Greens Senator pushing for Parliament work from home shift as cost-of-living, fuel crisis hits Australia

Next week’s sitting of Federal Parliament would be cancelled and politicians instead able to deliver their speeches online from home under a radical proposal from a Greens Senator to help address the country’s fuel crisis.

Tasmanian Senator Peter Whish-Wilson has suggested drastic measures taken during the COVID pandemic could be reintroduced at Parliament House allowing MPs to “show the Australian people that if we can do it, you can do it too.”

“What can we do as parliamentarians to show how serious this is? I mean, we obviously don’t want to panic people either, that’s that the worst thing we can do is you know add to the anxiety, but we also have to be realistic,” Senator Whish-Wilson said.

Unions have this week demanded workers be allowed to work from home (WFH) amid the global fuel crisis, but the idea has so far been rejected by government and business leaders.

Last week the International Energy Agency suggested a string of measures to deal with the shortages of fuel, including increased adoption of WFH arrangements and limiting travel by public officials including flights.

Senator Whish-Wilson says that Australian parliamentarians demonstrated they could adapt to remote work during the COVID pandemic, and the current crisis also warrants emergency measures.

“Next week, thousands of people are going to come to Canberra and catch flights and get in vehicles. During COVID we had a system built by Cisco Systems where we could work effectively from our offices or our homes.”

“We had big screens on the Senate chamber wall. We could give speeches. We’ll hear the votes. Maybe we’ve got to do the same thing. We’ve got to demonstrate and lead by example and scale back parliaments like we did during COVID.

“I mean it feels like it’s a similar crisis now, obviously different in many ways, but it’s getting to a point where it’s extremely concerning, and we need to lead by example and show the Australian people that if we can do it, you can do it too.”

At a subsequent media conference, Greens Leader Larissa Waters distanced herself from her colleague’s idea, but told reporters the party was happy to look at any suggestions from the government.

“Look, those aren’t my words, and the government is the one with the information about fuel supplies. And if they put forward proposals in this way, we will have a look at whatever they propose,” Senator Waters said.

“What we’d like them to be considering is making public transport free and paying for it with an export gas tax, those gas companies are making squillions out of this war. At the very least we can do is keep some of that profit for Australians and invest it back into the cost of living.”