortage’ to be addressed.

“These shocking and continuing deaths are avoidable and the coroner has found that the treatment and care provided to Mr Blanket was anything but culturally appropriate.

“The continuing deaths in custody cause ongoing distress for First Nations communities and Mr Blanket’s family has been seeking answers and change so that no other family endures the pain of losing a loved one.

“I have previously called on our governments to implement all the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report handed down in 1991, I reiterate that call with what is another tragic and devastating death in custody.”

Greens Justice Spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said:

“More than 30 years since the Royal Commission we have a prison where only a tiny fraction of cells were safe cells without hanging points, that’s disgraceful.

“The coroner has found that the lack of safe cells a cause of Mr Blanket’s death, meaning the WA Government cannot dodge responsibility for this dreadfully predictable loss.

“It is deeply distressing for Mr Blanket’s family to hear how the lack of treatment programs denied him parole and left him in jail as his mental health deteriorated.

“Mr Blanket was killed by a system that refused to provide him with treatment and then locked him in a room with hanging points, a situation we have known is unsafe for decades.”

George Newhouse, Principal Solicitor of the National Justice Project said:

“The coroner has made some significant recommendations however they do not go far enough and Aboriginal medical services need to provide culturally safe therapeutic health care in prisons.

“The prison system needs to listen to families who know their loved ones well; they need a voice, they need to be heard.

“The failure to allow Mr Blanket to participate in a rehabilitation program meant that he was precluded from parole which destabilised him and contributed to his mental health crisis.

“The coroner has called on the Department and Serco to address the inability of short-term prisoners to access programs that are necessary to get parole. Corporate prison operators like Serco have an economic incentive to deny programs to prisoners and keep people like Mr Blanket behind bars but that can destroy lives.”

Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP has offered support to Pacific Leaders to demand Labor stop opening coal and gas mines in return for hosting a climate summit, while also encouraging people to join a non-violent ‘people’s blockade’ of Australia’s largest coal port in Newcastle this November. 

Mr Bandt has written to Pacific Island Leaders, backing recent calls from prominent Pacific elders that Australia should stop opening up new coal and gas before it is awarded a global climate COP summit. 

Last night, Mr Bandt also made a speech at a ‘Rising Tide’ event in Melbourne, as part of the ‘People’s Blockade Speaking Tour’, where the group is building support for ‘thousands of people to gather and demand an immediate end to new coal projects and the end of coal exports from the world’s largest coal port, by 2030’. Mr Bandt said growing civil disobedience is necessary to help pressure Labor to stop opening new coal and gas mines. 

The letter to Pacific leaders backs a recent bold call from the Pacific Elders’ Voice, a collection of former regional leaders including the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Palau, that Australia should stop trying to hurry their smaller nations’ current leadership to support our bid for COP31.

As Climate Minister, Chris Bowen, was last week travelling around Pacific Island Nations to seek support for hosting the COP, Mr Bandt says that stopping new projects is “the single biggest thing the Australian Labor government could do to protect our region” and has offered the Greens’ support for any pressure Pacific Island nations wish to exert on Australia to stop opening coal and gas mines in return for co-hosting the COP.

The latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory quarterly update showed a 2.1% rise in oil and gas emissions over the year to March 2023, together with a long-term increase in Australia’s emissions from coal and gas.

Excerpts from the speech to the Peoples Blockade Speaking Tour:

We must come together and fight back. Together, we must demonstrate that we can stop Labor and the big corporations from threatening our survival. 

The Greens will keep fighting in Parliament to stop Labor opening new coal and gas mines. But we will have a better chance of winning together if there is a more powerful movement on the streets, around kitchen tables, in universities and in schools, in workplaces and at the pubs.

And we need non-violent civil disobedience. The types of civil disobedience that have been so crucial throughout history in securing change, from ending slavery to gaining women’s suffrage, from workers’ rights to civil rights.

Big coal and gas corporations have too much power. They behave like criminal cartels, buying off governments, engaging in sports washing and not giving a damn about the damage they cause. And it is a power which is state sanctioned. 

They’re extorting us, and they’re being protected by the state. 

This isn’t about the government protecting jobs, because coal and gas threaten the millions of jobs that rely on a safe climate. It isn’t about the benefit to the economy, because the gas industry is a systemic non payer of tax. 

Labor has sold us out to the coal and gas corporations for a few thousand in donations. They’ve sold out our kids and the future generations. And they’ve sold out working people.  

This is the fight we’re in. The world’s greediest and most dangerous corporations, backed by the political class. 

The Liberals and Nationals were kicked out of office for thumbing their nose at the climate crisis for being callous and captured, but with Labor, it’s somehow more disappointing, because you know they know what they’re doing is wrong. Some Labor MPs might not get into politics to help out Woodside, but sure enough they end up there. 

Now, we need to embrace the importance of protest and civil disobedience. We must come together and fight back.  

Rising Tide has been doing this for a generation now. “Just stop oil” protesters disrupted the Ashes and Wimbledon. The Extinction Rebellion has been shutting down the streets. There needs to be more. More protests, more rallies, more non-violent civil disobedience, more organising politically and more power and wealth back to the people. 

