Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on
There are only a few weeks left to get your films into the West End Film Festival’s 2014 short film competition.
The West End Film Festival (WEFF) is Queensland’s biggest dedicated short film festival are very proud to be returning for their 5th year in March 2014. WEFF are passionate about screening diverse and intriguing stories from local and national filmmakers. Organisers are looking for the best short films Australia has to offer across all genres, with a running time of less than 30 minutes.
On March 23rd 2014, WEFF will showcase a program of shorts at its pop-up cinema located in the heart of one of Brisbane’s most vibrant boroughs, West End. In previous years, sell-out crowds have attended the festival and enjoyed its relaxed atmosphere and urban outdoor setting.
So get your film(s) in before the deadline of December 31 for your chance to win cash prizes and be a part of WEFF 2014. Entry forms are available on the website. For enquiries please contact info@westendfilmfestival.com.au.
WEFF NOW ACCEPTING DIGITAL FILES
This year WEFF has worked to make it easier for you to enter your films and are now accepting Pro-Res or H.264 files as film entry formats. Please send file(s) via a DVD, hard drive, USB stick or file share. If needed, please include a self-addressed and stamped envelope, so they can be sent back to you.
For chance to be a part of one of Queensland’s biggest short film festival go to WEFF website and download the entry form.
Part of the community, we just keep getting younger as new journalists, designers and artists come on board to keep the flag flying. We are proud to work with local design house Text and Image who have produced our new look.
You don’t get to be this young, though, without a bit of a back story. Founding editor Kerrod Trott lets a few secrets out of the bag …
In 1992 I was running a desktop publishing and marketing bureau – Perfect Pitch, no less – in Thomas Street (and living at Rio Grande in Vulture St) when my business partner and I had the great idea of starting a local newspaper as a showcase for our design and writing skills. We had one John Jiggens (aka John Freemarijuana) as our founding editor.
I’d been involved with community publishing in the 80’s when I lived on a Multiple Occupancy outside Lismore, working on the Northcoaster and publishing my own title, Incredible Times.
Thus was the Westender born – before there was a Quest newspaper in the area, before Brian Laver started his Neighbourhood News, and long before the glossy West End Magazine.
Fast forward to 1999, when I returned back to West End after a lengthy pilgrimage to ashrams, temples and holy sites in India. Out of work, and at a loss for something to do. I know, I said to myself, I’ll start the Westender again!
This, the second incarnation of the Westender, ran for several years and dominated the market. We had a delightful newspaper war running with Brian Laver and his Neighbourhood News, swapping insults in print and spreading the most scurrilous gossip about each other.
I had to cease publishing the Westender for personal and financial reasons and get a couple of real jobs to pay off my bills.
Then, in 2009, I was persuaded by a business acquaintance to re-commence publication. The third incarnation of the Westender was as a colour magazine, with a print run of up to 43,000 and letterbox dropped to homes throughout inner Southern Brisbane. We briefly ran on a weekly schedule, before the 2011 Brisbane floods dealt a body blow to the local business community and advertising revenue dried up.
(The Westender has never received any funding, its sole source of income has always been the support of the local business community, and the support of the creative local community.)
We managed to bring out a couple of special editions – usually at election time – but never quite recovered.
Here we are now in 2013 and, with a new business partner in Geoff Ebbs, the Westender is back in print, incarnation number four.
If all you want to do is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas but are instead too stressed trying to Deck the Halls to feel Joy to the World, it’s time to take a Christmas reality check.
QUT Rehabilitation and Wellness manager Dr Leith Henry, a psychologist, said it was easy to fall prey to the same less-than-perfect holiday behaviour patterns year after year. Instead, this year give yourself the ultimate Yuletide present – treat angst-filled Christmases to an emotional make-over.
“Christmas can be a very stressful time for people,” Dr Henry said. “It does not have to be.
“Often, people hold unrealistic expectations about what the days should be. They have this picture in their head – the perfect Disney day with all the trimmings and everyone is completely happy and every morsel of food is delicious.
“It’s not in one person’s control to have a `perfect’ day.
“It might help to know exactly what you do want to experience. Determine your priorities, your values and the definition of what a `good Christmas’ is to you. And then make plans around that.
“Reflect on what is meaningful to you and create your own traditions and rituals.
“And take the focus of just that one day by shifting perspective to the holiday `season’.”
She said the key to Christmas resilience was to realise those anxiety-triggering circumstances which happen every year and then to work out a strategy to change them.
For example, the Santa tradition for many families represents a large financial burden. Consider an alternative, such as playing “Secret Santa” in larger families so you only have to buy one gift; or set a dollar-value limit that everyone agrees to stay below.
