Page180 - Week 01 - Thursday, 3 December 2020
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when I hesitated in this endeavour. My daughters, who are not here today—let’s face it; they don’t listen to daddy at the best of times, let alone for 10 to 20 minutes—have made many sacrifices as I undertook Greens work, and I hope to make those sacrifices worthwhile.
I thank so many within the Greens who pulled together as one awesome team. To mention you all would take too long, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Now I would like to depart from tradition and finish with a call to action. As I stand before you, I am being judged. Every time I sit in this chamber, I will be judged. For the entirety of the time that I serve as a member for Yerrabi, I will be judged. I will be judged by myself in those dark moments of the soul when I stand in front of the mirror. I will be judged by history, which will, in the fullness of time, come to a verdict on what I did—or, perhaps more importantly, what I did not do. I will be judged by the voters of Yerrabi, each of them my ultimate boss, who will have their say in 2024. But the harshest judges of all will be my own children. Once they become aware of the state of the climate, I will need to look them in the eye and be answerable to them.
If you want to know what is driving me, it is this: if you think I will be alone in the dock, you are very much mistaken. We are going to be all in it together. It is the future of my children, of all children, that is at stake. “Normal” does not cut it anymore. We congratulate ourselves on 100 per cent renewable electricity. It is not enough. Natural disasters, bushfires, smoke and a pandemic are a new normal. This last decade, the hottest on record, will be the coolest decade for the rest of the century.
I am not worried for the sake of our planet. This lump of rock will continue to go on. Life, in some form, will continue. It is humanity that I worry about. It is our own survival. We need to act fast, act with determination, and act with boldness and courage. We need to collaborate. We cannot be complacent. We have to move faster and harder. I exhort all here today to take up this challenge.
I want to pass on a better future for our next generation. My promise to this Assembly, to my children, and to all of our children, is, “I will single-mindedly apply myself to this issue every day.” The future is not fixed. We have the opportunity here to craft something better, and we need to do just that.
Papers
Madam Speaker presented the following paper:
Inspector of Correctional Services Act, pursuant to section 27—Report of a review of a correctional service—ACT Corrective Services Court Transport Unit 2020, by the ACT Inspector of Correctional Services, dated November 2020.
Mr Gentleman presented the following papers:
A Step Up for Our Kids—Snapshot Report—A Presentation of Data covering 1 July 2016 to 30 September 2020.
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