Committee members Lynda and Ailsa met recently with Senator Louise Pratt. The aim was to introduce our group and to congratulate the government on successfully negotiating a strengthened Safeguard Mechanism Act which will deliver real emissions cuts.

It was a positive and constructive meeting and Senator Pratt was supportive of our position, clearly understood the issues around climate change and offered ideas for future advocacy.

We advocated that the government should see the Safeguard Mechanism Act as a cornerstone for more ambitious emissions reduction and that Australia should work to exceed its 2030 target and take an optimal, as informed by science, decarbonisation ambition to the 2035 target.

We provided the Senator with a copy of the most recent IPCC report and advocated the following:

• No new fossil fuel projects
• The need to strengthen environmental laws
• Set limits on offsets
• Establish a National Energy Transition Authority as an independent public body
• Legislate Fuel Efficiency Standards
• Support Paul Griffiths concept of “Rewiring Australia – Electrify everything”, and encourage citizens and businesses to upgrade to renewables and electricity as soon as possible. 

We also sent the Senator a copy of our group’s position paper on Federal Government mitigation and adaptation and reported on our meeting to Tania Lawrence MP for Hasluck.