The Hon. Kelvin Thomson:

When the economist Leith Van Onselen was recently asked on ABC radio whether his support for a substantial cut in Australia’s migration program meant he was xenophobic, he replied that he supported a return of our migration program to the numbers we had when Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, and Bob Hawke were Prime Minister, and that he presumed that they weren’t regarded as xenophobes.

We’ve just had another bout of breathless reporting from journalists, economists and commentators about our economic growth, accompanying the release of the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Remarkably, people who ought to know better continue to talk about GDP, but make no mention of GDP per capita.

The Sustainable Australia Party has called for a ban on all property developer donations and contributions to political parties, following revelations yesterday at Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

Borneo is a great Indonesian tropical island – the world’s third largest - renowned for its remarkable forests and wildlife. But now that is at stake. 

Congratulations to Sweden’s most famous 16 year old, Greta Thunberg, for telling it like it is at the UN this week. No sugar coating there. “How dare you?” she said, to those selling the “fairytale of endless economic growth”.

The Sustainable Australia Party supports the Climate Strike, and our Victorian MP Clifford Hayes and National President William Bourke, as well as other Sustainable Australia Party members, will be attending the Melbourne rally.

Last year the Liberal Government passed the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act, and it came into effect in December. In doing so it earned attacks from Bill Shorten and Kristina Keneally during the Bennelong Byelection that it was “China phobic”.

The decision to move Indonesia’s national capital from Jakarta to the forests of Borneo was striking enough to capture global headlines. For those of us deeply troubled about the disappearance of our tropical rainforests and the beautiful and remarkable wildlife which inhabits them, it sounded ominous.

Tomorrow it will be exactly 10 years since I spoke to the Parliament describing increasing population as the underlying cause of the world’s problems.

Federal Labor Leader Anthony Albanese's call for a "mature debate" about population is welcome, and would have been even more welcome any time over the past decade, says former federal Labor MP for Wills, Kelvin Thomson.