Page 1525 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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have swapping and free cycle activities; they are lobbying councillors. They are the equivalent of ANU Green on their campus.
Sarah Davies spoke of how she was inspired and said that her household have reduced their ecological footprint by 25 per cent. Maiy Azize, who is currently working in my office, incidentally, has a project there. She has taken as her project organising a national day of action by young people—on 8 August, I believe, when young people will go to Parliament House. Their slogan is “rescue our future; we don’t want to clean up your mess”. That was the major message that came out of this day. Young people do not want to be left with the burden of our affluent lifestyle in the circumstances where many of us refuse to believe that we have any obligation to the future. They are telling us that we do.
Finally, in that group there was a young woman called Michelle who is teaching the old skills of sewing that so many of us girls liberated ourselves from in our school lives. She is now trying to get young women out of the fashion cycle—the expense of it. They are learning how to fix zippers, how to go to op shops—which I could teach them a lot about—and how to put up hems, and providing other advice. And they are also swapping clothing among themselves.
This event took place in the exhibition room. People will have noticed an exhibition put up there by Wildart from the south coast. They are people who have been painting and doing art for over a decade, usually on the theme of forests and woodchipping. They have presented this exhibition on the theme of climate change—“atmosphere of hope”. The major question that they ask the viewer is “Can you look your grandchildren in the eye? Will you be able to look your grandchildren in the eye when they ask you, ‘Hey, mum and dad, hey, granddad, what did you do to make the world a better place for us?’” That is the message of the painting that grabs you as you come up the stairs. It is something that some people here could start asking themselves about now.
Some very lovely things happened. A young man called George Bishop sang a song that he had written about the forests. A young woman talked about a documentary she is making about uranium mining; she is concerned that many young people do not know the impacts of uranium mining and nuclear power.
Minister for Education and Training
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (6.05): Last week we witnessed the unedifying spectacle of the opposition using a very serious issue facing our community for base political advantage. We all know that such tactics are par for the course for those opposite. However, during this staged attack on Mr Barr an extraordinary thing happened. Mr Pratt stood in this place and actually advocated bullying. Speaking to the censure motion, Mr Pratt demanded that Minister Barr bully his department into submission. Mr Pratt harangued the minister:
You are not on your game. You have not struck the fear of God into your department ...
That is somewhat incongruous, one might think, when earlier Mr Pratt had said:
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