SYDNEY, Aug 24, 2018 – The man who brought a lump of coal into parliament to berate those advocating the clean renewable energy Australians love has been elevated to the prime ministership.This afternoon the Liberal Party voted to install Scott Morrison as their new leader, after a right-wing push tore down former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – largely because of his do-nothing National Energy Guarantee (NEG).
“Make no mistake, Scott Morrison is just a more polished version of Tony Abbott,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner Alix Foster Vander Elst said.
“Morrison served both Abbott and Turnbull. He has shown over his career that he is driven by political self-interest and will not hesitate to continue selling out the environment at the behest of his mates in the fossil fuel industry.
“Australians deserve better than this. The voices of ordinary people who just want the climate crisis addressed are absent from our parliament. We deserve a say in who runs this country and the way it’s run. We need an election now to demand a greener, fairer country.”
Ms Foster Vander Elst said Morrison would do little to change the established history of inaction on climate change and abandonment of the environment that had characterised the last 10 years of federal leadership.
“With large sections of Australia in severe drought and being scorched by dozens of mid-winter bushfires, Morrison is a leader the country simply cannot afford – we absolutely need someone willing to act on climate change,” she said.
“For the last few weeks Australians have watched in disgust while a government focused on itself played parliamentary games, even as the country literally burned around them.
“And now, as Australians are dealing with the devastating impacts of climate change – fires, droughts, bleaching reefs – the far right of the Liberal party has installed a prime minister who parades around parliament brandishing a lump of coal, rather than working to protect the future of this country.
“It’s not good enough. The people of Australia deserve better.”
For interviews:
Martin Zavan, Greenpeace Australia Pacific Communications Campaigner
0424 295 422