Renewables jobs boom in spite of Turnbull's war on renewables: Bandt

Greens climate change and energy spokesperson Adam Bandt MP today welcomed ABS data showing a 33% surge in employment from renewable energy in Australia, noting these gains were achieved despite the government’s war on renewable energy.

“Renewable energy is a jobs-rich industry and these latest figures prove it,” said Mr Bandt.

The Government must drop its plans to rip 605 billion litres out of environmental water from the southern Murray Darling Basin and focus on restoring health to the river, the Australian Greens say following harrowing reports of the dying Coorong.

“$8 billion has been spent on the Murray Darling Basin Plan and the Coorong is dying. The Government needs to take the blinkers off, wake up and realise the entire Basin, and the river communities who rely on it,  are at a tipping point,” Greens Murray Darling Basin spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

To rescue the Reef we need no new thermal coal mines and a ban on fossil fuel donations, says Queensland Greens Senator Andrew Bartlett.

"The Coalition’s funding package reported in the media today ignores by far the biggest threat to the Reef, climate change.

"To save the Reef we have to stop burning coal.

"Both the Coalition and Labor must rule out any new thermal coal mines.

The Australian Greens have today reaffirmed their commitment to disallowing changes to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

“The Senate is being asked to allow 605 billion litres of water to be ripped off the environment for the sake of untested water efficiency projects, despite a constant flow of reports that big corporate irrigators are stealing water from the river and getting away with it,” Greens Murray Darling Basin spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

A Clive Palmer monster mine, bigger than Adani, is what will happen if we open up the Galilee Basin to new coal mines, says Queensland Greens Senator and spokesperson for mining and resources Andrew Bartlett.

"This shows once again why the state Labor government must rule out any new thermal coal mines anywhere in Queensland.

"The laid off workers at Queensland Nickel their families and communities have not forgotten the callous mismanagement that took away their livelihoods and neither have Queenslanders.

"Clive and his coal mines are not welcome here.

Pine Gap – decades of creative struggle to shut down US war base

Senator Lee Rhiannon has a long history in the campaign to close the US war base at Pine Gap in Central Australia. She was one of the organisers of the 1983 women-only peace camp. Below is her speech at the 20^th anniversary of this extraordinary protest that kicked off on 11 November 1983 when 800 women of all ages and backgrounds, led by local Pitjinjara women, gathered at the gates of the Pine Gap base and stayed there for two weeks. 

A senate committee inquiry has revealed that jobseekers who smoke a single joint on the weekend could be put onto the cashless welfare card for two years if they are randomly tested when accessing income support. 

“A one-off decision by a jobseeker trying to access income support could now push them into further disadvantage as a result of being pushed onto paternalistic income management for two years, there is no merit to this approach.  

Hearings into the Government’s proposed plan to drug test income support recipients have once again demonstrated an overwhelming opposition to the measure, with concerns including stigmatisation and increased crime rates. 

“Witnesses, including service deliverers, drug and alcohol experts and local Mayors and local Government officials have been very clear in their evidence outlining their concerns about drug testing income support recipients”, Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said today. 

Logan has double the population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people compared to metropolitan Brisbane, and almost half of the people there were born overseas.

It is among the most economically disadvantaged places in the country, with high rates of homelessness, housing stress and unemployment.