The Australian Greens, the Labor government and the Independent MPs today announced an historic agreement on a climate action package that will put a $23 per tonne price on carbon pollution, as was first proposed by the Greens, support householders and invest billions of dollars in clean, renewable energy.

This package, which the Greens have helped shape, is the first vital step towards tackling the climate crisis and building a cleaner, healthier, more secure Australia for all of us.

Major steps forward on emissions reduction targets, support for renewable energy, energy efficiency and landscape carbon, closing coal-fired power plants, limiting the use of international offsets and a floor price mean that pollution cuts that were pushed into the distant future under the government's original plans will now be pulled forward into the next few years.

While a climate action package designed by the Greens would have been more ambitious straight away, what we have achieved is a firm foundation for the future. Where the Rudd government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme acted as a ceiling on action, constraining our efforts for decades to come, this carbon price package acts as a platform on which stronger action can be built in the years ahead.

Christine Milne, 23rd May 2011

We must nourish our farming roots

Recent extreme weather in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania demonstrates Australian agriculture's frailty when faced with forces beyond its control.

Through a colossal chain of rain events triggered by La Niña and exacerbated by climate change, food producers are left staring at ruined crops while consumers face rising food prices.

Tasmanian farmers continue to struggle with the never-ending dance of drought, deluge, erratic weather and climate change.

But it's not only Mother Nature that bears down so heavily on our farmers; many rural communities are fighting other battles seemingly beyond their control.

Perhaps most challenging is the insurmountable monolith of government regulation and policy that's forcing so many Tasmanian farming families off their land.

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