2026-10-29
By Sarah-Hanson Young
Manager of Greens Business in the Senate and Senator for South Australia
This has been a year of big changes in politics. Things feel more volatile right now than they have for a long time. The rise of One Nation and the radical right is deeply concerning to all of us who care about people and planet. Politics is in some ways nastier and harder than it’s been in my whole time in parliament but we can’t lose hope. Australians deserve a strong, optimistic and defiant progressive force. The Greens are needed more than ever to spread a message of positivity and hope and to show people we actually have solutions to the difficult problems we face.
The radical right and the politics of vested interest are happy to see democracy torn down and trashed. As the party for people and planet we must defend and restore hope in our democratic institutions and fight for community voices and participation in democracy itself.
ENVIRONMENT & WATER PORTFOLIO
In the final sitting week of last year, we finally secured long-awaited reforms to our environment laws. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act had not been updated since the Howard Government first implemented the bill in 1999. The Greens secured key wins in this package including the end of the decades-long exemptions for forestry destruction, removal of powers that would fast-tracked approvals for coal and gas projects, and strengthening powers to stop illegal land clearing. One thing Labor refused to budge on was implementing a Climate Trigger to force the Environment Minister to consider climate impacts when approving new projects, so we still have work to do in pushing the Government to create better protections for our climate and environment.
This year brought a new and rapid threat to our environment with AI data centres popping up all over the country, and dozens more already in the pipeline. These hyperscale centres have ravaged communities overseas by using more energy than entire cities, yet the Albanese Government wants to roll out the red carpet for them in Australia. We are supporting communities across the country in demanding a moratorium on building new data centres until we can get some rules and regulations in place, and ensure we aren’t sleepwalking into a climate and energy disaster. I am chairing the inquiry into AI and Data Centres that is visiting impacted sites as well as hearing from experts to get to the bottom of just what these centres will mean for people and our environment. This has already resulted in one company scrapping their plans for a $1 billion data centre in Lane Cove NSW. AI is the new extractive industry and the big tech cowboys expect to get their own way. We need to get the rules right to protect Australian communities and resources.
ARTS PORTFOLIO
Following more than a decade of campaigning by the Australian screen industry, I was so proud to play a key role in negotiating the passage of legislation that requires streaming services to feature and produce Australian content. Quotas have long been in place for free to air to ensure we see plenty of local content, but with the rise in popularity of streaming platforms owned by big tech companies overseas, home grown stories have been slipping away from our screens. Australians deserve to see themselves, their communities and their culture reflected on their screens, and now the massive profits earned by the likes of Netflix, Disney and Amazon from their Australian subscribers will be reinvested back into telling our own stories. As part of this deal we also won an extra $50 million for the ABC to produce children’s content. I could not have been happier to find out that the first project planned with this funding was a new adaptation of Bananas in Pyjamas to be produced in my home town, giving local Adelaide film crews and creatives the opportunity to secure jobs producing quality homegrown content for our kids that helps them understand the world they are growing up in.
Like many of my fellow South Australians, I look forward to the much-loved Adelaide Writers Week each year which thrived under the expert direction of Louise Adler AM. This year’s event was marred by our State Premier crossing the line between political interference and freedom of expression by instructing organisers to cancel the appearance of award winning Palestinian author Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. The entire festival crumbled after the majority of artists and the Director quit in protest, yet Premier Malinauskas refused to apologise. In a world so shaken by fear and uncertainly, we need truth tellers, and both political and cultural leaders with courage. I MC’d an event set up in the wake of the cancelled festival with Dr Abdel-Fattah and thousands of South Australians who showed up to tell the Government that we stand by artistic freedom and do not need permission to celebrate art, speech and thought.
COMMUNICATIONS PORTFOLIO
This year we have seen outage after outage from Australia’s telecommunications providers leaving millions of Australians without phone service, train service, EFTPOS facilities and worst of all, unable to contact emergency services. I chaired the inquiry into the Triple Zero service disruption that was set up to respond to the deadly 2025 Optus outage and extended when Telstra had a nationwide outage because they failed to replace an old piece of equipment. Triple Zero is an essential service - it is a matter of life or death for people. Expecting private corporations to do the right thing, to self-regulate and to put people’s safety ahead of their company profits is not working. The committee produced a comprehensive report with 11 key recommendations including that we nationalise Triple Zero and put this essential public service back into public hands.
Three years after the late Labor MP Peta Murphy’s report into gambling harms, the Government finally announced their package of reforms to address this growing issue. In true Labor fashion, their proposal was undercooked, prioritised the big betting companies, and did nothing to protect those most at risk of harm. I fought tooth and nail this year to show Australians just how insidious and predatory the gambling industry is, but even I was shocked by some of the horrible and heartbreaking stories we heard during the senate inquiry. For Labor and the Liberals to ignore the clear evidence and team up to pass weak legislation was a slap in the face to every Australian who has experienced the devastation of gambling harm.
I introduced a bill to make a simple amendment to current legislation that would improve access to end of life healthcare. Although every state and territory has legalised Voluntary Assisted Dying over the past few years with very strict and necessary safeguards, regional Australians face barriers due to loopholes disallowing VAD via Telehealth. I have worked closely with VAD advocate and Australian TV royalty Andrew Denton to rectify this and ensure that no one is denied dignity in their end of life care simply because of their postcode. Andrew featured on an episode of my new podcast and delved deeper into this issue with such incredible compassion and understanding, and I am looking forward to working with him further as we seek to pass the legislation.
COMMUNITY & SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Spending time with the community after so many weeks in Canberra always strengthens my resolve, and this year gave me plenty of opportunities. From joining my local Iranian community in opposing the US illegal war, standing up for Adelaide’s unique parklands under attack from our Labor Premier, speaking with a local girls’ school about leadership, and even having the honor of welcoming new Australian citizens by presiding over a citizenship ceremony, there was always so much passion and enthusiasm and I feel so lucky to be continuously reminded of why we work so hard and who we are doing it for.
The South Australian State Election in March was a positive one for the Greens, securing our biggest ever vote off the back of our first targeted lower house seat campaign. I was invited to join Channel 7’s Election Night panel and enjoyed being able to discuss such positive growth for our party whilst also saying exactly what I thought about One Nation’s results. Although we missed out on winning Heysen and a second upper house member by the skin of our teeth, it was fantastic to see more and more volunteers join our movement. It is obvious that the Greens SA are continuing to build off last year's massive federal election campaign and will keep growing towards positive gains in future.
- Sarah