“And there’s nothing wrong with homemade or sentimental presents – sometimes these are the best kind,” Dr Henry said.
“The important thing to remember is that the Christmas period is one of the very few opportunities for families to spend time together during the working year. It’s a time for rest and relaxation, a time to enjoy being together. That’s the real meaning of Christmas.
“The magic of Christmas is about being kind to ourselves and those we love.”
How to build Christmas resilience:
Find a balance between meeting expectations and getting what you want – “let go” of perfect and Disney.
Start new Christmas traditions with connection as a focus – family, friends, self, others in need. Consider volunteering (Volunteers Australia or local acts of kindness).
As far as possible, maintain stress management, sleep routines, eating well, exercise etc.
Remember that others may be stressed too, so be patient and tolerant. Acknowledge emotion, listen for underlying meaning, be prepared to make some concessions and try not to personalise too much.
Decide purchases before hitting the shops, to avoid impulse buying. Consider homemade gifts (eg baking, cards, jams, vouchers for your labour), but remember also to “budget” your time.
Consider that others might be relieved for you to take the lead in setting limits on expectations.
Learn to say “no” – you don’t have to attend everything you’re invited to, be the life of the party or to stay till stumps.
Allow extra time for contingencies and delegate to others.
Christmas stress triggers:
Family – Increased contact with family can lead to conflict, tension, pressure. Moreover, because we might expect this contact to resemble a Disney movie, our sense of disappointment or upset over tensions may be heightened.
Split families and in-laws – We may feel pressure to please everyone, spread ourselves around fairly, manage sensitivities and coordinate lavish gatherings (as seen on Pinterest).
Religious matters – Our values may be challenged by perceived obligations and expectations and tensions may arise around ideological clashes.
Financial pressure – Buying for large families can be expensive, and there is social and media pressure to spend more each year or feel guilty. The costs of social events and catering can all cast a financial burden.
Grief – The reminder of absent friends, our first Christmas without someone special or since a major change or event, can leave a sense of loneliness and grief that we may feel we can’t share.
Loneliness – Separation and/or isolation can lead us to feel lonely and like ‘Christmas failures’.
Triggers – Upsetting memories related to Christmas or childhood, brought on by the season or what/who it brings back into your life can unsettle us and may even trigger episodes of mental illness.
Having to be jolly – On top of all the above, the pressure to put on a happy face and be jovial can lead to a sense of leading a double life in which no one really ‘knows us’.
Overeating and drinking – these can lead to weight gain, embarrassing displays, injuries etc.
Busy schedules of events – There is a danger of feeling exhausted and then having to return to work.
Geoff Ebbs love for the Greens has seen him run as a federal candidate three times
In the light of the piece run on Margot Kingston’s No Fibs and reproduced here, it is important to clarify my position. The decision not to stand as the candidate for the Greens in Griffith was mine and mine alone. Andrew Bartlett called me to let me know he was considering standing, and I stood aside to allow him to stand unopposed and maximize the energy and unity in the party behind one candidate.
Jan Bowman’s piece is based on an interview made in October and reflects on the general election and the state of Australian politics. It was not conducted in the context of a by-election. The most pertinent part of her piece is the opening paragraph. A year long campaign has been a serious drain on my finances and I am currently working to rebuild them. From that point of view the last thing I need right now is another stint as a political candidate.
I had not intended to comment on this prior to the ratification of the Greens candidate on Thursday evening at 8:00pm but have judged it is better to head off any potential for damage to the Greens and make this statement to clarify my position.
Declaration of interest I am fifty percent owner of Westender and currently supporting my media habit by selling document processing solutions and office equipment.
Jan Bowman reports for Margot Kingston’s No Fibs and the Westender
Less than a month after the September Federal election, Geoff Ebbs, former Greens Candidate for Griffith, posted a Facebook message which said: “I’m about to go into financial recovery mode, post-election, and take a job selling photocopiers unless anyone has a better way to earn some decent dollars for twelve months.”
This was a prompt for me to approach Ebbs and other candidates in Griffith for their ‘life after the election’ stories.
Ebbs was the only candidate who agreed to an interview. Apart from admitting to degrees of exhaustion, most of the other candidates I approached did not want to talk in detail about the campaign experience, and were undecided about whether they would stand again in any by-election. Because of this I did not use the Ebbs interview and abandoned the story idea.
