Category: Columns

The hour is come

admin /7 May, 2012

 

All very well for the analysis and the rhetoric, what about a practical vision of a Green Australia?

Try this.

As an energy exporter Australia is in an excellent position to promote clean green energy. Stationary solar can replace other heat sources quickly and effectively. Hydrogen is a reasonable storage medium and allows us to export renewable energy to a hungry global market. We need to treat coal as a transition fuel, getting much smarter about how we process it so that we build energy infrastructure that can use replacement fuels as we phase coal out.

A national transport network based on rail and shipping needs to span the continent, linking Cairns and Normanton to Broome and Alice Springs. This provides ready access to our export markets and the new growth areas for both resources and agriculture. It can be built with local expertise and resources, expanding the economy, manufacturing infrastructure and rebuilding our resource-processing infrastructure that we have allowed to drift off-shore.

This is part of a longer article Green gold | Redneck Rage | Rusted on Reds | Clear directions | Sidebar – Red herrings | Greenslanders? Not!

Green gold

admin /29 April, 2012

 

This is part of a longer article  Green gold | Redneck Rage | Rusted on Reds | Clear directions | Sidebar – Red herrings | Greenslanders? Not!

The values embraced by the Green movement are conservative, moral and traditional. They are political gold, embodied in the party platform and manifesto and must be reinforced by every action. These principles are the basis of the future vision.

Those principles are that:

• we depend on the environment, and so
• our economic activity must enhance the environment.
• we need to govern ourselves in a fair and equitable manner.

Redneck Rage

admin /29 April, 2012

This is part of a longer article Green gold | Redneck Rage | Rusted on Reds | Clear directions | Sidebar – Red herrings | Greenslanders? Not!

The results of the Queensland 2012 State election support the observation that rednecks hate Greens.

The qualitative evidence is in the emails, advertisements and barber shops but politics is a numbers game and an analysis of the numbers is critical.

In 2012 the conservative vote jumped by 19%, including a massive 11% vote for Katter’s new “grass roots” party based on anger, frustration and little else. In the same election the green vote slipped back slightly to 8%.

This swing to the conservatives builds on a shift of a bit over 5% in the previous election. Over those two elections the Greens captured none of the 24% swing. The fact that the number of frustrated, angry, anti-major party voters who were prepared to put up with the one-dimensional histrionics of Katter’s Australian Party rather than vote Green provides a clear indication of the depth of this dislike.

Rusted on Reds

admin /29 April, 2012

 

This is part of a longer article  Green gold | Redneck Rage | Rusted on Reds | Clear directions | Sidebar – Red herrings | Greenslanders? Not!

The complete collapse of the Labor vote in Queensland – 7 seats in an 89 seat house – provides a clear measure of the residual Labor vote – the rusted on reds will vote for their party, regardless of current affairs. The answer is 650,000 Queenslanders, a little over 25% of the vote.

The drift of voters over the last five years, then gives us a reasonable measure of the size of the swinging vote.

Over the last six years Queensland Labor has lost 350,000 voters. The LNP has gained 360,000 and Katter’s Australian has gained 280,000. There are 250,000 new voters in Queensland now compared to 2006 and 30,000 Family First voters who have swelled Katter’s numbers.

This indicates that there are approximately 50% of voters who will vote on traditional lines for their almost equally strong teams. There is another 25% who are moderate swingers, who change sides every decade or so, to give the other buggers a go.

 

This is it

admin /29 April, 2012

This is part of a longer article Green gold | Redneck Rage | Rusted on Reds | Clear directions | Sidebar – Red herrings | Greenslanders? Not!

 

Given the political status quo, Australia faces a decade of conservative rule in which the bum-boys of Wall Street and their white shoe opportunist hangers on will drive the economic juggernaut as hard as they can, while stripping it of every asset imaginable. Australia is just a microcosm of what is happening across the planet.

The result will not just be some environmental damage. A billion or so displaced people will do more than make it difficult to build wealth for old age. Think of Europe during the plague when one quarter of the population died.

 

Sidebar – Red herrings

admin /29 April, 2012

 

This is part of a longer article  Green gold | Redneck Rage | Rusted on Reds | Clear directions | Sidebar – Red herrings | Greenslanders? Not!

A number of internal issues that plague Green politics have distracted from the main game for very little, or negative, electoral results. Public disputes over foreign policy in the middle east is a good example.

Some of these internal issues, have a direct impact on voter attitude and have been dealt with in the main article. The issues of innovating our way out of disaster, green consumerism and choosing between remaining a party of protest or pursuing political power fall into this category.

The issues below, though, need to be put aside and left alone. Any time spent on the discussion of these issues simply panders to the entrenched opposition to Green politics. I invest the time here, to empower members to reject overtures to engage on discussion over these issues.