There wasn’t a breath of wind in his sails this morning but still Tom Hunt took to Lake Burley Griffin in his kayak with a strong message: “We’ve wrecked your climate, sorry”.

The 69-year-old grandfather sails once a week during parliamentary sittings with his public apology hoisted on his sail, and he’s inviting everyone to get onboard to support a national climate apology.

“We’ve got a national apology for past generations, we need a national apology for future generations,” he says. “I’m answering [climate activist] Greta Thurnberg’s question. We wrecked your planet, sorry from Australians. From my generation to her generation.”

Tom spent 31 years working for mining company BHP in Port Kembla and he laments his lack of action on climate change.

“I’m very disappointed that myself and a lot of others didn’t find this issue sooner or start doing something about it sooner,” Tom says. “We’ve left it far too late. I’d like to hear an apology from politicians and others who stood in the way of the action that we needed.”

Fifty years ago, Tom recalls reading a text book at university titled The Limits To Growth, about the dangers to the environment if people didn’t change their ways.

“We’ve had such a long time to take action before we got this far,” he says. “We’re still approving coal and fracking, it’s absolutely absurd.”

Tom admits that sorry is a difficult thing to say but he hopes a national apology will motivate politicians to take action.

“People are reluctant to give in. To say that we’re wrecked is a dreadful statement and it’s throwing in the towel but that’s how I feel,” he says. “I look at the science and I don’t think we can recover from this and it’s because of the inertia of the world, the power of the fossil fuel industry, who are controlling the world for money not for the future.”

Before Tom hopped in his kayak this morning, he was rallying at a protest outside Parliament House, against a new industrial hub on Darwin Harbour for petrochemicals. The yet-to-be developed site received a $1.5 billion funding commitment in the Federal Budget.

“I’m doing what I can,” Tom says. “I’ve done things at home – solar panels, batteries, electric car, electric stove, solar hot water. We need everybody to do that.”

In November, Tom plans to sail his kayak from Port Kembla to Newcastle for a blockade of the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle.  

For more information, visit yourclimate.au