However, on Friday, November 29, Geoff Ebbs announced to his supporters that he would not be contesting the Griffith by-election for the Greens. This came as a surprise for many, myself included. Geoff had indicated in our October interview that he wanted to stand again. I returned to this earlier interview material for clues.
In 2013 the Greens polled 10.18 percent of the vote in Griffith, a 5.21 percent swing against it on 2010 results. The negative swing was not unique to Griffith. Nationally there was a swing against the Greensof 3.11 percent, in QLD as high as 4.7 percent.
Ebbs at one of the refugee rallies in King George Square Brisbane
I asked Ebbs what is was like, as a minor party candidate, not to have won, and in his case, not to have achieved an increase for the Greens.
“People invest trust in you; you promise to represent them, expectations are built up, and it is a huge disappointment when you don’t succeed,” he said, then likened the experience to the post-adrenaline slump at the end of the run of a stage play.
“I was walking with one of my daughters after the election and came around a corner and saw a poster of myself, it was like a jolt to the back of the brain.”
Why did he put himself through it, when he knew he would not win the seat?
“You decide to run because you believe in the cause, but the only way to build the energy to actually campaign is to willingly delude yourself. It’s a form of ‘candidate’s disease’,” he said. “To inspire your followers, you have to believe you will win.”
Ebbs said the protest vote against the two old parties in September was the vote that many Greens had been waiting decades for, but it went to the minor conservative parties, and added this has been a huge topic of discussion within the party.
He believed the analysis falls into three camps: those who think the Greens were too conservative; those who think it was too extreme and “didn’t try hard enough to become a normal political party”; and those who think it was just a “bloody minded rabble”.
Also, criticisms of Christine Milne had been the same as criticisms of the party.
“She is either too extreme or not extreme enough. Some people just don’t like a female leader,” he said.
“If you are engaged with the electorate, you will know exactly where you stand, and the electorate will know exactly where you stand as a party, and I don’t think that clarity exists. It’s not any individual’s fault … but it’s about the whole movement. It’s about the Greens as a party, it’s about the Left, it’s about the environmental movement.
“Both major parties put in a huge effort to isolate and run down the Greens. We expected that: first they ignore you, then they attack you, then they get angry with you, then you win. Well we are well into the stage of making them angry.”
Asked if he would stand again, Ebbs said: “Should KRudd resign and there is a by-election, I would certainly stand again.”
Ebbs said there had been a personal Rudd factor in this electorate. “It didn’t swing to the conservatives as much as the rest of the nation, but the results of a by-election will depend on whether Bill (Glasson) decides to run. If there are two new candidates, probably the ALP would prevail.”
Ebbs gave up work during the election. “You can approach campaigning with whatever level of intensity you like, but there is always financial drain. The Greens is not a wealthy party. Palmer paid his candidates a wage.”
He is now working selling photocopiers, and, at only 55, considers he is over the hill as far as employment goes.
His energies are now on building the Greens into a broader movement, and said: “We need to be in more or less continuous campaign mode”.
“What we need to do now is articulate what a Green future will look like. For the mythical ‘ordinary voter’, a lot of whom, if they were disappointed and voted for Palmer in this election, did so because they didn’t have that clear vision of a Green future.
“If you look at a group like the Stable Population Party, which is, on the whole, ex-Greens, they are disappointed that the Greens didn’t articulate a population policy. But population policies are a political nightmare and it’s very difficult for a party the size of the Greens (with the broad range of elements that make it up), to reach an agreeable population policy … so you end up with a single issue party that stands outside the Greens.
“To succeed we have to build a broad enough church that you can include all of those views, you can’t keep splintering off the core believers because you can’t address their most passionate cause.
“It’s a mistake of the Left to assume that, ‘oh well our turn will come’. There is no reason for that to be the case. The whole of society could keep moving to the Right and this could be the distant dream of somebody’s grandfather. You only have to look to the USA to see how effectively the Left can be crushed.”
Ebbs added that as a society we face an energy descent problem.
“Last century we consumed more energy than is ever going to be available to society in the future, so life is going to get harder. As a party that recognises that as the fundamental fact driving every economic decision and every policy setting, essentially what you are trying to sell to the electorate is like an austerity measure. For our long term good, us as a society and a species, we need to calm down and stop consuming so much, and slow down our breeding program. It’s not a very palatable story, so we tend to avoid it.”
Grassroots campaigning is definitely the way of the future, Ebbs said.
“The internet has unleashed an understanding of how powerful distributed ideas are. The notion of open sourced software has led to open content programs, and the collapse of the exclusive nature of publishing companies both in print and film, has meant that new models are emerging for creative people to connect with their audiences, and the same thing is happening politically.”
