Mr. Speaker, we support the legislation, we’ll throw our support behind the legislation. We think it’s important in relation to the safety and security of the state of NSW. We’re glad the Attorney General has brought it up to the NSW parliament.

We supported it here, we will support it in the Upper House. It is important in terms of the safety and security of this state.

I ask all Honourable Members to think about the implications of the Blockade Australia protests, if you can loosely call them that, the guerrilla activity that’s taking place in NSW at the moment. Think about somebody that is stuck in a car accident at the airport tunnel at any point over the last three or four days when these protests took place. Think about ambulance officers that are desperately trying to get to that accident but couldn’t because of gridlock affecting two to three million people as a result of protests in that part of Sydney.

It is shameful to think that it’s appropriate to disrupt the lives of ordinary people as they go about their business in the pursuit of your own particular aims. And Mr. Speaker, can I say after looking up the aims of Blockade Australia, there are none. It appears It’s just anarchy for anarchy sake, putting it up on a website, disrupting people’s lives. It’s not like coal barons are the people who are being affected by these protests Mr. Speaker, it’s ordinary people going about their lives trying to earn a living.

A casual worker in NSW if he or she doesn’t turn up for work, doesn’t get paid. No one’s going to reimburse them Mr. Speaker.

What about a pregnant mother who’s desperate to get to a public hospital but can’t because for three days in a row, there’s traffic chaos in the Southern part of Sydney. What is their response as a parliament to that person to that family as they seek desperate and important medical intervention for the birth of their child?

What about an owner driver stuck at Port Botany for five or six hours, they will never be re-compensated as a result of that lost income?

And I say to the Greens and all those that support this legislation, this is not building consensus in relation to climate change. It is in fact alienating the very people that we’re trying to get on side to make decisive action in relation to climate change, to take decisive action in relation to climate change.

Now, the NSW Opposition moved amendments, some in concert with the Government that protect industrial action, which is the guaranteed right of a democracy, to take that industrial action as it pertains to the workplace.

Those amendments are important Mr. Speaker and it goes to schedule number one; campaigns by industrial organisations. I can report to the House it says omit all words on that line and insert instead industrial action and industrial dispute or industrial campaign, so they’re not subject to the scope of the Bill. We understand the Attorney General in his second reading speech asserted that that was the case. This makes it guaranteed.

It also goes on to say that all words be emitted in the subsequent or concurrent Bill before the House. Now that’s important, that gives the unions and all those representing workers in this state the guarantees that they need to make sure that they can make protests on behalf of their members to the Government Executive.

But it’s also important to suggest that, or I would say, shoot down assertions by the Member for Newtown, who said in her second reading speech, that the actions in relation to this Bill are stopping action in relation to the climate emergency, stopping action in relation to calls to the street for increased nurse to patient ratios and stopping action as it pertains to ending sexual violence. Well Mr. Speaker that is simply not true.

The simple fact of the matter is that the student action in relation to climate change, which was out the front of the Prime Minister’s residence last Monday, sought and were granted permission to protest. An auxiliary protests from Sydney University that again, ended at Kirribilli House sought and were granted permission from the NSW Police, as were protests in relation to the terrible murder in Newcastle, where people in Newcastle took action to the streets in relation to ending violence against women.

So there are protections in relation to peaceful protests in this state, but causing anarchy on a large scale in the pursuit, I guess, of action in relation to climate change, when we know it does the exact opposite is I think, concurrent with a pervasive approach to protests by the Greens and like-minded groups.

And we’ve seen this in relation to the Adani convoy in the lead up to the Federal Election in 2019, poking their finger in the eye of Queensland voters, right when we need them to support us in relation to climate change and taking action against the Morrison Government.

We’ve seen that in relation to the Greens decision to sink the CPRS Legislation of the Rudd Government. We know if that legislation passed Mr. Speaker, 200 million tonnes of emissions would have been struck from the Australian environment as a result of that legislation going through.

The simple fact of the matter is, rather than recruiting people to the cause of climate action, they stick their finger in the eye of the people who don’t agree. But we need to recruit people in relation to these important matters. That’s the distinction between Labor and the Greens.

This legislation is important. I’m happy to support it, Mr. Speaker, it’s important in relation to the safety and security of the state of NSW.

It’s important to protect lawful protests, and it’s important to carve out industrial protest against the Executive Government. That’s why Labor support this, there can be no ambiguity in relation to that.