Thank you Former Prime Minister

January 2040

Dear Former Prime Minister of Australia,

I want to thank you on behalf of my grandchild, who is now a young woman, for doing everything you could to ensure that the world she now flourishes in is clean, sustainable and ethical.

Thank you for listening to the young people who led the climate change protests in 2019 and for then making the changes required to create a more sustainable world. The way you led our country and showed the rest of the world that Australia is a country to look up to and be reckoned with was phenomenal.

The funding of wind farms and the solar energy initiative introduced in central Australia in the wake of your revolutionary decision to phase out coal mining was inspirational, to say the least. I commend how you managed to reemploy the almost 200,000 people employed by the coal industry by funding retraining in the wind and solar power industries. World leaders now look to you when big decisions are to be made. Congratulations also on your recent Order of Australia prize.

Thank you for placing a ban on logging old-growth forests Australia-wide and making it illegal to damage trees on private property without a permit. Such insight is to be applauded. The Australian animals were significantly reduced following the terrible bush fires of 2019/2020. The Koala was on the critically endangered list for many years, but numbers are now being boosted by the breeding programs in the federally funded wildlife centres. The tree-planting initiative undertaken by your government has meant the trees are also now regenerating.

The restriction on importing cheap timber from the Amazon Rain Forest has meant that the Amazon Forest, the lungs of the Earth, has started to regenerate, and other countries have followed in your footsteps. Well done.

My gratitude to you knows no bounds for how you imposed sanctions on the use of single-use plastics and pledged to phase out the use of plastics in supermarkets and the retail business sector. The howls of derision from the retail sector did not weaken your resolve. You stood firm and made the hard decisions. Thank you for taking control of Australia’s rubbish and recycling, and thank you for no longer sending it overseas for processing. Our rubbish, our problem.

The demise of the Murray-Darling Basin, where millions of fish suffocated and died. Blue-green algae blooms decimated the waters and were one of the century's worst environmental disasters. Your actions following this disaster meant that agricultural waste was no longer permitted to be washed into our river systems. It has taken a long time, but gradually we see a difference.

The way you turned over the management of lands and reserves to Australia’s first people following the long-overdue signing of the Treaty has made a world of difference to the number of bush fires in the hotter months. The formally dispossessed people have finally completed their journey towards reconciliation. Thank you.

Because you made the difficult decisions when required, I am now filled with hope for the future. The current Prime Minister and her cabinet are an inspiration to women everywhere with her empathy and her strong leadership. Just the type of role model I want for my granddaughter. Thank you for paving the way for women in leadership. Your decision to put more women on the front bench was prudent.

Thanks to you, my granddaughter now has a future that will provide for her children and grandchildren. When they study history at school, they will see that you were instrumental in their hopeful future. Again I say thank you From the bottom of my heart!

Yours sincerely

Future Grandmother