Australian Greens Anti-racism spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has expressed her serious concerns about a Lowy Institute survey which found that 1 in 5 surveyed Chinese-Australians have been threatened or attacked during the past 12 months.

Senator Faruqi said:

“There’s no doubt ‘Covid racism’ is at play here. But we should not disregard the impact of political rhetoric and the consequences of heated debate over Australia-China relations.

Australian Greens Senator for NSW, Mehreen Faruqi, has said that today’s announcement of a NSW ban on firefighting foam containing PFAS chemicals is welcome, but long overdue.

The Commonwealth should now proceed with a national ban.

Senator Faruqi said:

“Communities across NSW will welcome this news. It is long overdue. Our environment and people’s livelihoods have been ruined by toxic PFAS chemicals.

Australian Greens Anti-Racism spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that all key government agencies have indicated in initial PJCIS committee submissions that the threat of far-right extremism is growing.

However, the Greens say substantial policy change and political action is nowhere to be seen.

Senator Faruqi said:

 I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020. This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to provide a new definition of academic freedom that enshrines in law principles of freedom of expression and substitutes the existing term 'free intellectual inquiry' in relevant provisions with the term 'freedom of speech and academic freedom' to align the language of provisions within the model proposed by Robert French.

Tonight I want to talk about homelessness and housing. Over the last few decades, Australian governments have created a housing system that actively impoverishes people and makes inequality worse. Safe, secure, high-quality housing is a human right, not a privilege reserved for those who are able to afford to pay through their noses for it. Instead of ensuring everyone's right to a home, governments have implemented and persisted with policies that benefit big developers and wealthy investors, to everyone else's detriment.

I rise to take note of the document Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act 1997—Livestock mortalities during export by sea—report for the period 1 July to 31 December 2020. These latest numbers help to confirm that in 2020, despite it being the year in which so much of the global economy and global trade was disrupted, the brutality of the live export trade still went on. Nothing, it seems, will stop the Australian government from continuing to export sheep and cattle for profit.

The Greens have responded to sickening reports of a violent assault by a man with a swastika on a First Nations woman and her daughter in Western Australia.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens Anti-racism spokesperson, said:

“This is a horrendous act of racist violence and I hope the perpetrator is identified and prosecuted without delay.

“Far-right extremists and neo-Nazis are feeling emboldened. This is the crisis the government refuses to take seriously.

On 8 March, millions of people across the world will be marking International Women's Day. We will look back and reflect on how far we've come on gender equity. The sobering fact is that we will not see gender parity in our lifetime or our children's lifetime. On current tracking, it will take four to five generations to close the global gender gap. As a woman and as a feminist, that is unpalatable for me. We have fought very hard and we have won battles, many battles. But, when I think of what happens right here in my own workplace, reality hits me in the face.

 I thank Senator Walsh for bringing this matter of public importance to the Senate. Over the last 40 years, Australia has gone from being one of the most egalitarian countries in the Western capitalist world to one of the most severely unequal—one dominated by business interests. Key to the growth of inequality and precariousness in Australia has been decades of neoliberal industrial relations policy designed to smash the power of organised labour and reorientate workplace organisations in favour of maximising gain for employers and giving them more flexibility to hire and fire workers.

This government is full of the ideological children of John Howard. A fundamental project of the Liberal and National parties is shifting the balance of power from workers to capital. At every turn they will privilege profits of corporations, of billionaires and of rent-seekers over the wellbeing of people and communities. Their policy agenda is the result of laziness, malice and an irrational obsession with free markets and competition. Decades of market-led policy, labour market deregulation and union busting have diminished the quality of work for so many people.