Today was our third week of a weekly vigil for 2 hours from 11 am on Tuesday outside Wills Labor MP Peter Khalil’s Sydney Road Coburg Office.
This Vigil was an initiative of Val, one of our members.
The following letter was delivered by email and handed in to his office on Week 2, 10 June 2025.
Hi Peter, Congratulations on your re-election as our MP for Wills.
Climate action was definitely one of the issues raised continually by citizens during the campaign. You signed the Climate Emergency Declaration in December 2016. We expect you to live up to that commitment as our Federal MP.
- Climate Action Merribek joined with over 200 international civil society organisations in a statement to the United Nations Oceans Conference this week in Nice, France to support a State Level prohibition on all fossil fuel exploration activities throughout national territories, including the territorial sea, Exclusive Economic Zone, and continental Shelf, and phase out existing fossil fuel extraction. Read the statement: https://www.oceancare.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/UNOC3-NGO-Coalition-Letter-to-Governments.pdf
- We are extremely disappointed with Environment Minister Murray Watt’s provisional approval decision on North West Shelf extension Gas Project to 2070. We note the Climate Analytics briefing note dated 5 June 2025 which outlines the full implications of Australia’s North West Shelf decision. It Calls the approval decision “an historic mistake and a denial of climate science.”
Climate Analytics is an international climate science NGO. They argue that we are being lied to and fed misinformation by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the North West Shelf decision and their report exposes this.
The Briefing note sets out the full implications of North West Shelf decision, from the enormous emissions that will pollute the atmosphere for thousands of years, their impacts on the ground, the ability of the government to meet its Paris Agreement commitments (and indeed its net zero ambitions), and counter some of the claims being made by the government around Australia’s need for gas, and the need of trading partners. https://climateanalytics.org/publications/the-full-implications-of-australias-north-west-shelf-decision
This briefing note significantly adds to other critiques such as by former WA Labor Premier Carmen Lawrence,
and former BP executive now Climate Councillor Greg Bourne.
A few Wills citizens proposed holding a weekly Vigil to end fossil fuels, and the first vigil was on 3 June.
So, we will be outside your office once a week, talking to constituents about fossil fuel approvals and Labor’s inability to commit in practice to phasing out fossil fuels that is making worse and increasing the frequency of extreme climate weather events like heatwaves, intensive rain, floods, and bushfires.
Why the vigil?
- the world has already hit 1.5C of global warming
- the largest cause of climate pollution is fossil fuel emissions
- the Australian government needs a plan to phase out fossil fuels
- instead they are approving extensions of coal and gas mining and development
- emissions in Australia actually increased last year
- the Federal ALP government has ignored protests and calls for urgent action
- we are determined to show that we will not let up on this until there is a clear countdown for fossil fuels, both within Australia and for export
- no more fossil fuel approvals and extensions as per what climate science and IEA Energy experts have been saying since 2021
You have a standing invitation as our Federal Representative, to come out and chat on climate issues with your constituents, during the vigil.
We have always behaved peacefully outside your office and will continue to do so as part of our vigil.
References:
See full list of References to our 2024 multi-lingual leaflet on No new Coal, oil or Gas.
Climate Action Merribek 