St Margaret's News August 2019 | Page 9

Global Controversy Do you think our Prime Minister and Deputy PM recently behaved badly towards our neighbouring Pacific Island nations concerned about their futures because of global warming? Deputy PM McCormack has been quoted as saying: “I also get a little bit annoyed when we have people in those sorts of countries pointing the finger at Australia and say we should be shutting down all our resources sector so that, you know, they will continue to survive…..They will continue to survive, there’s no question they’ll continue to survive and they’ll continue to survive on large aid assistance from Australia…….They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit, pick our fruit grown with hard Australian enterprise and endeavour and we welcome them and we always will….But the fact is we’re not going to be hijacked into doing some- thing that will shut down an industry that provides tens of thousands of jobs, that provides two-thirds of our energy needs ... and I’m only talking coal, let alone all of our other resources.” From Fr Rod Bower’s Twitter feed An organisation called 350.org Australia is launching an art competition for Pacific and First Nations youth in the lead up to a “climate strike”, because they believe “these young people who are on the frontline of the climate crisis need to be at the forefront of any work that takes climate justice seriously”. It is looking for financial support if you wish to help out: https://act.350.org/ donate/elevate-young-first-nations-and-pacific-art-sept-20-climate-strike/ St Margaret’s News 5 August