Greens MPs

This is a speech I delivered to the Sydney Institute last night. You can also listen to it here or download a pdf here.

Sydney Institute, October 27th 2008.

Green Politics, the Balance of Power and the Green New Deal.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening about Green Politics, Balance of Power and the twin global meltdowns of climate and finance. There has never been a more critical time to be a Green and there has never been a time when the philosophy and experience of Green politics - based on forty years of environmental, social justice, peace and democracy campaigning - has been more important. The decisions that will be made in the next five years are crucial for the future of life on Earth.

Catching up on the last few weeks, I've finally posted a pile of transcripts of Senate Estimates hearings to Christine's website.

For those with a bit of time on their hands - or fast readers - there's some choice tidbits there that are really worth finding.

The decision by the Victorian and NSW Governments to lift the ban on genetically modified canola crops is of great concern and one we believe the Rudd government should override.

This morning, I joined Bob Brown and our ACT Senate candidate, Kerrie Tucker, down at the ANU's Big Dish to launch a new policy that we are quite excited about - Farming Renewable Energy.

We've noticed that whenever we raise this as a concept it garners a particularly positive response, so we developed it into a detailed policy proposal to help those farmers whose livelihood is most threatened by climate change impacts to start profiting by becoming part of the solution. Instead of staring at a dustbowl, this policy can give people reason for hope.

The policy is about drawing together the need to reduce emissions urgently and the need to adapt to the climate change that is already locked in. We have to face up to the fact that, thanks to our actions over the last centuries, there will be parts of Australia that have been farmed for generations that will become far less viable for agriculture. But we can't just abandon those communities to their hotter and drier future. We certainly can't just go out there with an akubra and a relief cheque and pray for rain. We need to support them in staying on the land, keeping their communities vibrant, and moving into a future where climate change is an opportunity, not just a threat.

The big problem with the latest drought assistance package is that it lacks vision.

What we really need is a strategy to make the transition to a productive and sustainable agriculture in a changing and uncertain climate.

This means we need a better idea of what the projected impacts are for our agricultural regions and what the options are for improving the resilience of our farming systems and safely managing the risk of our farm enterprises.

The Coalition's latest ad hoc assistance package only seems to offer two choices - money to hang on and pray for rain, or money to get out while the getting is good.