Australian Greens Anti-Racism spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that all key government agencies have indicated in initial PJCIS committee submissions that the threat of far-right extremism is growing.

However, the Greens say substantial policy change and political action is nowhere to be seen.

Senator Faruqi said:

 
“Peter Dutton has finally confirmed when he was told about Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations and outed himself as a rape apologist in the process.  Mr Dutton is now the fifth government member who knew about the allegation, but apparently didn’t bother to pick up the phone to the PM", said Senator Larissa Waters, Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson on women.
 

The Morrison Government’s latest attempt to weaken Australia’s environmental laws completely ignores their own expert’s recommendations and will lock in the demise of our wildlife and iconic natural places, the Greens say.

Greens Environment Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:

“This move by the Morrison Government is a death sentence for Australia’s koalas and wildlife. 

“The Morrison Government has blatantly ignored their own expert’s recommendations and is instead taking a chainsaw to environmental protections.

 I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020. This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to provide a new definition of academic freedom that enshrines in law principles of freedom of expression and substitutes the existing term 'free intellectual inquiry' in relevant provisions with the term 'freedom of speech and academic freedom' to align the language of provisions within the model proposed by Robert French.

Tonight I want to talk about homelessness and housing. Over the last few decades, Australian governments have created a housing system that actively impoverishes people and makes inequality worse. Safe, secure, high-quality housing is a human right, not a privilege reserved for those who are able to afford to pay through their noses for it. Instead of ensuring everyone's right to a home, governments have implemented and persisted with policies that benefit big developers and wealthy investors, to everyone else's detriment.

I rise to take note of the document Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act 1997—Livestock mortalities during export by sea—report for the period 1 July to 31 December 2020. These latest numbers help to confirm that in 2020, despite it being the year in which so much of the global economy and global trade was disrupted, the brutality of the live export trade still went on. Nothing, it seems, will stop the Australian government from continuing to export sheep and cattle for profit.

The Greens say that the Government’s reporting line dubbed the ‘DobSeeker’ is an abuse of power that will hurt the most vulnerable in our community. 

“This is all part of the sick obsession this Government has with blaming and demonising people for not having a job in the midst of a recession and a pandemic. 

“The Job Provider system (Jobactive) is already rife with bullying, harassment, of people being ignored or treated very poorly by their job providers and now the Government is empowering employers with the means to intimidate and bully Jobseekers.

“The men of this government are still following the rules of the ‘boys club’, covering for each other instead of speaking out about what they knew about an alleged rape in parliament house and allegations of serial sexual harassment by a government staffer in Craig Kelly’s office." said Senator Larissa Waters, Greens Leader in the Senate and Spokesperson on Women.
 

The Greens have responded to sickening reports of a violent assault by a man with a swastika on a First Nations woman and her daughter in Western Australia.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Anti-racism spokesperson, said:

“This is a horrendous act of racist violence and I hope the perpetrator is identified and prosecuted without delay.

“Far-right extremists and neo-Nazis are feeling emboldened. This is the crisis the government refuses to take seriously.

Today is an extremely distressing day for the 1.5 million people on the JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments who have now had confirmation that the Morrison Government has made the cruel decision to condemn them to poverty. 
 
$44 a day is not enough to live on. This will mean people going without meals, without medication, without the funds to pay for heating or cooling.
 
This should not be happening in a country as wealthy as Australia.
 
This is an appalling slap in the face for all those people trying to survive on Jobseeker.