Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (17:01): Thanks to the member for Footscray. That was a fine contribution. I enjoyed listening to that, and I enjoyed hearing about your past, fighting One Nation as a student. Best wishes to you.

Today I want to grieve for an issue that was close to the heart of my late colleague Dr Tim Read, and that is the nature that has been lost in the last 12 years of this government and for our kids who will not get to grow up in the stable climate that we all had. Victoria is facing an escalating climate crisis. The global average annual CO₂ concentration reached around 420 parts per million in 2023, which is over 20 parts per million more than when the government came to power in 2014. Melbourne has just had its hottest winter on record, and now we are heading into the worst El Niño event in recorded history. We are also seeing more killer heatwaves, longer bushfires, rising tides and deadly flash flooding. The failure of a glacier in the Himalayas just killed over 1400 people in Nepal and Tibet, with thousands still missing. Our oceans recently hit a record high average temperature of 21.1 degrees, and in August I am sure many people were terrified, as I was, to read the UN’s report Limiting Overshoot, which conceded that earth is hurtling past the 1.5 degree climate tipping point, which was agreed to in the Paris Agreement. It is now a question of how far we go above that limit. Temperatures are expected to increase by a catastrophic 2.6 degrees by the end of the century unless governments start taking drastic action to end coal and gas.

I am a scientist, and I am very aware that Victoria cannot solve this problem alone and that, by its very nature, climate change is a global problem. I get that this is not easy, that we have many people reliant on gas in their homes in Victoria, that people are used to driving cars that use fossil fuels, that it is hard to change things overnight. Given these sobering statistics – the very future of our children and our grandchildren, our ability to grow food in this state and the $167 billion worth of homes that will be lost by 2100 due to rising sea levels, according to the Climate Council’s latest report – surely, given all of this, as a wealthy state in a wealthy country which has so much at risk from climate change, we should be doing everything that we can and using every lever that we have to reduce this risk. At the very least, surely we should stop pouring fuel on the fire and making the problem worse. But unfortunately here in Victoria under this Labor government we are doing both. We are refusing to reduce our own emissions enough and we are pouring fuel on the fire by supporting new gas-drilling projects.

In February this year the Labor government tabled a response to the Greens parliamentary inquiry into climate resilience in Victoria, a fine piece of work that talked about what we need to do in the built environment to protect us from locked in climate change.

Yet Labor outright rejected key recommendations that would actually have led to significant change, such as the recommendation for a resilient homes scheme similar to those that already exist in other states. They also refused to create a permanent climate adaptation fund. I have had people who have previously worked for a very long time within the department come to me and tell me that they feel like this government just does not take climate adaptation seriously and that the climate adaptation plans are a joke because they do not have any actions attached and certainly do not have any funded actions attached. In fact this year Victoria will only spend $19 million on climate action. Meanwhile this same Labor government plans to fast-track AI data centres, and they continue to approve new oil and gas projects in Victoria, including a second drilling project near the Twelve Apostles. In the last year or so Labor have approved over a dozen new oil and gas projects in Victoria’s oceans and recently announced that they will backtrack on supporting renewable energy infrastructure by yet again reviewing transmission infrastructure across the west of the state, which is absolutely essential if we are to meet our renewable energy targets and get off coal.

It is Victorians who pay. We stare down higher energy and insurance bills in a heating world that has officially missed that 1.5-degree threshold, yet neither of the major parties is doing enough to touch the sides of the climate crisis. They have failed to heed the warnings, and it is us, ordinary Victorians, who end up paying the price. We pay through our skyrocketing insurance bills, we pay through our higher energy bills and we pay through the climate disasters and extreme weather we experience and all the loss that comes with that.

There is still time to change course, though. The UN’s report said that we can still stabilise the climate if we act very urgently and make significant changes. But if we do not, we are cooked. This government likes to talk about the fact that we have renewable energy targets, but in fact those renewable energy targets were set virtually at the level that the government knew we could meet with the existing investment that was in the pipeline. They were not an ambitious target that we were trying to extend ourselves to meet. Now even those meagre targets are likely to be missed because of the expansion of AI data centres, which are popping up right across the state as the Labor government has courted big tech to come here and build them, with very little protections and controls about the energy and water that they use.

I also want to grieve today for the nature and biodiversity we are losing due to this government’s inaction. I have never seen such neglect and disdain for our environment as I have seen in the last few years of this Labor government. We had a few years where we had some hope and some action, and the last few years have gone in the exact wrong direction. People I speak to no longer have any faith that this Labor government will do anything to protect the environment at all or that they care about it, to be honest. Victoria has already lost around 80 species since colonisation, with almost 2000 now facing extinction. Victoria’s latest state of the environment report rated 26 of 42 biodiversity indicators as poor, with 20 deteriorating since 2020. They are pretty damning stats. Labor has cut hundreds of environment workers at Parks Victoria, the Victorian Fisheries Authority, the biodiversity division at the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and many other agencies. In 2024 Parks Victoria’s core funding was cut by around $6 million and its capital by around $40 million. This year Labor cut it again. Labor starved Parks Victoria of funding so badly it could not even pay its park rangers the same as other public sector counterparts. The government’s flagship biodiversity strategy, called Biodiversity 2037, essentially is unfunded. Programs like Landcare remain critically underfunded. If they do not receive funding in the next year, they will have to sack Landcare facilitators and the program will go under. Imagine losing Landcare – a Joan Kirner legacy – because Labor defunded it. That is where we are at.

Instead of reforming our laws to protect native animals, Labor has bent over backwards for hunters, shooters, developers and mining and logging companies. They have backflipped on banning duck hunting, despite the recommendation of the government’s own parliamentary inquiry.

