Category: Speeches

They are killing themselves because our police force and council rangers are waking them up in the middle of the night and moving them on. They are under siege from the officials of our governments.

I have bad news from the community services that heal our addicted, our lost youth, our unemployable. They are under siege from the major political parties that want centralised solutions that deal with crises after they have occurred.

I have bad news from the midwives, the alternative healers, the workers in domestic violence. They are marginalised by governments that do not recognise the role of the dispossessed in their drive for economic growth.

And I have bad news from the farmers and the fishermen who are afraid that the sea and the land will not produce in the future at the rates it has done in the past. They are afraid and angry because governments have no solutions only bandaids to deal with the crises caused by past behaviour.

Some of these groups are grateful to the Greens because our policies offer simple, realistic solutions to these problems.

I talked to the TAFE teachers about our plans to redirect funds from the wealthiest private schools into public education.

I talked to the Buttery about The Greens support for community based services that holistically heal people to prevent crises before they cost the taxpayer millions.

I have talked to midwives and health workers about the need to empower those seeking wellness instead of forcing them into corporate, industrial responses to illness.

Others are angry at the Greens because our policies represent a change from the extractive practices of the past, to the nurturing practices required to ensure a robust vibrant future.

The fishermen are so angry that they threatened to feed me to the fish.

Whether they are grateful or angry, every one of those groups acknowledges that The Greens are engaged. We have always been engaged. In the forests, at the coal mines, on the water, it is The Greens who have met the workers, in their own environments and said, enough, it is time to rethink what we are doing.

We may argue at first, but in the long run, the result is what it must be. We sit down to work out a solution, together.

While I have been engaged, at the grass roots, our so called political leaders have been indulging in a surreal farce. The national media has rendered this a campaign of trivial bickering. Arguments about who has the better accountant, the faster broadband – Does my budget look big in this?

What about the big issues?

What about climate change, war, the two speed economy.

What about the future of our food and water supplies over the next decade and the next century?

Who is addressing the real issues that confront us?

Luckily The Greens have solutions for the local challenges and the big issues.

We can use this election to deliver the balance of power in the Australian government to The Greens.

The Greens can use that balance of power to begin making our policies into law.

We can implement a carbon tax immediately and start building the renewable energy infrastructure that we need.

We can redirect the tax breaks and subsidies from major international polluters to small regional businesses making sustainable products that will ensure a robust and vibrant future.

We can get the Buttery the five million dollars they need to kick start the campaign to double their services.

There is just one thing we need to do here in Richmond to ensure this happens. We need to double our vote.

The Gruen Nation, Good News Week, the 7pm project have done their bit, now it’s your turn.

I need all of you to flip through your address book and find one friend who does not vote Green and convince them that this is the election when they should switch.

Make sure we have a future, send me to Canberra. Vote 1 Green.

I just want to highlight that point. The Australian economy has remained slightly positive in terms of GDP since the Global Financial Crisis. The only reason it has been positive, though, is because 450,000 immigrants have arrived in the country each year. In terms of productivity, the gross domestic product per person, the economy has actually declined.

 

So, while we have been busy digging up the country and selling it off to the lowest bidder, our productivity has continued to slide. We are becoming less efficient, less productive in short we have been moving backwards, not forwards under the Julia Gillard education revolution.

 

Now, before I get stuck into the ALP for its poor record on education, let me just make it perfectly clear that I am not implying that a coalition government would have been better. The Coalition government has been busy undermining education at all levels since Howard was treasurer under Malcolm Fraser, and is threatening to accelerate the process if it is elected.

 

As the Teachers Federation so neatly put it in their advertisement, and I thank them for their support, the major parties are offering their teachers half an apple or a lemon.

 

I am here representing the full granny smith, the shiny green apple, that is The Greens education policy.

 

In 2007, I attended a range of forums organised by NSW Teachers Federation and listened to Justine Elliot claim that Julia Gillard’s education revolution would give us a fresh new start to equitable education. As the Greens candidate in that election, I expressed concern that the ALP was not going to protect public education, that the ALP planned to continue the “postcode” system of funding private schools, and would continue the erosion of TAFE by funding the construction of business colleges and the promotion of registered training organisations.

