NSW Police have threatened eleventh-hour legal action against Sylvia Hale MLC in order to stop the NSW Greens MP holding a media conference with 21 mock world leaders dressed as lifesavers in Martin Place on Friday morning at 11:00 am. The media conference is to be addressed by Greens Senator Kerry Nettle and Ms Hale who will call on the APEC leaders to take serious action to address climate change.

Ms Hale was served with a letter from NSW Police General Counsel Michael Antrum this afternoon threatening legal action if the MP did not agree to move the media conference from Martin Place. (more…)

Dr JOHN KAYE [5.36 p.m.] (Inaugural Speech): As a matter of protocol, and also as a mark of respect, I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land on which this Parliament sits. I pay my respects to the elders, past and present. I also pay my respects to those who, 40 years ago, struggled for and achieved constitutional recognition for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their rights to at least be counted as part of the census. Their success sits proudly in the great Australian history of struggle—a history of social justice activists, unionists, environmentalists and a stirrers, people who created a powerful tradition of taking the notion that it does not have to be this way and translating it into action. That tradition even to this day says that working people deserve a fair share of this nation’s wealth, that corporations should not be allowed to ravage our environment, and that economic disadvantage should neither be punished by impoverishment nor allowed to become an inherited condition. (more…)

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Climate Change
Question

Senator NETTLE (2.31 p.m.) ­My question is to the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Abetz. Has the government conducted a study of the climate change impact of the logging of native forest in south-eastern New South Wales, in particular for the supply of Eden woodchip mill for export woodchipping?
Answer

Senator ABETZ ­This may be a revelation to the Australian Greens, but forestry is the only carbon positive sector of the Australian economy. Therefore, if anybody is genuinely concerned about getting greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, about cleaning up the atmosphere, they should be loud spruikers in support of forestry­forestry that is done on a sustainable basis, where every tree that is harvested is replanted and indeed more than replaced, such as we do in Australia today. (more…)