Antinuclear

Greens leader Christine Milne speaks at National Press Club

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.

As IMF boss Christine Lagarde said recently, “Unless we take action on climate change future generations will be roasted, toasted fried and grilled.”

We need Scott Ludlam standing up for digital freedom and big solar and against nuclear

Christine Milne addresses the National Press Club 19 Feb 2013 | Christine Milne 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. The mining industry has become so powerful that the lines between business and politics have become blurred to the detriment of people and the well being of our society.

No group of people is suffering more than our Indigenous people, the traditional owners of the land who are seeing their land, their country decimated and cultural sites like the archaeological treasury on the Burrup Peninsula and at James Price Point being sacrificed to Woodside’s bottom line. In acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and in paying my respects to their elders past and present, I am proud to say that the Greens have driven for them the parliamentary process of constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as a result of our agreement with the Prime Minister.

But it is not enough…….

With it must come respect for culture and country, by standing up to the mining boardroom greed that sees both as expendable. 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.

As Robert Kennedy Junior said recently,

“Wherever you see large-scale pollution, you will also see the subversion of democracy, you will see the compromise of public officials, the capture of the agencies they are supposed to protect; they become sock puppets of the industries they are supposed to regulate. You see that in the political system, the kowtowing of the politicians who become indentured servants in the US and in Canada.”

This is exactly what has happened here in Australia…….   Well the Greens aren’t afraid. We are standing with the people against the interests of the big miners. We recognise that Australia needs to raise more revenue and that it should not come from the poorest in our community but the wealthiest…..

Neither of major parties acknowledge the real source of those pressures and that is the disproportionate power of the mining industry and the damage the exercise of that power is doing to Australian governance, the Australian economy, jobs, the environment and communities right around the country.

Not standing up to the miners means we are creating a less caring society;  a society in which people  have citizenship, the right to vote but  feel they have no power vis a vis the rich and powerful. The young are beginning to give up on democracy. Is that a price Australia wants to pay?…..

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……

As IMF boss Christine Lagarde said recently, “Unless we take action on climate change future generations will be roasted, toasted fried and grilled.”

A nation can either be serious about climate change, serious about the transition in the economy and serious about getting the huge opportunities that are there in 100% renewable energy, in new solar power, in supporting communities as they put photovoltaic panels on their roofs, or you give in to the fossil fuel industry

As British Prime Minister David Cameron has recently said “it is the countries that prioritise green energy that will secure the biggest share of jobs and growth in a global low-carbon sector set to be worth $4 trillion by 2015.”

But both the Coalition and the Labor Party are exposing the Australian economy to huge risk as the world moves to reduce emissions. …….

We need Scott Ludlam standing up for digital freedom and big solar and against nuclear, …….. http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-addresses-national-press-club

August 23, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | election 2013