Addressing Gaza, WA Climate Bill, the marine heatwave, "post and boast" and working on budget estimates
By Hon Sophie McNeill, MLC
Over the past couple of months we have been very busy engaging with the community and parliament on a number of issues. Even though this period had less sitting weeks we have been doing extra work outside of parliament to shine a light on the government's shortcomings and lack of accountability across a number of areas.
The ongoing campaign against the genocide in Gaza
Like many of you I have been continuing to work with community activists to do whatever we can to end the genocide and suffering in Gaza. It was so powerful and uplifting for our Greens WA team to all make member's statements on Gaza ahead of the biggest rally in support of Palestine that Perth has seen yet and marches across our state. It was an honour and a privilege to speak to tens of thousands of people at the Perth rally, just days after we discovered that Premier Cook met with the Israeli ambassador in July. This was an important moment of hope among the ongoing brutality. This feels like the beginning of a new chapter of this campaign, building on the amazing dedication of activists in the face of fierce and unjustified opposition.
Climate Bill debate and campaign
This period has seen a lot of work engaging with the community ahead of the debate of the climate bill in parliament on August 14. Thanks to all the incredible volunteers that joined us across the state talking to people about how WA is holding back the entire country when it comes to emissions reduction and what is needed to safeguard our future. Together, we secured hundreds of emails that are still flowing in to put pressure on labor to pass legislation that is strong and impactful enough that the Greens would support.
Disappointingly (but not unsurprisingly) the government didn't even bother to contribute to the debate. Undeterred we will continue to heap community, scientific and political pressure on them to act and act now.
Exposing the impacts of the marine heatwave
While the record-breaking marine heatwave this year was no secret, the impacts of this heatwave had been kept relatively under wraps. Having received a briefing from the department on the scale and severity of the coral bleaching I headed up to Exmouth with Senator Peter Whish-Wilson to see this for myself and talk to the community about how this is impacting them and what we can do about it.
In short the bleaching and death of coral at Ningaloo and particularly the Rowley Shoals is absolutely devastating. The emotional response I have now seen many times from those who study and work at these places says everything we need to know. Again, this should serve as an incredible wake-up call (not that they should need it) to politicians in this state that they need to stop approving polluting fossil fuel projects and do whatever they can to protect our precious state. Our team worked to make sure this was a newsworthy story of national significance with coverage across major news platforms and a lead story on ABC's 7.30.
While the heatwave and coral bleaching/death is heartbreaking it was so inspiring to talk to packed venues in Exmouth and Fremantle about what we had seen and what we can do about it. It couldn't be clearer that the community cares deeply about the protection of our oceans and I'm hopeful that as our numbers grow and we continue to speak out on this issue it will contribute to real change.
Post and boast
We were outraged to discover how far-reaching and punitive the government's proposed post and boast laws are. I am so proud of the continuing collaborative approach that our WA Greens parliamentary team is taking to issues that intersect many portfolio areas. Our team's quickly analysed the bill, asked the right questions of the department and within a matter of days presented what we had discovered to the sector and national stakeholders so there could be a coordinated response. Through this work and the work of stakeholders to source a constitutional analysis we were able to secure support in parliament to send this bill to committee
