Your Green vote is wonderful - help outside election times is also welcome 🍉

Elections are important, but there's a whole stack of different ways you can assist building support for the Greens.

Outside election times we hold events, engage in advocacy around local, national, and international issues, enjoy catching up to chat about Greens business, liaise with State and Federal Greens policy discussions, and more. There's even a Greens Bushwalking Club.

We understand we can all only do what we can as volunteers, juggling family, work, and everyday life, so there's no pressure. We value collaboration, different skill sets, and hearing what's important to Greens supporters locally. How we can make a difference. If you'd like to help offer an alternative to the two party system, and let people know the value of Green policies, please let us know.

You're also welcome to come along to our events, and if you have any questions, contact: secretary@sutherland.nsw.greens.org.au

If you're not sure what you could do, here's a couple of ideas...

do you like chatting with people? Can you help at a stall and talk with others about Greens policies?
is there an issue you care about? Would you organise an event to raise awareness about it? Or step in to help with event planning generally? Organise a community stall at a market, a film screening, a talk, or a bushwalk?
can you take great photos?
would you like to help with social media?
can you make wonderful banners and signs?
can you help with general admin?
do you have IT or graphic design skills?
do you have a good spot for a poster around election time?
can you help erect / remove posters?
would you like to help phoning people?
can you help with doorknocking?
do you like letterboxing?
can you help out on pre-poll? Even if it's just a couple of hours?
can you help on election day?

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Climate change, natural disaster resilience, & our NSW bushfire policy

Our planet is on track to reach 2°C or more before 2050. We're approaching irreversible system tipping points: 2024 was the second calendar year that global warming exceeded 1.5°C.

The Greens take climate change seriously. We're already seeing the impacts, more severe heat waves, droughts, floods, and storms. Sutherland Shire is surrounded by national parks. Our area escaped the horror 2019-20 bushfires. We may not be so lucky next time. Meanwhile, more frequent extreme weather events are leading to huge increases in insurance premiums.

The NSW Greens bushfire policy calls for an urgent increase in the budgets for the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW), the firefighting capabilities of National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), and the Forestry Corporation. We recognise the need to increase firefighter numbers, reinvest in strategic bushfire fighting and planning, and meet or exceed funding levels of other states.

Most of all, we need the State and Federal Labor governments to step up, and stop approving more coal and gas. In late 2025 the Net Zero Commission Coal Mining Emissions Spotlight Report found that further expansion of the NSW coal industry is inconsistent with our legislated emissions reductions targets and the Paris Agreement.

The last thing we need is a coal mine underneath our drinking water catchment

Peabody’s Metropolitan Colliery has now damaged two water catchments: the Woronora Reservoir catchment, our drinking water, and the Hacking River catchment, which includes the main waterway running through the full length of the Royal National Park.

Peabody is not only damaging our water catchments. The Metropolitan Colliery is the fifth highest emitting coal mine in NSW.

It's Scope 1 emissions in FY24 were almost 700,000 t CO2-e, and 80% of this was methane (554,603 t CO2-e). Methane-rich GHG emissions here will likely continue for decades, if not centuries, well beyond the mining and decommissioning period.

Despite these impacts, Peabody is currently seeking to expand their mining operation under the Woronora 'Special Area'. The Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council has condemned the proposal, as have a number of government agencies, including WaterNSW, and the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Unconventional Gas Development and Large Coal Mining Development (IESC).

What is especially concerning is that because this extension is being put through as a modification, not a new application, the original 2009 conditions of approval will apply. This allows Peabody to cause irreversible damage to swamps if the company purchases biodiversity offsets.

Swamps filter and clean our water, they are a vitally important public asset, and new research has shown that permanent damage is likely. The Woronora Coastal Upland Swamps are listed as an Endangered Ecological Community under the Threatened Species Conservation Act. They are also key habitat for at least 12 of the most threatened animal species. Swamps cannot be remediated.

Peabody's application to extend the mine is being reviewed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Labor's new Environment Minister Murray Watts will be deciding whether or not to approve the mine's extension application, with input from the NSW Department of Planning. The multiple coal sludge discharges into the Royal National Park will also need to be considered.

If the Minister signs off on it, this will be the first new approval here in 16 years. Labor first gave a green tick pass ✅ to this mine in 2009.

Peabody has stated outright that this extension is only the beginning of plans for an even larger mine.

Can you help us stop this mine?

If you have any time over the next few weeks, please consider writing to the Planning Minister and local MPs asking them to refuse this expansion plan.

There's also a new petition people can print off, sign, and post back. It's a good way to ask friends and family to help protect our drinking water.

