David Pocock says Australia has ‘moral duty’ to act on climate after final IPCC report released
The IPCC report makes for some very grim reading. These aren’t the conclusion of advocates, but scientists, who have determined we are on our last chance.
ACT independent senator David Pocock told ABC RN Breakfast that there could not be “a more stark warning” and that we have a “moral duty” to act, particularly for Pacific nations and future generations.
He also doesn’t think the Greens are being unreasonable when it comes to their “no new coal or gas” demand as part of the safeguard’s legislation.
He says that yes, Australia needs climate policy, but it needs “climate policy that works”.
Key events
So will the government adopt the recommendation from the UN to become net-zero by 2040 or indeed 2035 – 10/15 years earlier than the 2050 goal?
Bill Shorten says probably not:
Well, we’ve got our policy settings. I’m not going to change them here. But what I do know is that if we can pass the Safeguards Mechanism legislation, we can make sure that industry has certainty to invest going forward. But we can make the biggest sizeable bite into our carbon emissions that the country has seen in over a decade. The Australian people don’t want us, you know, the Greens and Labor and the Liberals all finger pointing. They just want us to get on with business. They just want to get us on with the process of modifying our operations so that we can take real action on climate. I think this week could be very exciting and I think that the IPCC report just reminds us that we have an opportunity to not make the mistakes that happened in 2009 and not to squander the future.
IPCC report shows ‘why we need to pass the important laws in parliament this week’ – Shorten
Bill Shorten was on Sky News responding to the IPCC report:
Well, the IPCC report is important, but I’m not sure it’s telling us anything that the government hasn’t already been thinking about for a while. I think there is a good challenge in it, though. It says that it is possible to keep global temperatures within an increase of 1.5C. And you know, this week what it shows is that the parliament of Australia, after 14 years of wasted opportunity, has got the chance to take out 205 cubic million tonnes of carbon emissions. So, the challenge is there, I think the IPCC is a reminder of why we need to pass the important laws we’ve got in parliament this week because together we can actually give a better, hand on a better future to our kids than the one we’ve currently got.
David Pocock says Australia has ‘moral duty’ to act on climate after final IPCC report released
The IPCC report makes for some very grim reading. These aren’t the conclusion of advocates, but scientists, who have determined we are on our last chance.
ACT independent senator David Pocock told ABC RN Breakfast that there could not be “a more stark warning” and that we have a “moral duty” to act, particularly for Pacific nations and future generations.
He also doesn’t think the Greens are being unreasonable when it comes to their “no new coal or gas” demand as part of the safeguard’s legislation.
He says that yes, Australia needs climate policy, but it needs “climate policy that works”.
Greens introduce ‘right to disconnect’ bill to amend Fair Work Act
When was the last time you were able to disconnect completely from work? As in, no emails, no phone calls, no last minute “can you check this” or calls to jump in an online meeting after hours?
The Greens have introduced the “right to disconnect” bill which would amend the Fair Work Act to legislate the right for workers to not answer emails, calls or other messages after contracted hours unless they are paid to do so (availability allowance etc) or its an emergency.
That’s after the senate work and care inquiry chaired by Greens senator Barbara Pocock recommended ways to modernise Australia’s working conditions.
Adam Bandt, who introduced the private member’s bill, said workers had the right to switch off:
Technology has seen work creep into personal time. If you’re not getting paid for it, you should be able to ignore the work texts and emails that arrive after hours. Switching off and disconnecting from work is vital for your health and work-life balance.
Pocock, the Greens employment spokesperson, said Australian work conditions had not kept pace with the changing environment.
Most of our working arrangements were put in place when households typically consisted of a male breadwinner with a female working to maintain a home and provide care for the family.
Those arrangements are clearly out of date and we need to recognise that households are now run with at least two working adults who are increasingly sharing household and caring duties in addition to their working lives.
… Availability creep, where workers feel they have to be available to answer emails all the time is harming their physical and mental health.
Poor sleep, stress, burnout, degraded relationships and distracted carers are some of the consequences of workers feeling they should be available at all hours.
Peter Dutton should ‘condemn’ Nazi protests – Peter Khalil
Peter Khalil continued:
We’ve also had a lot of commentary and different accounts of the event, I reckon with any political demonstration or protests, it’s important to go back to the first principles, why are you there?
And if you’re there for a vision for a fairer and more just society, if you’re you’re an activist in that respect, great.
But if you’re there for the opposite, there’s a big question mark, and if your attempt at civil dialogue is attracting neo-Nazis, to your protest, there certainly needs to be a reassessment of the approach.
Now I know John Pesutto, the Victorian Liberal leader is taking a leadership position here and seeking to ban the MP that was involved in that rally. And that’s something that he’s doing. I would hope that the federal Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, also shows the same level of leadership and condemns that type of behaviour condemns the Nazis.
Remember, you know, he’s a former defence minister, there were 40,000 Australians who died in world war two fighting fascism and fighting the Nazis. People died to actually give us the country that we’re living in today effectively, that generation which not many of them left, so I would hope that he comes down and condemns this unequivocally and supports his colleague in the Victorian Liberal party.
