Page 1624 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 2 June 2021
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massive and rapid change from a fossil fuel economy to a growing green economy. We are not there yet but we are well and truly on the road and we need to keep doing that tangible work. But we need to remember that we have a leadership role as well. This treaty would call on Australia to leave fossil fuel in the ground and to stop subsidising a dead industry. This is part of a global push to phase out fossil fuels. This treaty would ensure a just transition and it would ensure that we leave no member of our community behind.
We have all lived through climate change, here. We all know what it is. We have all seen the fires. We all lived through smokepocalypse. A lot of other people did not. They cannot hear me; they are gone. We understand what climate crisis is. Nobody can deny it anymore. Anyone who loves our bush capital knows that the biggest threat we are currently facing is climate change, and we know that we need to do everything we can at every level of government, at every level of business and at every level of the community. We need tangible leadership targets. We need to do all of it. We need to do it now. Frankly, we needed to do it yesterday, but I do not have a time machine and we cannot go back.
If we pass this motion, this call for a treaty would be a testament to how Canberra is leading the country on climate change. We know that other cities are looking to us as leaders in this field. That really came home to me last Friday, when we were visited by our national leader, Adam Bandt. It is difficult to remember, sometimes, how different things are in Canberra from the rest of Australia and the rest of the world. People are looking at the rapid changes that we are making here, at what we are doing—with transport and EVs, with household sustainable schemes, with our transition to 100 per cent renewable, and with the massive uptake we have seen in the green economy and green industries—and they are seeing that it is genuinely possible. It is a beacon of hope and we need to keep demonstrating that.
This motion would pave the way for many other jurisdictions around the country and around the world. The call for the treaty has been around for only a few months and already many jurisdictions have signed on. We would be the highest level of government, but we will not be the first. I think there will be many, many more councils, states, territories and countries that will join this call quite quickly. I am really glad to say that, because we do not have a lot of time to waste here. It is time to end the production of fossil fuel. It is time to pave the way into a just transition and it is time to call on our federal government and our state and territory counterparts to take the actions that we know are needed and to do that right now. I commend this motion to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Justice—Canberra Community Law
MS LEE (Kurrajong—Leader of the Opposition) (3.55): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes:
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