They ruled out any new national parks, including the decades-long plan for the great forest national park to protect the areas of our native forests that were previously logged, and instead opened up tens of thousands of hectares of national parks for recreational deer hunting. They have failed to protect the critically endangered grasslands in Melbourne’s west, land the government was meant to have purchased by 2020, but did not, and they have left loopholes that allow native forest logging by stealth.

When it comes to wildlife, we are also seeing some very worrying concerns. Last year the Victorian government issued 4806 authorities to control wildlife, authorising the killing of over 230,000 protected native animals. That is 58 per cent more permits than the average from 2009 to 2024 and 66 per cent more animals than the 16-year average – and it is getting worse fast. Permits were up 35 per cent in 2024 alone, and the number of animals was up 30 per cent. These permits are issued to landholders on request, and once they are issued the outcomes are not tracked. The government signs off on the killing of hundreds of thousands of protected animals and has no idea how many are actually killed. And regulatory changes now allow these permits to be converted to commercial harvesting in national parks and on other public land.

Kangaroos often bear the brunt of this system. The eastern grey kangaroo alone accounted for over 70 per cent of every animal authorised to be killed last year. Together, the three kangaroo species made up 79 per cent of the total. These are animals that are an icon of our country, yet the government is authorising their killing at levels well above historical norms, with no tracking and no idea of the real toll.

Koalas also bear the brunt of this government’s poor decisions. For years the government has claimed koalas are overabundant in Victoria, claims that have led to the mass killing of koalas, including shooting them from helicopters. But two weeks ago the government finally released a report it sat on for more than 12 months. The review, led by the Arthur Rylah Institute with scientists from major universities, estimated there were around 225,000 koalas in Victoria, less than half of previous estimates of 460,000, and they found them in chronically poor health. Of 68 koalas assessed, 29 were in such poor health they had to be euthanised. A quarter of Victoria’s remaining koalas – over 50,000 animals – live in commercial blue gum plantations. As native forests have been depleted, koalas have come to rely on these plantations for food and shelter. But when they are harvested, they are displaced, they face injury and death and there is nothing really in place to protect them. Restoring habitat and rebuilding koala corridors across Victoria should be one of our most urgent conservation priorities. Instead the government has offered a meagre $2.6 million. That is pocket change. When in New South Wales koalas were listed as endangered, the New South Wales government committed $190 million over five years.

A healthy environment is not just a nice-to-have. Clean air, fresh water, functioning ecosystems – these are the foundations of our health, our food, our economy and our culture. For First Nations people, country is not a backdrop to life, it is life. But Labor is treating nature and wildlife as something to be pillaged and destroyed for short-term profit. Funding for environment protection in Victoria is at a historic low. Species are declining, habitat is shrinking, invasive species are spreading. Meanwhile, the department managing our environment too often acts in the interests of industry, not nature. We need a fundamental shift, not tinkering at the edges but a genuine reordering of how our government values and invests in nature, and that is exactly what the Greens are here to deliver.

While we are talking about animals, I have another example of this Labor government abandoning animals in my own electorate. The Lost Dogs’ Home, a beloved institution in North Melbourne, has served our community well for over a decade. It is currently facing an uncertain future due to the government’s Arden development. Six years ago the government said they would acquire the Lost Dogs’ Home site on Gracie Street and make room for residential and commercial development, open space and flood mitigation as part of the Arden precinct. But it is now six years later and the Lost Dogs’ Home have not been advised of a new site or a timeline for relocation – they are still waiting. In the meantime the site in North Melbourne is bursting at its seams. Every month that passes requires staff to invest significant resources in maintaining ageing infrastructure that is not viable for the long-term needs of the Lost Dogs’ Home, and time is running out. So today the Greens and I are calling on the government to act to save the Lost Dogs’ Home and ensure it has a guaranteed future in a facility that is fit for animals and the community that it serves.

Although it is a bit of an aside, while we are here I would also like to talk about urban open space, something that we all need for our health and wellbeing. In particular there is an issue that has come up in my local area of Carlton and Carlton North. The City of Yarra has decided to ban picnics across the iconic green median strips along Canning, Rathdowne and Drummond streets. On Monday the City of Yarra declared that the median strips would be treated as part of the road rather than as the municipal reserve; therefore picnicking and having a drink with friends is not permitted – what wowsers!

There is something uniquely Melbourne about grabbing some food and a bottle of wine and sitting outside on the median strip with your mates on a warm evening. Carlton’s median strips are our neighbourhood’s shared backyards. It is distinctly Melbourne to use our public space like this, and we should celebrate the way we respectfully share our communal open space as part of Melbourne’s unique culture, not send in the fun police to stop people having a rosé in the sun. It should not be a crime to sit on the grass and enjoy a drink with friends.

So I am joining the community’s call to free the strip, and my message for Yarra Council and its killjoy mayor Stephen Jolly is this: banning picnics on median strips on Canning and Drummond streets is a ridiculous and unnecessary overreach and it needs to be reversed. The Greens stand with the community in saying, ‘We want our strip back.’ No-one is here to defend bad behaviour or people leaving rubbish and creating a disturbance, but banning picnics is a massive overreach. The council needs to find a way to reverse the ban and ensure our community can once again respectfully enjoy that great Melbourne pastime, a picnic in the sun in the middle of a median strip.

In conclusion, I grieve for the nature we have lost due to this Labor government’s inaction. I grieve for our children and grandchildren, who will not get the chance to grow up in a safe climate because political leaders across the world did not have the guts to take on the fossil fuel lobby and the status quo and do more to protect our kids’ future. I have lost faith the government will ever take climate change seriously, and that is exactly why the Greens exist to replace them.