I rise to speak on the Select Committee on Job Security's second interim report, on insecurity in publicly funded jobs. The Greens welcome the tabling of this interim report, and generally we concur with the recommendations as well. During this inquiry, we have engaged with witnesses from a huge range of industries, organisations and parts of our community. I too thank the members of the committee, but especially the committee secretariat, without whose excellent work we would never be able to produce such insightful reports.

What a huge privilege it is to represent my wonderful state of New South Wales in the Senate. Thank you so much to my colleagues for nominating me and, especially today, it is wonderful to be joined by two incredible black senators, Senator Cox and Senator Thorpe, and be standing here with our team, which actually respect and celebrate First Nations culture and diversity in Australia.

The Greens have today announced that in balance of power after the next election, they will push a plan to build one million new publicly-owned, affordable, high-quality and sustainable homes.

The Greens’ push for secure housing comes as property prices surge to record highs and a generation has been locked out of home ownership, unable to save enough for a deposit, while they continue to face rising rents.

The Greens have today announced a plan to build 125,000 new homes and sell them to people locked out of housing for $300,000.

Young people locked out of the housing market could decide a number of key inner city elections around the country, including Griffith in Brisbane.

With a tight election looming, a win in Griffith could put the Greens in the balance of power, and push the next government to make housing more affordable.

The Greens are campaigning on the issue of housing affordability, promising to offer good quality $300K homes to first home buyers.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt, Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi and Greens Health spokesperson Jordon Steele-John have joined teachers and parents calling for a national COVID Safe Schools action plan as students return to schools in NSW, Victoria and the ACT and public health restrictions are eased across the country.

At a time of global crisis, the Greens will provide support and reparations for the Global South by boosting international aid through Official Development Assistance, providing $4.5 billion of climate finance and reparations to 2025, and cancelling bilateral debt obligations.

The Greens’ funded plan to decolonise international aid will help to right historical wrongs and support countries across the world grappling with interconnected crises.

Opinion polling of 1,052 Australians commissioned by the Greens and conducted by Lonergan Research has found Australians are overwhelmingly concerned about animal welfare and supportive of key animal welfare policies ahead of the next federal election. Crucially, strong animal welfare policies can impact voting intention.

Quick statistics:

With the confirmation of new Senator for Western Australia Dorinda Cox today, Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, has put the Greens on election footing with a reshuffle of the Greens’ ‘shadow Ministerial’ portfolios that prioritises the party’s key campaign areas and sets the party up for ‘balance of power’ negotiations in the likely event of a minority Parliament. 

Australian Greens Housing spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has expressed alarm at the figures released today from the Australian Bureau of Statistics from their Residential Property Price Index. The release shows that there was an overall 6.7% rise in house prices for the June 2021 quarter with Sydney and Canberra experiencing an unprecedented rise of over 8%.

Senator Faruqi said:

Australian Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that a new report by the Centre for Future Work estimating 40,000 job losses is a devastating exposure of the extent of the insecure work crisis in higher education.

Senator Faruqi said:

“Tens of thousands of job losses amount to nothing less than complete decimation of large parts of our tertiary education sector.