We need to celebrate our activists and open our movements up to all. Someone smart once said to me campaigns are like nature, and in nature there isn’t scarcity but abundance, and that in a campaign we mustn’t think there’s only one pathway, or one simple set of actions, everyone must do everything they can, whatever it is, whether it’s knitting for refugees or door knocking in your community.  

We might not all want to climb a coal bridge or sit in the foyer of Woodside, but we need to back the right of people to do so, and celebrate and feel joy from their action. 

It might cause a temporary disruption, but that’s nothing compared to the death and devastation being inflicted by global boiling. 

Radical, non-violent civil disobedience against the action of big corporations backed by the state are never going to be sanctioned by the government. As a former lawyer, the law is often complex, but the morality is simple. 

This country is built on the back of civil disobedience. The Wave Hill Walk off, the Franklin Dam rallies and the Green bans – these were often against the law, but they were on the side of what’s right.   

These halls we stand in are built by those who fought for their safety and their rights and fought back against unethical laws. 

Our laws have made it legal to destroy our world by mining and burning coal and gas. Our environment laws do not protect us. Our laws must change so they give power and wealth to the people. 

This is why we need a strong movement who, like the labour movement, will once again take people back to the streets. We need a movement with real power. 

With Labor hell bent on opening more coal and gas mines, we need to build an even more powerful movement and get in behind the Disrupt Burrup Hub, Rising Tide and Extinction Rebellion and those who are prepared to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience.

We need to stop all new coal and gas. Everyone needs to do everything.

The Greens will use their Senate balance of power to hold up proposed changes to the tax treatment of large superannuation accounts until the government puts superannuation on paid parental leave. The Greens support for that reform will be contingent on passage of legislation to put super on Paid Parental Leave (PPL).

The Government announced in their 2023-24 Budget that from 2025‑26 the tax rate on earnings of superannuation balances above $3 million will be lifted from 15% to 30%. This is expected to affect around 80,000 people in 2025-26 and in the first full year of collection (2027-28) is expected to increase receipts by $2.3 billion.

Paying superannuation on PPL would cost the Government less than ten percent of that, an estimated $200m per annum according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (AFSA).¹

Greens leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Women, Larissa Waters said:

“The Greens will use our balance of power in the Senate to ensure the government makes superannuation on Paid Parental Leave a priority reform, as part of its changes to super. 

“This is such a timid proposed change to the tax concessions the obscenely wealthy receive. If Labor is not going to improve it, the least they can do is put it to good use.

“Paying superannuation on Paid Parental Leave would cost $200m each year, less than ten percent of the $2.3 billion expected to be raised from the government’s proposed changes to superannuation tax concessions.

“We will use our balance of power in the Senate to get outcomes for women and young families who are struggling with the cost of living crisis. 

“We know Australian women are retiring with significantly less superannuation savings than men, with the gender retirement gap currently sitting at 23 per cent². Women deserve fairer Paid Parental Leave, and it’s only fair if it includes super. 

“It’s been almost a year since business groups and unions came together at Labor’s Jobs and Skills Summit to call for 26 weeks paid parental leave and super to be paid on it; and three months since they ignored the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce calls for super on paid parental leave – a key recommendation of its interim report.

“Labor is dragging out the increase to 26 weeks, making women wait while it’s introduced gradually over the next two years. And they rejected a Greens amendment in May to pay super on PPL. 

“They are drip-feeding the ‘idea’ of paying super on PPL until a date that suits them politically. 

“While we wait for the Government to come up with a campaign plan, the gender superannuation gap continues to grow, and a comfortable retirement feels more out of reach for more women and young people.

“Labor agreed to a binding resolution at national conference to ‘work to implement payment of superannuation on government Paid Parental Leave as a priority reform’. Now’s their chance.”

^1.https://www.superannuation.asn.au/media/media-releases/2023/media-release-7-march-2023
^2.60-64 age bracket: Towards gender equity in retirement (kpmg.com)

The final Gas Code of Conduct was tabled in the Parliament last sitting week. While this is a complex piece of regulation that needs closer scrutiny, what is clear is that the government has again watered down its proposal to benefit Australia’s powerful gas corporations. The Greens cannot guarantee support for this weakened Code.

New Ministerial powers in the Code allowing gas companies off the hook have exploded from five classes of exemptions to thirteen. These include exemptions that would encourage new gas field developments in spite of catastrophic global boiling.

Before coming to any decision about disallowing or protecting the regulation, the Greens have secured support to send this legislative instrument off to a Senate inquiry before a final vote in October. Evidence presented at the inquiry will inform the Greens final position. 

Treasury spokesperson, Senator Nick McKim said:

“The government should not take our support for this instrument for granted.”

“There is no doubt this country needs policies that regulate the greed and unscrupulous behaviour of gas companies, but not at the expense of encouraging new gas fields to open.” 

“The Greens are open to sending the government back to the drawing board on this. This should be our opportunity for Australia to wean itself off gas by electrifying homes and businesses. Instead Labor is using this code of conduct to encourage new gas supplies even as the planet boils around us.”

“While the Albanese Government is again bending over backwards to please Woodside and Santos, it seems to have forgotten that it is the Parliament, not the powerful gas cartel that has the final say on what laws are put in place.”