Page 101 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Uniquely presented in three parts, The Barber from Budapest & other stories is a story of survival, hope and love. It follows the life of Andras, born in Hungary before the cataclysmic changes of World War II tore at the fabric and heart of his world.
The first part of the book is her father’s narrative, spanning 1916 to 1957 in Hungary and Austria.
I recommend the book to anyone who would like to know a little bit more about the personal nature of the refugee journey of individuals.
Legislative Assembly—re-election
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (5.33): I would like to make some brief remarks upon returning to the Assembly. First, of course, I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands upon which we meet, the Ngunnawal people, their elders past and present and acknowledge their continuing contribution to the country.
I stood for election again because I believe that in 2008-12 the four Greens made a big, positive contribution to the ACT. Passing the greenhouse gas legislation was a major achievement. I think Shane Rattenbury has done an excellent job over the past four years, but he cannot do it all by himself. I stood for two reasons: I want to see a more compassionate Canberra, and I want to see a Canberra that continues the job of tackling climate change. Over the course of the campaign it also became apparent to me there was another reason to stand because—well, there were lots of reasons to stand—a lot of members of the community felt they were not being listened to. That is why the Greens ended up with the slogan of “Community first”, to reflect what we had been hearing from so many people.
This, of course, is not just an ACT issue. If you look overseas at Brexit and President-elect Trump, what they have in common is that many people are disillusioned with the major parties and the establishment and, even worse than that, there seems to be an increasing lack of respect for facts in politics. It has got to the stage where people are talking about being in a post-truth stage in politics, which is utterly frightening and utterly scary. I feel really lucky to be living in Canberra at times like this.
But Canberrans impact the global environment more than most people on the earth. It is estimated that the average ACT resident has an ecological footprint of 8.9 global hectares. That was in 2011-12, and that is 3½ times higher than the world’s average and it is the highest in Australia. As I said, climate change is the biggest issue for me, and given the current lack of leadership from our federal government, it is particularly important that jurisdictions like Canberra lead. It is particularly important for us because the ACT is expected to have longer, hotter summers and increased frequency and severity of storm events. We are expected to have more threat from bushfires, heat waves and violent storms, and threat to property, economic activity, natural environment, et cetera. By 2030 there will be twice as many fire ban days, and by 2050 it is projected the number of heat-related deaths will double.
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