Another good knock shows Greens aren't swingers

The three major parties hit the hustings for an intense 3 week campaign in this Altona by-election.  Labor and Liberal both pulled out all stops with media and letter box blitzes, digging deep into cash reserves.  The Greens pushed hard out in the community, building on the excellent advocacy of Colleen Hartland MLC over the last few years.

For the first time in the history of this seat, the Labor party needed the preferences of the Greens and independents to get elected, their primary vote falling short of the 50% required.  We grew our primary vote to 10.43%, now above the state average for the Lower House at the 2006 election of 10.04%. 

I stress the word 'grew' our vote, with the dominance of the two parties in the psyche of the Australian people, voting for the Greens is completely different to voting Liberal to lodge a protest vote.  There are additional hurdles; is it a wasted vote, are they just a bunch of hippies, do they only have one issue, can they be trusted?  It represents a commitment to go beyond the status quo.

This by-election shows once again there is a growing awareness that the Thirdy party can and does make a difference, that there is a better way forward, that we can revitalise our democracy and break the stalemate.

It also shows that with the continued growth of the grass roots of the Greens, the reliance on consensus, the value of contribution, that we can organise and contest elections as effectively as the well heeled parties.  Well the support act is over the Main Events, state and national, are rolling in - lets make it a good year.

Strange equation; take the sunniest continent on earth, add a massive housing boom plus a former world leader in solar = COAL

In touring the electorate and knocking on doors, what has become abundantly clear to me is that we are currently trapped in a time warp. When discussing solar energy with a resident (you know that free power source), she questioned why you would not have roof tiles that were solar panels, rather than afix panels to the roof. Well Colleen Hartland (Greens MLC), informs me that in Germany (that sunny place in Central Europe) they now have roofing materials that are precisely that and are now removing house roofs and replacing them with solar roofs.

Imagine this for a moment, we are constructing 10,000 new residences in the electorate as we speak, if each one of them was a effectively a solar panel, feeding excess power into the grid they would be earning money. Because these roofs are expensive infrastructure they could be funded by the municipality / state, with the income generated repaying the infrastructure and when paid off, the proceeds going to the council for services. The net result, almost free power for residents, reduced rates for residents and reduced strain on the environment. An added bonus is the huge demand for panels which will support the new industry and research for the future to employ people displaced as the fossil fuel industry winds down.

Am I living in a dream world, its seems in Australia yes, however in Germany they are bringing this to a reality. I know we are all waiting to get the whole world to agree on how to tackle climate change before getting serious about it here. Think about that - get the whole world to agree - I'd rather watch the grass grow.

Meanwhile lets focus on reducing the costs of living for Australians now, lets focus on providing transport and education, with that focus, social problems will be reduced and environmental problems with them. Lets focus on new solutions to solve new problems.

Its what we do today that counts, not what we talk about doing tomorrow.

Did you hear the one about the elderly woman who couldn't get off the train platform...

I had a gentleman call me today, he got my number from a distributed leaflet. After introducing himself, stating that he was a labor voter, he said he was looking to vote Green and thought I may be interested in a recent incident his daughter experienced.

His daughter works in North Melbourne and gets there by riding her bike to Laverton station and then catching the train to North Melbourne. Laverton is one of the lavish new train stations built at great expense and it has that new innovation of stairs (steep stairs) and a lift, in place of the once traditional ramp. The lift is a problem for cyclists, it takes a bit of manoeuvring to fit one into the small space, however yesterday the lift was not working. Fortunately she got two fellas from the platform to carry her bike down the stairs to the train.

However the real implications of this poor design (presumably by someone who does not use public transport) was that a woman who had caught the train to Laverton, could not use the lift, because the lift was broken, and due to her age, she could not climb the steep stairs and so she could not get off the platform. I know you think I'm kidding and saw this on a late night comedy skit, however that's the way it was.

I'm guessing it may be a surprise to the designers of these good looking but functionally average facilities that stairs had been invented when the stations were originally built, however ramps were deliberately installed because of their huge functional advantage. For anyone who has ever run for a train down a ramp and run down stairs, you'll understand why the ramps there.

The most unfortunate part of all this money spent on train stations is that it is a misallocation of scarce resources. These upgrades to Laverton, Footscray, North Melbourne at massive cost do marginally increase the comfort of passengers, and I stress marginally, however fixing the crumbling infrastructure like the points and signals, removing bottlenecks and delays, would be a much better use of the money. What I'm saying is I'd rather wait on the old platform for the scheduled train to arrive than wait on the new platform for the scheduled train to be cancelled or late.

I can see only two explanations for the perpetuation of this poor transport system; either after 100 years of trying we are still haven't worked it out and are incapable of running a train system or, there isn't the political will to run a truly effective and convenient rail service. I credit Australians with enormous ingenuity and ability when we apply ourselves but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Am I really asking for money, can't someone else do that, it seems so .... well - awkward!

I've been reading a little book called 'Audacity of Hope' by this fellow called Barack Obama. In it there is a sizeable section where he talks about his need to raise money to let voters know who he is and what he stands for. I ain't no Barack Obama but if it's good enough for him, I guess it's good enough for me.

