GREENS Senators Peter Whish-Wilson and Cate Faehrmann are in Newcastle tonight to promote the NSW election campaigns of Newcastle candidate John Mackenzie and Wallsend candidate Rebecca Watkins.
Senator Whish-Wilson, who earlier this month introduced a private member's bill opposing the PEP-11 offshore gas project, is his party's spokesperson on "agriculture, healthy oceans and waste" and was last in Newcastle in October for a parliamentary committee hearing on biosecurity, the varroa mite and foot-and-mouth disease.
The campaign launch took place yesterday evening on board the retired Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin, which is now in private ownership and being restored by volunteers at Carrington.
In an interview today, Friday, with the Newcastle Herald, Senator Whish-Wilson reaffirmed his party's objections to PEP-11, which he described in parliament as "complete insanity".
The project is back before federal authorities for a decision after the licence-holders took the federal government to court alleging former PM Scott Morrison had displayed bias in his pre-election intervention to kill the proposal.
Senator Whish-Wilson said the Greens were opposed to any new fossil fuel project, and defended his party's attitude towards the Albanese government's "safeguard mechanism", which it says it will only support if it includes a ban on any new fossil fuel projects.
With the Coalition opposed, the Greens are being urged to side with the government to avoid a re-run of events in 2009 when the party opposed the Rudd government's carbon pollution reduction scheme.
Senator Whish-Wilson was previously in Newcastle in October as a member of a parliamentary committee investigating biosecurity, particularly in relation to the varroa mite - believed to have entered Australia through the Hunter - and foot-and-mouth disease.
Senator Whish-Wilson said authorities were still unable to say how and when the varroa destructor mite entered the country, but evidence from officials at a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday indicated it could have been here for a year before its presence was made public in July last year.
It was originally announced the mite entered through the Port of Newcastle but officials have since said they have no evidence to support that original supposition.
The committee heard the total of infected premises stood at 112 after "intensive surveillance" within the "ten-kilometre eradication zone" centred on Newcastle.
The senator, who entered parliament in 2012 to replace former leader Bob Brown, said the Greens wanted shark nets outlawed.
"The current methods used, including at Newcastle beaches, are outdated," Senator Whish-Wilson said.
"You wouldn't use 50 year old safety equipment in the workplace or schools, so why the oceans?"
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