News
Reforming the EPBC Act is the No. 1 focus, and the minister is pursuing that consultatively, steadily and thoroughly. It’s a thousand-page piece of legislation. It’s a complex piece of work, and we have to get it right.
Read more...The Nairobi convention outlines the legal basis for countries to remove or have removed wrecks, including objects lost at sea in areas beyond the territorial sea within the exclusive economic zone. Ratifying the Nairobi convention is particularly important to Australia because, as an island continent with a significant coastline and shipping industry, we depend upon clear and safe navigation of the sea and we depend upon imports. And, of course, our high-value exports are essential for maintaining Australia’s economic wellbeing and the livelihoods of millions of Australians.
Read more...The momentum towards this incredibly welcome and just outcome has been building over the last couple of years. But without doubt, the decisive element has been the approach of this Australian Government and the leadership of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The PM and the Foreign Minister have worked carefully and steadily, with clarity and resolution, in pressing for an end to the incarceration of Julian Assange.
Read more...Labor understands, Deputy Speaker, that we can’t continue to enjoy the musicians that Australians love if we don’t support the long-term sustainability of live music venues. And that’s why this government has created a national music development agency, Music Australia, to support and invest in the Australian contemporary industry. In the most recent budget that included $8.6 million, for the new Revive Live program to provide support to those businesses.
Read more...While the live sheep trade has effectively dropped off a cliff, there has been enormous and welcome growth in the export of chilled and frozen boxed meat. Indeed, Australia remains the largest exporter of sheep meat in the world, and 2023 set new records for the tonnage and value of sheep meat exports. That’s exactly what the Albanese government is working to deliver. It was great to see Meat & Livestock Australia say that exports are likely to grow further in 2024.
Read more...What you would get from the coalition would be a massive blow to Australia as an investment destination and as a trusted regional global partner, through their decision to trash the Paris climate agreement while at the same time putting Australia in hock for generations by wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a 70-year-old technology that is in decline globally and for which we will always be dependent on another government.
Read more...For too long we simply haven’t been able to see clearly the joined-up picture of Australia’s environmental condition and biodiversity. That’s resulted in a piecemeal approach to assessing impact, which has put our environment on the path to death by a thousand cuts. We cannot allow that to continue, and that’s why we’re implementing the recommendations of the Samuel review to significantly update Australia’s national environmental laws. It’s important to recognise that the approach we’re taking to deliver that reform is endorsed by Graeme Samuel himself; it’s important for people to recognise that.
Read more...All the evidence, all the expertise and all the inquiries have made it crystal clear there’s no case for nuclear energy in Australia. With each passing year, renewables and storage get cheaper and more efficient, and yet nuclear takes longer and becomes more expensive. This is a 70-year-old technology with enormous decommissioning costs and no technical solution for the permanent storage of nuclear waste.
Read more...Two years ago, Australians voted for a government that would serve their needs and advance our national interest through hard work, focus, integrity and a responsive day-in day-out application to delivering on the commitments that we made to them. That is precisely the record of the Albanese Labor government.
Read more...The Albanese government is absolutely backing in this kind of forward-looking innovation in agriculture and aquaculture because that’s the nature of primary production: it’s always looking to how things can be done better, more efficiently and more sustainably, with higher yields and less environmental impact or even with environmental benefits.
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