Sarah Hanson-Young is responding to the Liberal urgency motion to stop anything resembling the nature positive laws every darkening the senate chamber again (because apparently that is how democracy works) and she reads out some of the headlines in response to the government shelving the legislation:

‘Miners rejoice as Albanese shelves environmental watchdog’, ‘Albanese kills off nature positive laws’. ‘Albanese abandons environment reforms’.

Hanson Young continues:

“We can all see what has happened here, that the Labor Party has caved in to the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry and the likes of Gina Rinehart, rather than standing for what is right, protecting nature, putting in place laws that actually stop the destruction, look after our environment, stop our koalas from going extinct – the Labor Party has gone weak.

The Labor Party has caved in again. Now, the Greens have been working hard to try and get meaningful reform that would protect our ancient forests, that would stop our wildlife going extinct. We worked hard with the government to try and get a sensible package agreed to. We even put aside our policy and demands for a climate trigger, because that is what we were told by the government that they couldn’t do because the miners wouldn’t let them.

So we said, okay, we’ll compromise. We’ll be pragmatic. We’ll stand for the forest. We’ll put climate aside, the climate trigger aside until after the election, and we’ll look after the forests and the koalas today. They couldn’t even come at that. They couldn’t even come at that. The Labor Party has abandoned the environment, and if you want change, you want protection, you’re going to have to vote for it.”