Greens are needed now more than ever

Keynote Speech: Greens Are Needed Now More than Ever

Tasmanian Greens’ State Conference, 21 September 2014.

Welcome to all to the second day of what has been an inspiring and constructive conference so far. And I at this point would like to acknowledge my Parliamentary colleagues Nick McKim and Cassy O’Connor, who with me make up our small but effective State Parliamentary team.

Firstly I want to acknowledge the first people, custodians and true owners of this beautiful and verdant land, the Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples, ruthlessly invaded and dispossessed and to this day still discriminated against.

We must do everything in our power to undo this injustice and work together with Aboriginal representatives to achieve reconciliation and real recognition of the rights of ownership and protection of their dreaming and special places.

We have much to learn from them about landscape and environmental management, culture and economic opportunities.

We must address this wrong. We must finish this unfinished business. To foster true reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Tasmanians we will continue to pursue developing with Tasmanian Aboriginal communities, an agreed process by which a formal Treaty between the State of Tasmania and our Aboriginal Peoples can be negotiated, within an agreed timeframe.

Until we achieve a genuine and respectful agreement with the Aboriginal nation, we are all diminished as a people. A formal Treaty is an essential step in that healing process.

Where to now for the Greens

Friends, since the March state election we hear some people asking both from within and without the Party “and what now for the Greens? Where to for the Greens?”

Well I’m here to say the Greens are needed now more than ever!

People are waking up to the awful reality of having two wall to wall hard right-wing Liberal majority governments, here and in Canberra.

The Liberals’ modus operandi of ‘divide and conquer’ has been taken to extremes in a manner we have not been subjected to before in living memory.

Divisive, frightening and destructive reliance upon fear-mongering to justify attacking the civil rights of citizens.

We have seen cold, calculated strategies to divide the community, to pit sections against each other, to try and legitimise a ‘dog-eat-dog’, and might is right attitude. We have seen the disadvantaged and the down-trodden demonised by the Federal Liberal Abbott government, with the same cruel, divisive strategy in Tasmania.

Within six short months, it has become apparent that the biggest threat to the Tasmanian quality of life, and way of life, is the Liberal majority Hodgman regime.

Democracy under Attack

Tasmania’s proud and robust democracy is under attack.

The Liberals are stripping away the right to protest and freedom of association. Their revenge and ideologically driven anti-protest legislation would see local fishers arrested for opposing a super trawler, farmers for locking out fracking companies from their pastures, or workers protesting against an unsafe workplace.

It is not just the Greens’ who have raised serious concerns over this anti-democratic push by the Hodgman regime.

Legal advice from Mr Greg Melick SC, obtained by Greens Justice spokesperson Nick McKim, confirms that the government’s anti-protest laws carry “…a high risk of capturing individuals who would not in any sense be characterised as extremist”.

Mr Melick has also advised that the legislation’s sentencing regime “…diminishes the separation of powers and is likely to lead to unjust outcomes…”, and that “…it is very likely that it could be challenged as to its Constitutional validity…”.

Earlier this month, three United Nations Human Rights expert Special Rapporteurs also warned against this Bill. To quote from their public statement:

“If passed, the law would almost certainly run afoul of Australia’s human rights obligations, which Tasmania is also obliged to uphold…”

Further the statement also went on to say; “The bill would have the chilling effect of silencing dissenters and outlawing speech protected by international human rights law.” (Media Release, 9 September 2014)

Ironically, the international union movement is also raising the alarm over this Bill, which the Hodgman regime falsely justifies as protecting workers in the workplace!

SLAPP Suits

And if this is not bad enough, as a further assault on our democratic right to express our opinion, the Hodgman regime intends to move amendments to the Defamation Act, opening up the way to corporate driven SLAPP suits – which means ‘Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation.’

Remember the Gunns 20? There will be more of that anytime people try to raise their hand and say, “hang on, there must be a better way than trashing our unique native forests, or to avoid polluting our waterways, our clean air, that protect our native wildlife…” Or to stand up for their communities against corruptly approved projects such as the pulp mill. Don’t worry about so-called red or green tape – this is the Liberals ‘blue’ tape, gagging democracy.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up for our democracy and civil liberties. And as such; We will move to establish a Tasmanian Charter of Rights and Responsibilities.

