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It is time for us to rise up and reclaim our power. As citizens of the world, as people of this planet.

If we want a fair, just, harmonious, equitable, peaceful world, we need to create it.

We need to take action. Show our politicians we care about our planet and the destruction being wreaked on it by unaccountable, tax-avoiding, profit-driven corporations who are polluting and poisoning the planet for profit.

If we analyse the genetically modified (GM) industry's “humanitarian” claims, we see they are nonsense. They trot out the line that GM food will solve the world's hunger.

But you know what? There is enough food in the world today. We don't have a lack of food. There is an abundance of it. It is just not getting distributed, the poor cannot afford it.

It is our food system that is the problem.

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No amount of additional GM food is going to solve this problem. This is the kind of justification dreamt up by well-paid public relations agents who write propaganda to manipulate the masses.

These kind of claims are trotted out by suit-wearing “experts” on our mainstream media because they are written on an official looking press release and our journalists accept them a fact.

There's a wider problem here. Our journalists accept the status quo. We don’t have an independent media.

We only need to look at Channel 9 and its refusal to broadcast the Greenpeace advert last month showing how plastic bottle waste from drinks makers like Coca Cola are washing up and destroying our sea-birds.

And why? Because Coca-Cola is fighting legislation to bring in a nationwide plastic bottle recycling scheme.

Is this the kind of world you want to raise your children in? Are you hoping the next generation will sort out the mess?

It's us that are causing these problems and it's us that need to solve them. We need to stop supporting these industries with our dollars. If there's one thing I urge you to do, it's think of three things you can do differently as a result of being here today.

Because its what we need right now. We need people to stand up.

[This is an abridged speech given by the author to the rally in Sydney on May 25.]