Blow the Truth

Sarah Hanson Young Senator. Sarah HANSON-YOUNG   ( South Australia )  Australians are appalled at what they're seeing happening here in Parliament House. Women and men around this country were shocked when they heard the incredibly brave account from Brittany Higgins of her story of being raped in this building, in her workplace, just metres from the Prime Minister's office. Following Brittany's story, the extremely serious allegations that have been made against the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, have rocked the nation. I received the dossier of evidence and the account of the accusations put forward by the woman at the centre, alleging that Christian Porter had raped a 16-year-old girl when he was 17. Tragically, that woman has now taken her own life. Women across Australia have had enough. We've had enough of the violence, enough of the harassment, enough of the excuses and enough of the boys' club.   Yesterday, across Australia, more than 100,000 women and

Hanson Young: Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act1999 - Consideration: I take note of this report because this is a very, very important review. It is required under the EPBC legislation that every ten years our environment laws are reviewed, that they're looked at in great detail, that experts consider whether they are fit for purpose and report to both the government and the parliament about the effect of our laws and whether they are doing what they need to do. We know that the government had this report for some 90 days before releasing it. And of course they happened—let's put this on the record—to release it right in the middle of Mr Albanese's frontbench reshuffle last week. You'd think that this government would have been a bit more courteous to not publicly release an important document like this in the middle of when other things were going on—unless, of course, this government wanted to cover up and distract from the recommendations in th

Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) 7 Oct 20 BILLS - Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 - Second Reading: I rise to speak in opposition to this terrible piece of legislation, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020. Firstly, I'd like to associate myself with the comments made by my colleague Senator Faruqi, who leads this area for the Australian Greens. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=334971904445773 I am gobsmacked at the dodgy deal done this week by Centre Alliance—Senator Griff and the member for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie. After months of them telling the South Australian people that they had problems with this bill, that they knew this piece of legislation was bad—bad for students, bad for the economy and bad for education—we have seen the most significant backflip Centre Alliance has done since Nick Xenophon left this building.

Senator Hanson-Young (South Australia): Environment Senate Speech  I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to the environment. I asked Senator Cormann about the government's plans to rush through legislation that is ultimately going to weaken Australia's environmental laws and to make it easier for big mining corporations and big gas companies to continue to destroy Australia's precious environment and to put in harm's way our native wildlife and animals. We know that the environment is already suffering greatly. It is in a huge state of decline. We know climate change, land clearing, pollution are pushing our environment and our natural world to the brink. And what do we have from this government? More ways to make more money for these companies while destroying our environment, and it's being done under the cover

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young : ( Environmental Laws Speech ): I move that the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment (Senator Birmingham) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to environmental protection. Of course this government has always had it in for the environment. This government has always wanted to find a way to weaken environmental protections—and we really have to question how much weaker they can get. We have the situation where one million hectares of koala habitat in this country have been destroyed. We have koalas in this country, in some parts, that are endangered. We have mines that are given approval, only then to contaminate water catchment areas. And, of course, we have the devastating and shocking destruction of 46,000- year-old ancient Aboriginal heritage. And this has happened under this government's watch. This has happened under the laws that are currently in place. What we&#

Sarah Hanson Young: Some months ago, late in the evening, when we were debating the rescue packages being put forward by the government, I stood in this place and argued that there needed to be an arts-and-entertainment-industry-specific package before more jobs were lost and before more businesses went to the wall. Sadly, that didn't happen. Some people, of course, have been able to access JobKeeper, but many within the industry have been left out in the cold. But the big question will come in September when JobKeeper ends. The arts and entertainment industry will not be in a position come September to resume and to snap back as the government continues to insist. It just won't be. So several months on I'm now pleading with the government again and for all in this place to insist that the Minister for Finance, who has the ability on rules that have already been agreed to by this place and the other, fund a specific package for arts and entertainment. I understand that this

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young (South Australia) 13/05/2020 Covid -19 Arts and Entertainment Industry: I rise today to speak about the impact that COVID-19 has had on hundreds of thousands of artists and entertainers right across Australia. We know that this has been a tough time for all Australians. From having to stay away from loved ones and find new ways to celebrate birthdays and have coffee catch-ups, to those who have lost jobs and livelihoods, with no idea of what awaits them in the future, or those who have tragically lost a family member or friend due to the health crisis of COVID-19, we have all felt these impacts in one way or another. There have been few things that have brought us together during these isolated times, but there has been one thing that we have all been able to turn to and take comfort from, and that's our arts and our entertainment industry. A good book, our favourite TV show or film, musicians doing gigs via social media, and virtual exhibitions have all

Senator Hanson-Young Oil Exploration (South Australia): I move:  That the Senate— (a) notes that:  (i) Norwegian oil company Equinor has announced it is discontinuing its exploration drilling plans in the Great Australian Bight,  (ii) this is an opportunity to celebrate the pristine and precious Great Australian Bight and to protect it for future generations and the rest of the world to come and experience,  (iii) the Bight is ecologically and environmentally significant and home to some of the most unique wildlife in the world with 85% of marine life found in the Bight found nowhere else,    (iv) Australia Institute Research has shown that more than 4 in 5 South Australians (84%) and 7 in 10 Australians want to see the Bight given World Heritage protection, and    (v) in July 2018, the South Australian Parliament called on the state government to work with the federal government to seek listing under the World Heritage Convention of the waters, seabed and coastline of the Great Austra

  Senator Hanson-Young Speech on the Australian Fires: I rise today to give a contribution on this condolence motion and of course associate myself with comments by many in this place in relation to just what a devastating summer we have had—the numbers of people who have lost homes, have lost property, have lost livelihoods; individuals who have so terribly, sadly, lost their lives as a result of these terrible fires. We know that communities have been destroyed, tested; they're suffering. Our environment has been ravaged. Almost eight million hectares have been burnt across the country in those states that have been ravaged—millions and millions of hectares, much of which was so special to this country that we had given it World Heritage protection. Over a billion animals have been killed. And we know that the figures aren't even finalised on that. Many more animals are dying today because of the lack of food and clean water because their habitats have been destroyed. We als

Hanson Young: I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture (Senator McKenzie) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to climate change and drought. Yesterday I was in this place and I asked the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Cormann, about the impact of drought on farming communities and the fact that building dams were not a policy that would help the struggling farmers today or, indeed, help the river system in the months and years to come. Today I asked the Minister representing the Minister for water and drought, Senator McKenzie, whether this government will finally accept the link between climate change and drought. Yet we did not get a straight answer. What we have seen is that this government continues to have its head buried in the sand when it comes to climate change, when it comes to drought and when it comes to the emergency that we are in. The only thing this government wants to do

Hanson Young: I was asking in relation to this government's proposal to spend more taxpayers' money building more dams in places such as New South Wales. And while I'm standing here on my feet, we know, of course, that the New South Wales state government have just announced that they are going to move ahead with watering down—excuse the pun—and slashing environmental protections and assessments to build new dams and new pipelines, all in a big rush to look as though they're doing something in relation to the crippling drought, which we're experiencing throughout the Murray-Darling Basin. Of course, the big problem here is that simply building dams doesn't make it rain. Building dams does not create more water. In fact, we are going to see this government spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money building dams that will further destroy the Murray-Darling Basin river system and further destroy the farming communities throughout the basi