Public Sector workers

Tasmanian workers are under attack by the Hodgman regime. The Liberals are moving to strip the powers and independence of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission under the so-called wage freeze Bill.

We demonstrated in our Alternative Budget that the wage freeze on the state’s public sector workers is not necessary.

The Liberals are holding the axe over the jobs of 1200 public servants, while still providing public subsidies to industry, publicly funded loans to private developers and prioritising their $400 million dollar election splurge, with which they cynically bought their way to power.

Again, we Greens cut the budget cloth differently and delivered no job or pay cuts. We would also fund real work in cleaning up the Tamar river and kick starting new jobs in cross laminated timber houses, to name a few. We would also stop all public subsidies to Forestry Tasmania: the GBE must stand on its own two feet, like any other business.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up for workers’ rights, and a fair pay for a fair days work.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up and demand that taxpayers’ money is invested in public services, not sunk into corporate welfare.

Forests and our Wild Places

Sadly, conflict over our special native forests and wild places is doomed to escalate under the Hodgman regime, with their punitive and ideologically driven attack on parks and reserves. Conservation Areas and Regional Reserves, which existed before the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Act 2013, have now also been made vulnerable to logging. Iconic forest areas slated for future reserve status have now been re-designated as Future Potential Production Forest Land. And they think that international markets won’t wake up to their game? Liberal ideology and revenge has wiped out any chance of sophisticated markets buying Tasmanian timber products, or for Forestry Tasmania to get Forest Stewardship Certification (FSC).

What they can’t chop down, they will assist in having dug up – as the assault on the globally acclaimed Tarkine shows. Dodgy mining company after dodgy mining company are supported by government largesse, to ensure the destruction of the vast historical, cultural and environmental values of the region.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up and protect our special forests, the lungs of our earth. We will move to restore the integrity of their protected reserve status.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up and protect the great asset to the north-west region that is the globally significant Tarkine region.

We will continue to fight for the Tarkine National Park.

Respecting Parliament

The Liberals under this Hodgman majority regime, hide from parliamentary scrutiny and treat democracy with contempt. Do you know that in the eight sitting weeks since the state election, the Liberals have moved the gag four times in the Lower House?

This is the arrogance of an out-of-control, power drunk majority government, taken to unprecedented extremes. This is an average of gagging debate on Bills – which will impact on the daily lives of Tasmanians – once every two weeks!

• The Liberals’ Bill to tear up the TFA reserves, and trash any industry future, the so-called Forestry (Rebuilding the Forest Industry) Bill 2014 gagged – twice!

• The so-called Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill 2014 – gagged.

• The so-called Crown Employees (Salaries) Bill 2014 – gagged.

The pattern is clear – whenever their regressive and damaging agenda runs into serious and considered objections, they just pull the plug on debate, denying the voice of those in the community who may hold a different opinion, to that of the government.

This is another stark reminder of how the 1998 cut in numbers resulted in a broken Parliament.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up against the Parliament being used as a rubber stamp for the Executive!

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to stand up and hold this government to account and remind them that 50 per cent of the vote does not entitle them to 100 per cent of power.

Now more than ever, Tasmania needs a broader political gene-pool to draw from, and we will move to restore the 35 seat House of Assembly.

Invest in the Community – not Corporates

Under the Liberals we are being dragged back to the bad old days of Tasmanian being an exclusive closed club, where the priorities of big business are put before the interests of the community.

No more do we see this than in their blind denial of climate change.

The Liberals ideologically driven repeal of the carbon price alone has turned Australia into an international pariah and effectively cost at least 700 Tasmanian public sector workers their jobs!

And in Tasmania one of the Hodgman regime’s first acts of dangerous ideologically driven revenge, was to abolish the Tasmanian Climate Action Council, and the Climate Smart Strategy, a national first, both put in place by Greens’ Cassy O’Connor when Climate Change Minister.