 

At those forums, Justine Elliot was asked a number of times to clarify the ALP position on these items. On each occasion she said, “I am Kevin Rudd’s candidate in Richmond and the fresh new approach Labor will take will deliver an Education Revolution that ensures a new start for all Australians.”

 

Well here we are ladies and gentlemen, three years later, the Education Revolution is under way and the results speak for themselves. TAFE struggles in all states, the funding for the 141 richest private schools continues to expand by $250 million a year and yet the skill shortage builds alarmingly. The 161 wealthiest private schools in Australia receive $432 million a year from the Gillard government. Some of these schools spend twice as much per student as the public schools do. That is not equitable.

 

Here in Lismore, the language and literacy department of the TAFE stands empty and the services are being delivered by a private provider. Community assets are being wasted, leased to private companies and education services continue to fall.

 

Here we are ladies and gentlemen, three years later and a handful of words in the script have changed but the future looks bleaker than the past.

 

The only way to protect public education, to ensure an investment in building an economy based on innovation and to move Australia onto a stable and robust footing is to Vote Green.

 

¨ The Greens want to end the funding of the extremely wealthy private schools and redirect the growth funding of all other non-government schools into public education. By funding all except the very wealthiest non-government schools at their 2003 levels, plus inflation, the Greens aim to create more than 6,800 new teachers in NSW alone.

¨ That’s a 13% growth in the number of teachers, allowing smaller class sizes, more attention for each student, more resources for children with special needs and more time and support for teachers to develop their skills.

¨ Smaller class sizes plus more teachers equals better education.

¨ No non-government school would close under Greens polices, nor would fees rise. Public schools would see a substantial growth in their funding to enable them to set the standards for class sizes and resources.

 

I believe the difference between The Greens and the corporate parties is obvious and stark. On August 21^st I encourage you to vote 1 Joe Ebono in Richmond, and 1 for The Greens in the Senate. Vote 1 The Greens

If you vote for me, but more poor deluded fools vote for one of these characters, your vote gets moved straight across to the number two person on your ballot paper.

 

It does not go across at half strength, it is not diluted in any way. The full vote gets passed on.

By voting Green you double the power of your vote. You send a message to the establishment parties that you think they should keep copying the Greens policies and you get to determine which one of those lack lustre, economic rationalists ends up running the country.

 

Even better, if you convince enough of your friends, colleagues and relatives to do the same, I might get in. I only need ten thousand people to vote Greens for the first time and the seat of Richmond will be decided on preferences.

On November 24, vote for the party that will manage the economy for the future. Vote One the Greens.

This year, we signed a 37 billion dollar natural gas deal with China to supply 3.5 million tonnes of natural gas every year for up to 20 years.

This has been touted as a great boost to the economy and a great example of why we need the economic wizadry of the establishment parties.

It is important to take that deal apart.

It is a twenty year deal to sell 85 per cent of the gas from the largest field in Australia at $200 a tonne. The spot price for natural gas today is $381 per tonne. The price of all fossil fuels is fluctuating wildly due to demand outstripping supply. We are selling off our gas reserves at a bargain basement price, just when the world is running out of natural gas and the price is going through the roof.

That is not smart economic management.

But wait, there’s more.

The Western Australian government stepped in early this year and said to Woodside Petroleum, “Hang on. That natural gas is an important resource for the people of Western Australia, we want to guarantee that the people of Western Australia have natural gas into the next century. We only want you to sell half the gas to China.”

Woodside went to the Federal Government and the Federal Government announced that unless the China deal went ahead it would use the corporation powers – yes those same powers it used to pass the WorkChoices legislation – to remove the power of Western Australia to control its gas reserves.

The compromise reached is that Woodside will only sell 85 per cent of the natural gas to China at half the current world price, over the next twenty years. The people of Western Australia will have natural gas for the next 25 years.

That is not smart economic management.

We are digging up and selling our resources as fast as we can to make the short term economy look good. This is not smart economic management.

This is a short term spending spree that will at best, bankrupt us in twenty years.

