Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – I rise on behalf of the Greens in this place to express my most heartfelt sorrow and condolences to the people of Nepal and to thank the government for bringing on this condolence motion in both houses of the Tasmanian parliament today.
To our beloved Nepali Tasmanian community, I know you will be in shock and in mourning now, and this is our parliament’s opportunity to express our love and solidarity with you. We know Nepal is a small country and everyone here will be affected in some way by what happened. I note, and I hope to see all members join the Nepali community of Tasmania tonight at the vigil on the lawns at 6 p.m. Our hearts are with the Nepali community, as they are with the families of travellers from all over the world, including the 38 Australians who are still missing.
Mr President, this is an overwhelming tragedy that we are talking about here today, and because of the kind of world that we live in, it was a tragedy that everyone has been able to see happen through the cameras of the people who experienced that horror. What we know of the event is that, as others have mentioned, it’s understood that a glacial lake in the Himalayas collapsed and part of a mountainside came down the Trishuli River between Tibet and Nepal. It caused an earthquake; such was the scale of this geological climate-fuelled event. It caused an earthquake that registered 5.2 in magnitude and sent a tsunami of ice and rocks and mud down the Trishuli River at speeds of more than 100 kilometres an hour. It wiped out the Gyirong border crossing between Tibet and Nepal in one of the most shocking, horrific and tragic pieces of security camera footage you’ll ever see. Those poor people had no chance.
Small towns along the river, absolutely wiped out. We know that the confirmed deaths so far sit at around 950, but around 4500 people are still missing. The Nepali people are utterly blameless victims of this tragedy. We’re seeing glacial retreat all over the world. The Nepali people are responsible for 0.1 per cent of global emissions. Three out of four cars in Nepal are electric vehicles. They have reversed deforestation and around 40 per cent to 50 per cent of Nepal is forested. It is a sad and unacceptable fact that the poorest people, like the people of Nepal, are paying the highest price for the failure of wealthy nations to rein in fossil fuel mining and burning to too slowly uptake our renewable energy and their failure to protect our carbon stocks.
This enormous tragedy is a warning. If we don’t rein in carbon emissions, melting snow and ice will bring more suffering, and we all have a responsibility to heed the words of the Nepali prime minister to make governments and corporations do better and start doing the right thing.
So, in the immediate sense, of course, I encourage all Tasmanians who will be feeling this pain in solidarity with the people of Nepal and our Nepali Tasmanian community, to donate to the relief and recovery effort. A number of organisations have set up relief and recovery appeals, including Red Cross and UNICEF, and it is true, Mr President that every dollar that we donate will be of some help but the best thing we can do, and we all know this, the best way we can support the people of Nepal, and all poorer countries into the future, is to rein in our emissions.
I note the condolence motion with a heavy heart and on behalf of the Greens in this place, extend my love and care to the people of Nepal, and to our dear Nepali community of Tasmania. I note the motion with a very heavy heart.
