Speech Qbn meet the candidates 15 November 2007

I’m a member of the Bega Valley Shire council and I am very familiar with the pre-election tactic of trying to extract funding commitments from political parties.  So, I’m awake up to what you are doing. All Councils do it and I understand the reasons why, so good luck with Gary and Mike!

At a time when the Howard government can find more than $10 million extra a week to take part in the Iraq War, local government is being starved of funds.

And I note that the Mr Howard launched his campaign on Monday didn’t think it was worth mentioning that he has taken this country to war. We are still there. Not a word from him about that war.

Rural and regional councils are struggling to carry out their most basic functions, let alone new tasks.

Local Government is not even mentioned in the Australian Constitution and its role at any time is subject to the changing whims of politicians. Federal and State governments across Australia are loading up Councils with more and more responsibilities, without ensuring them an adequate financial base to carry out these extra tasks.

At the same time, Government over the past few years has been characterized by the porkbarrel. I’m not just talking about the recent election campaign, I’m talking about  day to day Government. Expenditure which was once a normal part of a government program or redistribution of wealth, is now a gift from a munificent local member, and too bad if you annoy him. If you play up, you miss out.

We’re about to find out how successful that is as an election strategy but it certainly keeps people frightened about upsetting the controller of the purse strings. That Father Xmas ethos has debased government. The pork barrel is not an effective weapon against climate change or any of the other serious threats this country is facing.

The Greens want a clear definition of the roles of all spheres of government and appropriate financing for local government responsibilities to end cost shifting.

Local councils are the closest sphere of government to the people and are in the best position to identify and respond to their needs. They are a crucial voice for communities, particularly in rural and regional areas. 

The Australian political system is far too “top down” with power exercised ever more centrally and remotely under the Howard Government.

Just imagine an Australia over the past six years without The Greens. Without Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle? Where we would have been?

Without The Greens, who would have held the big parties to account on climate change?

On Australia’s treatment of refugees?

On indigenous rights?

On student allowances and university fees?

Public education?

On work choices? Not the timid Labor Party.

On rights of same sex couples?

On uranium mining?

Children overboard?

West Papua?

Who would have stood up against George Bush over the Iraq War?

Who would have stood up for David Hicks?

Who would have questioned the treatment of Mohammed Hanif?

Sale of Snowy Hydro?

The list goes on. And on.

Me-tooism isn’t something that the big parties only discovered during this election campaign. It isn’t even something that Labor under Kevin Rudd discovered.

It’s been a characteristic of national politics for years.

Labor Front Benchers these days can’t even state Labor Party policy without being reprimanded and corrected.

A Labor shadow minister can’t even oppose the death penalty without being chastised by his leader. The death penalty!

One of the most difficult things about this election is that we have to choose one of them ahead of the other to make our votes valid. It is something I do with a heavy heart. It’s not an easy choice.

Whoever wins Government, Australia will need The Greens in the Senate more than ever. We’ve all heard the one about Kevin Rudd: yes, he is John Howard without the eyebrows.

It’s not just that on most issues the major parties are indistinguishable; there’s hardly a woodchip between them, on some issues Labor is actually worse.

On woodchipping of native forests, an issue dear to my heart – and I would like to remind people that there is logging for woodchips going on 25 kms from Queanbeyan – on woodchipping, Labor is worse. On the forests, it’s me-too plus  $20 million cash to the logging industry from Labor. And not even the National Party has a future minister for forestry who wants to burn 5 million tonnes of native forest – living, breathing native forest – burn it and call it renewable energy. That’s what Martin Ferguson wants to do.

So there are plenty of good reasons for voting Green. We have policies that are genuine solutions to climate change and we have solid principles of social justice that underpin all our policies and decisions.

The most important issue for me and the Greens in this election is global warming. They probably all say that these days but the Greens have pioneered this issue.  We have detailed policies; we have campaigned on the big picture and the small picture for many, many years. We didn’t discover it a few weeks or even a few months ago. Our election platform has achieved top score in the Climate Institute election scoreboard. The Greens rated 90% with Labor 40% and Liberal 23% in the report.   The Australian Conservation Foundation assessment came to the same conclusion and rated the Greens even higher. And we’re not jealous of our policies. We’d ;like to see a bit of me-tooism coming our way. A strong vote for The Greens in this election will help the Liberal and Labor Parties adopt some better policies too.

I could have taken the easy way out and blithely supported all the projects you listed, but I don’t actually think that would have impressed anyone. The cheque book and the porkbarrel are not the weapons we need to combat global warming. And they’re not weapons at my disposal anyway. The world – and our very small part of it -  has to deal with the looming realities of oil depletion and global warming, which make our present way of life unsustainable. We must urgently reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Public transport, especially rail has to be part of the solution. If the pork barrel has become so deeply ingrained into our way of political life, and our future MP wants to dip into it, let it be for something useful like a railway, not bigger and better roads.