My question is; why on earth would anyone give money to a political campaign? Right or wrong, I never have.

But then I'm only asking for a donation worth a couple of beers (though you could always throw in the pizza as well)! Click here to contribute.

Would it be money well spent?

Yes it would, more than ever before we need new ideas and new voices in our governing system. We do not even have to agree with them, but we desperately need another voice in our parliament to break the stand-off that is the seemingly intractable two party system.

You know the Greens want better transport, better health, better use of valuable resources (including the atmosphere), greater equality, more opportunities, in fact a better world. But then everyone promises that.

Can we deliver? Well not all that tomorrow, not this year, not even a whole election cycle, but we can move closer towards it everyday. We can do it by continuing to give voice to the back yard BBQ's, the late night raves, the dinner table conversations where Australians work this stuff out. We can continue to give voice to scientists, volunteers, young people, old people. We can continue to give voice to reason and passion wherever it is and whoever says it.

We can make a difference ... you can make a big difference. For us to deliver a simple one page message to the electorate, even hand delivered by volunteers will cost about $5,000. Any contribution, whether worth a night out or a Mercedes Benz will make a difference. If you can help, please do. Click here to contribute.

You mean you don't just make this stuff up?

It's both refreshing and a bit depressing to hear that the issues I and the Greens have been banging on about in this and other electorates is repeatedly echoed by the real people that live here. It's depressing on two fronts, one because the situation is actually this bad and two, because this is happening in new suburbs. In suburbs that should embody the collected wisdom of over 100 years of urban development, instead we are creating suburbs with inadequate infrastructure and restricted accessibility. We are at the start of the 21st century surely we should be getting the hang of this.

So what recently leads me to this view, you guessed it, out talking to the people who live in the electorate and I'm going to share some of their observations again. I had a fellow at the Laverton Station making the observation that he could not fit his bike in the lift to the platform and because the new platforms will be accessed by stairs he will have to carry his bike up and down stairs. (When will they get people who actually use public transport to design stations and signage).

But that doesn't matter now because after some near misses on the road he's not prepared to ride on Point Cook Road anymore. He asked the obvious question, 'shouldn't separated bike trails be built as a part of new suburbs'. At the start of the 21st century, I'd say he has a point.

Then there was the young woman just turned 18, she lives at home in Altona Meadows and on the weekend works for 3 hours in next suburb, Point Cook. It takes her 2 hours to get to work and two hours to get home. She is so disengaged she was going to put in a donkey vote, her Dad said to me 'you'd better talk to her'. I suggested there was an alternative to the Labor/Liberal 2 party model, one that aimed to raise the bar, one that was focused on working towards new solutions, not the getting and maintaining power. I told her how I saw the Greens. I don't think she'll donkey vote.

Then there was the fellow storming past, 'you're all a bunch of f...ing pricks doing it for yourself'. He expressed rather bluntly the high level of cynicism and scepticism that I suspect many people are too polite to state.

I firmly believe at the start of the 21st century that people expect an enlightened parliament, one that looks for new ideas, embraces differences, works toward a future. Our democratic system is deliberately built with checks and balances, it is designed to manage differences, if it was meant to be a boxing ring, I think it would have been designed differently. I believe over 1 million people vote for the Greens because they know we need new ideas and new ways to deal with the real and evolving challenges of the future.

And we need them now.

The getting of wisdom, one knock at a time

I've been out talking to the voters again, out where they live. As always the reception from almost everyone is friendly and appreciative. More importantly for me I learn something new every time I talk with someone. Here's a brief summary of today's conversations.

A couple of people mentioned the issue of safety and security, hoons in the area, vandalism and graffiti. Not surprising concerns, nor to me were thoughts on the solutions surprising. More police presence was identified as a necessary stop gap measure, however it was repeatedly stated that we needed to focus on the real problems, some of the solutions mentioned were:
more sports facilities for young people,
better transport to enable young people to get to other activities,
pushing more responsibility onto parents for their children's behaviour,
enhancing education to encompass more self respect,
provide greater options in education for less academic streams.

It's pretty clear to these individuals that the solutions are infrastructure not punishment.

Public transport was another common theme, parking at train stations so far away that it was unsafe to walk back to the car, no transport options for kids on the weekend so they had to be driven by mum's taxi, a lack of a sense of safety on trains so not willing to take the kids on the train. There was some bemusement as to what exactly was going to happen over the next few years when 10,000 more people move in, with the trains and roads already full.

Another woman had been campaigning for the planting of more trees in the area, however her appeals and lobbying continued to fall on deaf ears.

There's nothing surprising in these responses, there's nothing outrageous or preposterous, though they all represent challenges, they will require new and imaginative approaches to solve and to fund. It is unlikely that the government alone can solve these problems, more importantly the government needs to provide the environment where communities, businesses and government can find new solutions to deal with a whole new set of challenges.

It seems pretty clear that we need government to lead, not lag behind the people.