Antinuclear

Why the Australian Greens now dump their agreement with Labor (Video)

By choosing the big miners, the Labor government is making it clear to all that it no longer has the courage or the will to work with the Greens on a shared agenda in the national interest.

By choosing the big miners, the Labor government is no longer honouring our agreement to work together to promote transparent and accountable government and the public interest or to address climate change……

(VIDEO) http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-addresses-national-press-club   Christine Milne addresses the National Press Club  9 Feb 2013 | Christine Milne  Australian Democracy at the Crossroads: The mining industry and the quarry past versus the people and the innovative future. Australian democracy is at the crossroads. Our future as a nation, our sense of who we are and what we want for our society and local community is now being determined by mining billionaires in boardrooms for themselves and their overseas shareholders, and what they want, is being delivered through our state and federal parliaments. …..

For Premier Colin Barnett to threaten indigenous communities with the compulsory acquisition of their land in the interests of Woodside is wrong and shameful…..

Trust has gone.

What we are seeing is the mining industry versus the community. The greed of billionaire miners versus the public interest. The ALP government and the Liberal and National Opposition lining up to protect the interests of the mining corporations against the interests of the Australian community. It is the Australian Greens who are standing with the people, for the environment and for a safe climate…….

the biggest opportunity cost of the mining industry in capturing the Labor party and the Liberal National Coalition is that they are all actively preventing the transition to the sustainable, secure, happy and prosperous society and the economic framework necessary to underpin it in a world on track for 4 degrees.

They still don’t get the fact that we live in a society not an economy and that economic tools driving the fossil fuel age have to change because they are not delivering what society wants. Instead, they have delivered market failure and accelerating global warming. As IMF boss Christine Lagarde said recently, “Unless we take action on climate change future generations will be roasted, toasted fried and grilled.”…..

If Australia continues down the path of massive coal and coal port expansion, we risk stranded assets, jobs collapse, dislocation on a grand scale and super funds losing badly……

Labor cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue that they take the climate science seriously and at the same time subsidise massive mining and export of fossil fuels to the tune of $10 billion knowing that they are condemning our children and their grandchildren to a world of conflict, scarcity and climate disaster….But Tony Abbott and the Liberal National Coalition are right there beside the government backing these decisions and indicating they would go even further…..

How can PM Gillard or Tony Abbott pretend they care about food production and mouth support for the food bowl while destroying agricultural land and allocating vast quantities of ground water in the Murray Darling for coal seam gas? 
….What we have got is the whole Labor cabinet and the entire Liberal and National parties prepared to ditch environmental regulation and hand it over to the states knowing full well that they cannot be trusted to look after the environment.  The plan to hand back power to the states has gone quiet but it hasn’t gone away.

Without the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate Australia risks:

• repeal of the mining tax, giving up on any chance of the Australian community receiving its fair share of the bounty of our mineral wealth.
• Farmers being driven from their land by mining companies without any resistance from the Parliament and the loss of huge swathes of food producing land and contamination of water at a time when food security is confronting the whole world and a future in which food is the new gold and  land and water are the new oil.
• a harsher, less caring society, with massive public sector job cuts, young people being thrown into poverty by an Liberal party prepared to cut their income support payments completely, and a conservative agenda antithetical to a diverse, multicultural, and respectful Australia.
• and environmental protection being taken back 40 years…….

The threat of an Abbott-controlled Senate is real.

That is why it is critical to support the Greens outstanding Senate team around the country as a bulwark against an Abbott government…..

Let’s call a spade a spade.

By choosing the big miners, the Labor government is making it clear to all that it no longer has the courage or the will to work with the Greens on a shared agenda in the national interest.

By choosing the big miners, the Labor government is no longer honouring our agreement to work together to promote transparent and accountable government and the public interest or to address climate change……

We will not walk away from the undertakings we gave to the government in the Agreement and the people of Australia to deliver confidence and supply until the Parliament rises. We will see this parliament through to its full term.

The Greens will not add to the instability that Labor creates for itself every day. We are moving beyond the agreement as the key debates and outcomes left in this 43rd parliament fall outside it. We will continue to vigorously pursue the rapid transition to a clean green and clever country, reforms to the mining tax, a $50 a week increase to Newstart, increased funding to public schools through the Gonski reforms, implementation of the NDIS, and protection of Australia’s precious environment……..

February 19, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, election 2013