Police remove youth climate activists from Parliament House (Image: Twitter/@tomorrowmvmt)

As the 47th Parliament sat for the first time, a group of young climate protesters were dragged out of Parliament House.

Climate group Tomorrow Movement brought a busload of young activists to Canberra on Tuesday to speak to parliamentarians about the need for climate action.

The group’s demands include increasing Australia’s carbon emissions target to speed up the decarbonisation of the Australian economy, a climate jobs guarantee, improving housing access, and launching a Senate inquiry to investigate these issues.

As Tomorrow Movement protesters filed into Parliament House, they were quickly stopped by police: “We were going to sit and do some speeches in the lobby when the police started dragging us out immediately without a chance to speak,” Desiree Cai told Crikey. 

The group then reconvened on the lawns of Parliament House where its young members spoke about the extent of the crisis facing them. MPs such as Greens senators Peter Whish-Wilson, Larissa Waters, Jordon Steele-John and independent Monique Ryan came out to speak to them. No Labor or Coalition members did.

Cai was disappointed with Labor’s response. The group met Labor MPs while they were in opposition but now they are in government they need to do more, she said. 

“The reason why we chose to do this protest on the first day is because we wanted to set the watermark high,” she said. “We wanted to say loudly on the first day that Labor’s plan isn’t good enough. They’re still funding fossil fuel projects, talking about new ones, when what we need is a big, transformative plan.”

The Labor government is set to pass its climate bill — including a carbon emissions target of 43% — in the House of Representatives today. Passing the bill through the Senate will require the support of the Greens and one other senator. 

The Greens have indicated they intend to pass the bill as a “floor not a ceiling”, but have foreshadowed pushing for further climate action. This includes a ban on new coal and gas projects, a policy that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected last night.