Thirteen-year-old Lismore school student Ella O鈥橠wyer-Oshlack criticised聽Prime Minister Scott Morrison for his poor response to the catastrophic floods in New South Wales Northern Rivers region at the March 25 Climate Strike in Sydney.
鈥淲e have a government that continues to promote the mining and burning of fossil fuels despite what the science and the victims of these events say,鈥 she told the crowd gathered outside Kirribilli House, the PM鈥檚 official residence.
鈥淚鈥檓 a victim of the government鈥檚 continued failure to act on climate change and I'm not happy about it. I'm actually terrified for our future and the future of all of us while we have leaders that don鈥檛 even lead us in the right direction. In fact we are going in the exact wrong direction.
鈥淪o this is what I鈥檝e got to say to you Prime Minister Morrison: While you continue to fund the mining and burning of fossil fuels, you are destroying homes and lives.
鈥淗ave you ever had to flee your house in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm, scared out of your mind because you don鈥檛 know what is going to happen? Or if you will survive, or if your house will still be OK or if your friends are OK?聽
鈥淭his is not something I would wish on anyone and you didn鈥檛 even have the guts to come and talk to us when you visited Lismore.
鈥淵ou went and mopped a basketball court that already looked clean. You should have come to my house to mop the floors. We聽really needed it and an extra hand聽would have been nice.鈥