Not only that, the resources boom is dependent on a bouyant world economy. The minute the economic boom slows down, the resource boom becomes a resource slump and we end up washing dishes for rich tourists from Asian nations that invested in manufacturing and education while we were sat back and pissed the proceeds from our giant quarrying operation up against the wall.

The Greens have been attacked for suggesting that we wean ourselves off coal.

Coal is responsible for about 11 percent of our export earnings. We are mightily dependent on coal. It has taken us decades to build our coal industry into the giant powerhouse that it is now.

Last year, the Chinese domestic coal industry grew by more than the entire Australian coal industry.

In one year, they passed our efforts of decades. Any time they do not like our pricing structure, or transport costs get too expensive, or there is a slowdown in the global economy, they can stop buying our coal all together. It only sets them back for one year.

The Greens plan to phase out the coal industry and replace it with a renewable energy industry is not an extreme, idealistic response to climate change, it is the only responsible economic plan for the coal industry put forward by any political party in Australia.

If you want a vibrant, robust and viable economy for the next ten years, you will not vote for one of the establishment parties on November 24, you will Vote one The Greens.

 

Representative democracy

Why do people love American Idol but hate politics? The answer is probably simple. With American Idol you see the results of your action, immediately. By contrast, people feel disempowered by the political process. “I wouldn’t vote for any of those ratbags. They’ve all got their nose in the trough.” “It doesn’t matter who you vote for you end up with a politician.”

In general, people view politicians with contempt.

Heroes and bullies

This is not new. People have resented their rulers since the first ruler ruled. In fact, the history of government is the history of popular uprisings. When rulers become too greedy and ordinary people suffer beyond endurance, governments eventually fail. Of course, rich, greedy and powerful rulers have never handed over the reigns of power because they saw the logic of a good argument. They generally have to be forced and people do not fight and put their lives at risk unless they have basically nothing to lose.

So history is cyclic. Oppression, revolution, oppression, revolution. Each revolutionary government gradually becomes a part of the establishment.

The devolution of power

Underlying this great cycle of exploitation and uprising is another trend. Each wave of idealistic revolutionaries, builds on the past. Every revolution gains more freedom, for more people. Over millennia, power has shifted from tribal leaders where the toughest men ruled, through kingdoms where one family ruled to representative democracy as we know it today.

 

Democracy, was invented by male, landholding, slave-owning Greeks. Tired of royal families dragging the cream of Greek youth off to settle family disputes in remote wars they decided to resolve problems with discussion and agreement. The rule of the aristo (best) was replaced by the rule of Demos (who I suspect was an early ancestor of Demos Roussos.)

 

Modern democracy is founded on the Magna Carta or The Great Paper. That document enshrines the subservience of the constitutional head of state to the rule of law. Nixon is the proof in our times that a head of state, whatever he might think, is subject to the laws of the land.

 

Not only has civilisation restricted the power of rulers, it has also extended the right to vote, and the protection of the law, to increasing numbers of people. Governments have become accountable to and responsible for, the welfare of an ever greater percentage of the population.

 

Roughly 250 years ago, the liberal humanist ideal of the freedom of the individual came to the fore. Child labour and slavery became unpopular and the republican revolutions in France and the US were born. British gaols were emptied and our glorious prison farm, I mean great nation, was born.

 

In 1891, a group of shearers in a paddock in Barcaldine near Longreach decided they could not take it any more and the modern labour movement was born. Over the last century Labor and social democratic parties has actively participated in government, on behalf of workers.

 

Each of these movements gradually became a part of the establishment they overthrew.

 

Now, a new era looms. Scientists and environmentalists have recognised that the natural systems which support civilisation are stretched to the limit and a global green movement has emerged to protect the rights of future generations and the environment that supports us all.

Powerlessness

Right now, we are all frustrated because the establishment parties pursue the holy grail of profit, ignoring our quality of life.

America kills its youth in unpopular wars over control of global oil resources. The Asian obsession with economic growth rides roughshod over minorities and democratic movements. Here in Australia, our health, education and industrial relations systems collapse in the drive for profit at all costs.