Their blind refusal to engage in real reform of our energy sector and their son of Basslink obsession, wipes out our Island home advantage.

The Greens’ Energy policy keeps the power at home, with Hydro re focussed on providing the lowest possible long term renewable electricity to heat our homes and drive the change to plug in electric vehicles.

Imagine the possibilities?

Better health from cleaner air and imagine the boost to our economy, when we stop sending money offshore for petrol, instead charging our electric vehicles from Hydro or home solar.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to remove the climate change blinkers, and move towards a carbon-constrained economy.

Now more than ever the Greens are needed to keep fighting for lower power prices for Tasmanians, rather than Hydro slipping back into the bad old days of power without purpose serving itself rather than the public and ramping up public debt.

Looking beyond ourselves

There are dark, difficult and troubled times ahead, and we will need to stand firm to face those challenges, but I also believe – I strongly believe – that even if Tasmanians are doing it tough, we are big enough to still hold out a helping hand to those who are doing it even harder.

Again given the failure of the Liberal and Labor parties nationally, it falls to the Greens to demonstrate that we can look beyond ourselves and act with humanity and compassion.

Today, on behalf of the Greens, I commit to doing everything possible to establish Tasmania as an Asylum Seeker Haven.

There are models which others, including Julian Burnside QC, have flagged as viable alternatives to the cruel internment camps on off-shore centres.

We will work with other like-minded organisations and individuals to campaign for the development of a formal plan to base asylum seekers within Tasmanian communities while they await refugee assessment.

Tasmania has a proud track record of embracing humanitarian entrants.

We saw how the Brighton community welcomed the recent asylum seekers housed as Pontville, and we led the nation when the Greens Education Minister at the time, Nick McKim, made sure that the youth amongst that group attend school.

There is also an increasing body of work identifying the financial contribution that asylum seekers can make to regional economies while awaiting to be processed.

Instead of the Federal government pouring between $4 billion and $5 billion of taxpayers’ hard earned money each year into Nauru and Manus Island’s hell-holes, $1 billion could instead be provided to Tasmania to house asylum seekers.

The benefits of allowing entry into the community would be three-fold:

1. It would save billions of dollars to the nation;

2. It would ensure that any government benefits provided will circulate through our regional and local economies, providing a much needed economic boost;

3. And of course it reduces the enormous mental and physical harm inflicted on our fellow human beings currently being held in off-shore detention.

Mr Burnside QC also states in his article:

“Over the past 15 years approximately 90 per cent of all boat people turned out on assessment, to be refugees entitled to our protection.” (Julian Burnside QC, June 2014).

Our proposition to investigate establishing Tasmania as an Asylum Seeker Haven, is not only the right thing to do but will show leadership to a nation confused and compromised over the disgraceful inhumanity of the Abbott governments vile asylum seeker policies.

This island can be a beacon of hope.

In conclusion

To wrap up, it is worth noting that the community get very tired, very quickly of political parties being preoccupied with their own internals.

So yes, it is no surprise to anyone that the Greens will continue to review how we go about our business, and it is a positive attribute of any organisation to be constantly looking for areas of improvement. We will continue to do that. But at the same time, we cannot afford to lose sight of our core purpose – which is to deliver Greens’ policies, and protect all that makes Tasmania so special.

So when we are next asked, ‘where to now for the Greens?’ we say back ‘exactly where we have been and where we always will be – standing up for Tasmania and its people!’

Now more than ever, Tasmania needs the Greens to focus on what we do best: standing up for our democracy; standing up for civil rights; standing up for our people doing it tough; standing up for our clean, green, GE free Brand, our waterways and pastures uncontaminated by 1080 poison; standing up for our public sector and essential services it provides; standing up for our unique native forests and a viable timber industry providing real work; standing up for the integrity of our Parks and Reserves; and standing up for those who are prevented having a voice under this regime.

We know our policies are right and we will not be intimidated.

We are the Greens, We represent the future, we have the vision to bring peace, prosperity and harmony to our great Island state.

Together we stand, tall, proud and defiant.

Together we stand for a better future.

Go Green!

Thank you.