Speak Out

Speak Out is your space to have your voice heard. Write a letter to the editor, or the Minister responsible for an area. Click here for listings of Talkback Radio Stations in your area.

Demand science-based targets from your Government

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With the Rudd Government's failure of an emissions trading scheme returning to the Senate on Tuesday, we Greens have been working hard to convince them to green it up.

To be environmentally and economically credible, the scheme needs ambitious emissions reduction targets and the array of design flaws that pay polluters to keep polluting and lock in failure need to be fixed.

Unfortunately, Minister Wong has told Bob Brown and Christine Milne that she would only discuss the Greens' proposed amendments if they first signed up to her woefully inadequate 5-25% targets. Obviously Minister Wong's demand that the Greens abandon both the science and any hope of a meaningful global agreement is unacceptable, and Bob and Christine have written to her urging her to reconsider.

Please tell Penny Wong that you want her to talk to the Greens and open her mind to meaningful, science-based emissions targets.

Remember, the letter will be more powerful if you write it yoursefl, but we have given you some pointers with the text below.

Didn't we vote the Howard Government out? Remind Rudd and Turnbull why.

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With Kevin Rudd talking tough about the desperate people he calls "illegal immigrants", I've had to remind myself several times recently that Australia voted out the Howard Government.

We still have an excision zone, we still have mandatory detention, and now we even have a Prime Minister trying to convince our neighbours in Indonesia to take the 'problem' off his hands. All the while, Malcolm Turnbull and his colleagues are baying for even harsher treatment.

When people flee persecution, they deserve to be treated fairly and have their human rights upheld. The Greens will always stand up for human rights, and we will continue to fight for these people to be brought to mainland Australia so their applications for asylum can be processed quickly and fairly.

You can email Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull and remind them that Australia rejected the politics of fear and hate.

Make your voice heard on Youth Allowance

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In June of this year, the Rudd Government broke faith with tens of thousands of aspiring university students by making unfair changes to Youth Allowance in the May Budget. Now, the Deputy Prime Minister has announced that her Government is backing down on its start date for this change to Youth Allowance eligibility, to accommodate current gap year students. This backdown is your win.

You can have your say on what should happen next.

Help keep WA GE free

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The Western Australian Government is currently reviewing its Genetically Modified Crops Free Areas Act. WA is the biggest source of non-GE canola in Australia and it is vitally important that the state remains GE free.

Support the Greens' campaign for effective climate change action

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Australia needs real domestic action on climate change. Unfortunately, the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is deeply flawed.

The Government has announced that it will delay the scheme by one year and deliver another $2.2 billion in compensation to Australia’s biggest polluters—in addition to $7.4 billion the polluters are already getting.

The Greens are prepared to support a minimum unconditional 25% target – the bare minimum required by science and the global community – to end 12 years of climate inaction. And Treasury modelling shows it is affordable; by 2020 Australia’s GDP will be roughly three times the size it is today whether we have a ‘worse than useless’ 5% target or the minimum effective 25% target.

Now the Prime Minister faces a climate test. Will Kevin Rudd brown-down the CPRS by negotiating with the Coalition, or will he green up the CPRS by negotiating with the Greens?

You can support the Greens by showing the Prime Minister that Australians support an emissions trading scheme that protects the environment, not polluters.

Write a Letter to the Editor

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Make your voice heard!

Do you have something to say? Feel like your Government is not listening to your concerns? Then use our letter writing facility to get your point across. Send a letter to all the major media outlets in Australia by filling in the fields below.

Forestry burnoffs

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 This should be the time of year for getting out and enjoying Tasmania's perfect weather but months of burn-offs in our logged forests put a stop to that.

After the clearfelling of Tasmania's native forests, the logging industry then burns the area with a napalm like liquid creating a fireball that spews smoke for many kilometres. This is a cheap way of preparing the destroyed forest area for replanting. The ecological and health effects are devastating.

Have your say on emissions trading

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Submissions have now closed for the Senate Inquiry into Emissions Trading. Thank you for your submissions - these have been sent to the committee members to help in their inquiry.

The best the Government itself can say about its so-called 'Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme' is that it is better than nothing. The Greens disagree - we think it's worse than useless.

The Government's plan, as it stands, would actively prevent the change we desperately need, undermining existing policies to move Australia to renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean transport, and locking out the option of achieving deep cuts in greenhouse emissions. Read more info here.

What do Australian women want?

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Q: what do Australian women want?
A: a government funded paid parental leave scheme.

Australia and the United States are the only two OECD countries without government-funded paid parental leave. However, about half of American mothers have access to leave through state-based schemes. Other countries have very generous parental leave schemes, including Canada (28 weeks), Greece (34 weeks), the United Kingdom (39 weeks) and Sweden (47 weeks).

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is introducing a Bill to the Senate for a 26-week government-funded paid parental leave scheme in May.
The Greens’ proposed paid parental leave scheme features:

  • Twenty-six weeks’ paid leave at the birth or adoption of a child.
  • Six weeks quarantined for the mother, with the remaining 20 weeks split between the two parents at their discretion.
  • Offered to full-time, part-time and casual employees who have worked for a minimum of 12 months with the employer, and the self-employed.
  • Paid at the Federal Minimum Wage ($543.38 per week) at a cost of $952 million a year.
  • Payment to be made by the Commonwealth to the employer, and then from the employer to the eligible employee.
  • Payment to be treated as a wage and salary income for the purposes of taxation, superannuation and other laws and agreements.

Write to Penny Wong about Emissions Trading

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Make sure the Australian Government acts properly to combat dangerous climate change!

Climate change is without doubt among the most important issues Australia's Parliament has ever dealt with, and must be acted upon properly.

Write to your Government, and make your voice heard! Tell them you don't want to see our climate future gambled away for political purposes.