Governments around the world are out of touch with the people.

In response, some people talk of revolution.

More generally, though, voters switch off in droves. There are more votes for the American Idol than there are for the president.

The worst thing we can do, though, is to disengage.

If we give up, we leave the stage to the bullies. In the words of Edmund Burke, “all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Do not give up now because the bullies have the upper hand.

Do not give up now because your heroes appear to face impossible odds.

Do not give up now because the system seems stacked against you.

Get out there and engage in the political process. Get involved in your school council, your professional organisation, your local council. Make your mark as vigorously and enthusiastically as you can.

If you can’t make your mark anywhere else, at least make it on the ballot paper.

Vote in every election you can. Because every time you vote, you vote One for democracy.

A forty thousand year old culture told us that this mineral could destroy the world, but we did not take any notice, “scientists had something more important than a myth about a snake.”

So where has this science got us?

Around the world millions of tonnes of nuclear waste sit in council dumps, in rusting drums, waiting for the world to build a nuclear waste depot. The Unites States alone produces 3000 tonnes of high level waste every year. Europe produces many times that. Now we are expanding the global nuclear industry and our land, Australia, is going to become the world’s nuclear waste dump?

Not on my watch.

The US government has spent billions planning a high level waste dump at Yucca Mountain and has abandoned it. Google Yucca mountain and read about how the government reached the conclusion that it is impossible to store nuclear waste safely. Impossible.

In May 2006, John Howard signed a deal with Canada and the USA that Australia and Canada, the two largest miners of Uranium, would sell their Uranium to the US, so that it could be leased to other countries as fuel rods in an exchange system that would prevent countries stockpiling uranium, or plutonium and making nuclear weapons.

Once used, the high level waste that was not required by the US military to make the bunker buster bombs causing all the birth defects in Iraq, would be dumped in Australia.

The Howard government worked with the mining companies on finding a suitable place and came up with Muckaty station. We all know how the politics works, how the mining companies throw money around and how they work to divide the people from each other and get someone to say yes.

We have seen it happen to the Mirra people up at Jabiluka, it’s all here in David Bradbury’s film. And even after those Mirra people won the fight at Jabiluka the miners are back now, 12 years later, saying it doesn’t matter, they are going to dig that uranium up anyway.

Not on my watch

The Gillard Government supports this policy. The Gillard Government has people like Martin Ferguson who think that digging up all the minerals in this land and selling them overseas is a good way to run the country.

They don’t care about the land. They don’t even care about feeding twenty million Australians. All they care about is money.

Now, we have to get together and say enough.

No nuclear waste for Muckaty, No Nuclear waste in Australia, No more Uranium Mining, in short, No Nuke.

Leave the Uranium in the ground.

So what is happening to that nuclear waste now?

We use it to build weapons. Uranium is heavy. It is heavier than lead and harder than steel. It makes great shell casings. Because it is so hard and because it is so heavy it is great for punching holes in reinforced concrete. Ever heard of a bunker buster? That is a uranium encased shell. Not only is it heavy, not only is it hard, but it is also incredibly hot. When it hits a concrete wall it heats up and explodes. It is not a nuclear bomb but it is an explosion none the less and it spreads radiation as it explodes.

If you look at the pictures of Bagdad being bombed on the nights of the invasion that toppled Sadaam Hussein, the sky is full of sparkles. That sparkly effect was not present in the bombing of European cities in the second world war. That sparkly effect is the tiny pieces of uranium shell exploding after they have shattered on impact. That sparkly effect is the radioactive elements being spread across the city of Bagdad and the nation of Iraq. That sparkly effect is the cause of a huge upsurge in deformed babies, so revolting that they cannot be shown on television or in the mainstream media because everyone would switch off.

We can watch torture, we can look at bodies piled up in the streets, but these deformed infants disgust us beyond belief. These deformed infants are the beginning of the revenge of the rainbow serpent. We have woken up the fundamental forces by digging into the treasure trove of the rainbow serpent harness the power within the earth.

And why are we doing this?

Greed. In an energy hungry world, we want money and power.