Addressing far-right extremism starts with education, Labor MP Peter Khalil says
The chair of parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, Labor MP Peter Khalil, also had a chat to Patricia Karvelas about the far right after what happened in Melbourne over the weekend:
Often, the rise of the far right occurs when there … might be issues around inequality or socioeconomic issues. People are manipulated in the community. Let’s not forget what they are trying to do here. They are picking in this case, that was targeting the trans community.
They pick out minorities to attack, they try and sow division and hatred and fear of the other. That is their ideological playbook.
We should be aware of that and the way that they try and manipulate and get oxygen in their actions and trying to manipulate the community. We need to address that now.
The security intelligence agencies play a role in that but more broadly, as a society, we have to address some of those underlying issues and it starts with education. Of course, it starts with people at a younger age, not being captured by or radicalised by these types of groups.
There’s a lot of work being done by the federal government across not just a security intelligence agency, but I know across the entire government, because this is actually fundamental to our social cohesion. As a nation.
We talk a lot Patricia about, you know, multiculturalism and the diversity of our nation as a strength and that’s all very, very true. But there are those who would seek to divide us based on our ethnicity, based on our identity, based on our sexual orientation. And that is the contest that is going on now and unfortunately, there has been a rise of these groups, particularly over the last 5 to 10 years.
Lambie wants more action now to improve lives of First Nations people
On the referendum machinery act, Jacqui Lambie says she hopes the bill can pass without too much more argument because she thinks there is already too much division out there.
But she also thinks that there are things which can be done now to improve the lives of Indigenous people now.
My point is right now you could be putting in things now that could be making a difference. That’s what you’ll hear in my speech. And there is no reason for you to wait and not to do what we’ve seen to be very successful in the past in these Indigenous communities that’s worked.
And there was some really good opportunities that have been working over the years in those communities that could have been put back into place today. And that would show me that you’re actually serious about not just listening to the voice, of making the voice work, but you could show start showing that today.
So that is what you’re going to hear in my speech today.
… Just because we’ve had one government to another and said this is not working or whatever. The other my other problem is simply this – there is a lot of money there are billions and billions of dollars going out there to these Indigenous communities, there is too many shopfronts out there.
I’ve seen this the whole time I’ve been running around over the last six or seven years of seeing the shopfronts, seriously, it’s not money that they need, you need to get this sorted out, because what you’re doing is you’re putting out money and it’s not presenting positive results.
‘It will be the Greens’ fault’ if safeguard mechanism falls over – Lambie
The Tasmanian senator is also very sick of the fight over the safeguard mechanism. She thinks it is a start and it is a “perfect opportunity” for a start and if it falls over “it will be the Greens fault”.
When it comes to the safeguards, I simply think there’s we need to starting point and the Greens I’m sick and tired of them getting your starting point – you have that big balance of power for the next two years.
This is your starting point and you keep working on it, on decreasing those emissions, keep putting up bills, keep doing deals with the Labor government and keep reducing it that way.
But if you don’t have a starting point here, we haven’t got the magic starter. We’re not going anywhere.
We don’t even have a starting point and I think that’s really, really disappointing.
My other issue obviously, is that we have manufacturing out there that just at this point in time cannot reduce its emissions by 4.9%.
They cannot do that because the technology has not been invented. So we really need to make sure that if we want manufacturing to continue in this country we want to grow on that we have to accommodate for that.
There’s no doubt about that. Look, they can continue their fight over coal and gas, but can the Greens please for goodness sakes, if you know if that’s what you’re standing on and you don’t get anything through it all then we’re back to where we started. We’ve got nothing, not even a starter point. We’ve got to have a starting point, we’ve got to look serious.
I am worried that it’s gonna fall over it’ll be the Greens fault. You need to starting point this is your opportunity to get a starting point so we can keep working on reducing those emissions as we’re going along. That’s how it works up here.
We just keep chipping away at them. But we need to start a point and I think this is a good start point.
Lambie says public won’t worry too much if Labor cans stage-three tax cuts
Jacqui Lambie says she thinks the government could deal with a “broken promise” on the stage-three tax cuts by playing the public straight.
I think when people know that there’s people out there on enough money like me, and we’re getting a tax cut and don’t get one I don’t think the public’s really going to worry about it too much.
That’s what I think. And I think they’ll be saying ‘good on you.’ It’s about time we started paying out and helping others less fortunate.
Lambie on stage-three tax cuts: high income earners ‘shouldn’t be so greedy’
Also Jacqui Lambie doesn’t want the stage-three tax cuts – as a senator, her six figure wage would be one of those that benefits and she is saying “no thank you”.
And she thinks most other people should say no thank you too, for the betterment of the country.
People like me, people like me, do not need a tax cut, I can assure you, so please don’t give me one because I don’t want one and anybody else that’s in the situation that I am shouldn’t be so greedy. And now we’ve got to pass it on to those blokes [earning under $120,000] We’ve got to pay it forward. That’s what we need to be doing. And that’s that’s where Australia should be.
And if it means that some of that money is redirected into those submarines or into anything else that we need for the future. I just think we need to cut those tax cuts right back.