The information sheet here has MP's contact details, and the petition itself:

Negotiating our future

Labor and the LNP consistently fight Greens policy amendments. Negotiation is a key feature of politics, and Greens interventions do achieve positive results. Most recently, the solid improvements to Labor's proposed Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act reforms:

ending decades-long exemptions for forestry destruction,
removing the ability for coal and gas projects to use fast-tracked approvals or the ‘national interest loophole’,
new powers to stop illegal land clearing,
saving the Water Trigger,
and ensuring the Federal Minister can always step in to protect the environment

Despite significant wins for nature, the new EPBC Act Bill is still woefully short of what the climate needs - with the ALP's refusal to take meaningful action on climate it looks as if the coal and gas lobby still run both major parties.

When the Woodside approval was pushed through as soon as Labor began their second term it was a sharp reminder that Labor's "Safeguard mechanism" is not enough to protect our climate. Labor pushed this through while running hard on the line that the Greens are 'blockers' - it was an obvious attempt to sway public opinion by portraying the Greens as standing in the way of good policy for no reason.

The Greens as 'blockers' story began in 2009 with another terrible Labor policy that did nothing to address climate change: the 2009 Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

Back then Labor's own Treasury modelling showed the CPRS would have achieved ZERO emissions reductions for at least 25 years, through to 2034. Labor proposed giving billions in handouts to big polluters through that whole intervening period. They were locking in emissions targets that failed the science. Any future attempt to strengthen the scheme would've resulted in billion dollar compensation payouts to big polluters.

The Greens blocked the legislation, and Labor have been complaining ever since, even though in 2010, just months later, the Greens worked with a more collaborative Gillard Labor government and Independent MPs to introduce world-leading climate legislation. This Greens-led package included a price on carbon that reduced emissions, established the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It achieved far more than the CPRS, and resulted in $20 billion being invested in over 600 energy projects around the country. The Liberals canned this policy in 2014.

It's a mark of Labor's skill in spin that they're still able to chant "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good".

Since taking government in 2022 Labor has pushed through 31 mine approvals.

According to the Climate Council 38 other fossil fuel proposals with serious biodiversity and climate impacts are in the pipeline. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's website shows that at the end of 2021 carbon emissions were 440 million tonnes a year. By 2023, they were only 453 million tonnes a year. So Greenhouse gas emissions have not dropped in any meaningful way under Labor either.

Another factor is the global energy revolution. Australia is lagging very badly. At the end of 2024 China had a total installed renewable capacity of 1,878 GW. Between January and May 2025, China added an additional 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind. Through the whole of 2024 Australia only installed 7.5GW.

In 2016 coal's share of power generation in China was 73%. In 2025 that fell to 51%, and over the last 18 months their emissions seem to have plateaued. China is now inspecting their own coal mines to make sure they don't produce more than their quota. The government has also built electric arc furnaces that produce more than 160 million tonnes of steel annually, the equivalent to the total output of Japan and the United States combined.

The writing is on the wall for Australia's export markets, and Australians employed in coal mines here.

The Greens recognise the need for genuine, tangible solutions, including a realistic transition plan to secure a better future for workers employed in polluting industries.

It's astonishing Labor people continue to claim that Labor cares for the environment, is 'responsible', and that they're 'political realists'. Such claims are usually intended to stop people shifting their support to the Greens, a party that does offer climate policies these ALP outliers claim they want to implement. Today the Greens are still the only party seeking to implement climate policy in line with scientific advice.

It's worth noting that under Labor Australia has also become a world leader in arresting climate and environment protesters. Peaceful protest is effectively being criminalised.

These threats to our longstanding democratic rights has been extended to activists standing against human rights abuses and murder in Palestine, as well as people questioning whether Australia's sale of weapons parts to Israel meets our human rights obligations under International Treaties we've signed against war crimes and genocide.

Voting patterns over the last few years show people are increasingly coming to reject the two party system. .

Australia's infamous, appalling housing crisis has developed under the watch of previous governments who took no substantive action to address it. Rents and house prices are still skyrocketing, with increasing numbers of Australians becoming homeless.

Labor and the LNP continue to support billions in tax handouts to wealthy property investors.

Achieving change is not easy, but Greens interventions do make a difference. In 2023 we secured $3 billion for social housing, six times what Labor originally planned to spend.

Meanwhile both major parties remain resolved to spending $375 billion on nuclear submarines we might never receive.

Is the US a reliable ally? The shaky AUKUS Treaty is proceeding, despite all calls for a review.

Sutherland Greens members are actively involved in the anti-AUKUS actions, and support WAWAN - Wollongong Against War and Nukes. We are a signatory to the Port Kembla Declaration, expressing concern at the potential siting of a nuclear submarine base in Port Kembla, on the traditional lands and waters of the Dharawal people.