Senator FARUQI: My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Senator McKenzie. Minister, the Moss review was highly critical of the Department of Agriculture as the regulator of live exports, and there is immense public concern about the cruelty of live animal exports. Despite this, your department has recently refused a freedom-of-information request from RSPCA Australia for footage taken aboard the 2018 voyage of MW Al Shuwaikh on which 609 sheep died, including many from smothering. Does the minister consider it appropriate for this footage to be hidden from the public?

Australian Greens Senator for NSW, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has welcomed the Senate passing her motion calling on the NSW government to give Traditional Owners more time to respond to the Warragamba Dam proposal and to engage in genuine consultation with the community.

Senator Faruqi said: 

“Overwhelming community opposition to the Warragamba dam proposal at the very least warrants longer, genuine consultation from the NSW Government, but they have only been interested in appeasing developers while completely ignoring community concerns. 

I, and also on behalf of Senators Siewert, Keneally and Dodson, move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) Traditional Owners have not been given enough time to assess the cultural heritage impact of a plan to raise the wall of Warragamba dam, with just 40 days to respond to a 2000-page report,

(ii) the raised dam would flood world heritage-listed areas of the Blue Mountains and a number of Aboriginal cultural heritage sites, and

Greens Senators have reacted to the passage of the Government’s anti-protest ag gag legislation which passed the Senate with Labor support.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Animal Welfare Spokesperson, said:

“This bill is an absolute fraud. It’s nothing more than ag gag legislation aimed at protecting big agribusiness from scrutiny at the cost of animal welfare and the community’s right to know and protest.

“The Greens are proud to oppose laws aimed at stamping out protest and jailing activists and whistleblowers.”

I just want to make a short contribution and add my voice to what Senator McKim said about amendment (1) on sheet QL133. The government's amendment is to shield more businesses from scrutiny, and this is exactly the scope creep that the Greens have been warning about. Who knows how many other big businesses will be added to this list? It's going to be an endless list, from what I can see.

David Littleproud is a climate change denier and is not fit to serve as minister for water resources, drought, natural disaster and emergency management. He must resign as minister and, if he will not, then the Prime Minister must intervene and remove him, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.

If the Labor Party dumps its current target of 45 percent emissions reduction by 2030, they will lose whatever credibility they have left on the climate crisis and prove that they’ve learnt all the wrong lessons from the election, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.  

“Queensland and New South Wales are burning, our firefighters and emergency responders on the ground are screaming out for support and Labor’s response is to join the climate deniers in the Liberals,” Di Natale said.  

I rise to speak on a matter very close to my heart. New South Wales is currently having a really important debate on abortion law reform—reform that has the overwhelming support of the community. The upper house of the New South Wales parliament will vote on the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill next week, after this bill passed the lower house in August. It is now inevitable that New South Wales' archaic abortion laws will go into the dustbin of history where they well and truly belong.

Australian Greens Peace and Disarmament spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has reiterated calls for Australia's defence force to urgently develop and implement a climate change strategy, after revelations today that senior bureaucrats have been wargaming climate change scenarios.

Senator Steele-John also called on the government to immediately release the details of the climate change scenarios, which they have so far refused to release through Freedom Of Information.

(15:46):

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the New South Wales Liberal-National Government has granted amnesty to hundreds of farmers who cleared land illegally before the disastrous new land clearing laws came into effect; figures show land clearing rates more than doubled in the year prior to the introduction of new laws and tripled in the year after,

(ii) the decision comes after big cotton farms used their influence on the NSW Minister for Energy and Environment and the Minister for Agriculture to lobby for prosecutions to be dropped,