Wednesday, 6 March 2024

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (09:44): Recent extreme weather events that have ravaged communities in my electorate of Western Victoria have once again brought home how dire the state of our climate is. We are now experiencing what has been predicted for decades while governments have buried their heads in the sand and failed to act. We know worse is to come, and it can feel totally overwhelming, and yet everywhere you look there are reasons for hope. Last week I joined a forum hosted by Women in Local Democracy featuring an extraordinary panel of women who are leading the way on climate action in the Greater Geelong and Surf Coast communities. All of them described turning their sense of overwhelm into motivation to drive collective action. All summer across the coast of Western Victoria, communities have been joining Gunditjmara traditional owners to oppose seismic blasting to explore for oil and gas in the beautiful southern sea country.

This morning many of the groups leading the fight rallied on the steps of Parliament complete with their dead-whale sculpture Klarite. And members of the Lara community, who have united thousands of their fellow residents in a fight against the construction of a massive polluting waste incinerator in their backyards, will be bringing their fight to Parliament this afternoon. To quote Bob Brown:

We’re up against it at the moment, but history is full of episodes where people stood against a tide that was wrong and changed it.