Towards the end of the interview Ebbs told me he had put himself forward as a candidate for convener of the Greens in Queensland. The two candidates were to be Ebbs and the incumbent Andrew Bartlett.
Ebbs said his ‘elevator pitch’ to the membership would be that, “as a society we are at the crossroads, we either maintain the status quo or hit the wall very hard, or we manage society into a form that is sustainable in the full sense of the word.”
Ebbs did not offer any direct criticism of Andrew Bartlett, but said he considered that he (Ebbs) would be better at getting the Greens story across.
As it turned out, Bartlett won the ballot held on October 26, and retained his role as convener. Ebbs was appointed to the state management committee.
Ebbs’ recent decision not to contest the preselection as the Greens candidate for the by-election indicates a degree of disharmony within the Greens that Ebbs only alluded to when he spoke with me.
I understand that Andrew Bartlett will be the only Greens candidate for preselection. He advised me that he is not is a position to make any comment until after party endorsement of the candidate on Thursday, December 5, but he is happy to talk after that.
Now that Clive Palmer has announced that his party will not stand a candidate, the preselection processes for this by-election for both the ALP and the Greens may well prove to be as interesting as the election itself.
In the meantime, Bill Glasson has already hit the campaign trail and was seen out and about with the Prime Minister on the weekend.
– See more at: http://nofibs.com.au/2013/12/03/dumped-greens-griffith-candidate-whats-gone-wrong-jan-bowman-griffithelects-reports/#sthash.n7oIULu4.dpuf
Could an ethical self managed superannuation fund work for you?
Did you know that your superannuation does not need to be invested with big multinational fund management companies or in industry super funds with standard choice offers? Investing in a Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF) with specialist advice by an ethical investment adviser can create a financially rewarding and socially/environmentally positive retirement base.
Firstly, a Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF) requires a reasonable account balance to justify the establishment costs and trustee obligations. Generally a minimum of $200,000 with regular contributions would be needed.
You should consider a self managed super if:
You are not happy with the ethics and/or performance of your current superannuation fund.
You want to be selective about the investments you will have in your super fund.
You want a more ‘hands on’ approach.
You want control over the assets that are bought and sold.
You want to buy an asset like a residential property that cannot be bought through a standard super fund.
By having a SMSF you can buy shares that support businesses which reflect your ethical concerns and values. The standard superannuation investor will have the share component of their superannuation fund invested predominately in the largest 50 Australian share companies in a similar ratio to the size of those companies. Therefore companies such as BHP, Santos, Woodside Petroleum and Rio Tinto with significant Coal, Petroleum and Uranium interests would all be predominant shareholdings in a standard superannuation fund.
Within your SMSF you can invest in those international and Australian companies that display very positive corporate citizenship. These companies look after the community, their staff and the environment have strong brand loyalty and staff retention. Historically companies with good ethics tend to have strong consumer loyalty and staff retention. Ethical companies that look beyond the financial bottom line are generally forward thinking businesses that are reducing their financial risks by assessing the environmental and social costs of their businesses.
For the individual investor, it can be difficult to find out about these businesses in the sea of “greenwash”. At Ethical Investment Advisers, we recommend investments which truly meet your ethical values and your financial needs.
Other investment choices for the ethical investor
There are bonds that provide capital risk management and security at a reasonable income return. These can be issued by companies with positive ethics including some banks as well as governments. Hybrid fixed interest/shares opportunities can provide attractive after tax income with growth prospects within companies that suit an investors risk and ethics profile.
The advantage of a SMSF is that you can invest your retirement savings your way and an ethical investment specialist can ensure that your risk and values are reflected within the choices recommended and you know where you money is invested and what it is doing.
A standard superannuation fund product is quite intangible and the underlying investments an unknown to most investors. Ethical investment within a SMSF is quite empowering for clients as well as financial rewarding.
Trustee responsibility
Having a SMSF has its downside, as Trustees you would be responsible for the investments and ensuring that the super is run according to the various rules and regulations set out by the Australian Tax Office (ATO). However you can enlist the services of your adviser or accountant to assist with the set up of the fund and the day to day running of the super.
Costs
There can be up-front costs of setting up the SMSF, including the establishment of the Trust Deed and registering for an ABN with the ATO, although in many cases there is little or no upfront fee for setting up a SMSF.
The cost of running a self managed superannuation is generally around the same cost as a public offer fund, but slightly more than an industry fund. Of course this depends on how much money you have in superannuation. As your superannuation grows, the more affordable a SMSF becomes and with large balances, a SMSF can actually be cheaper than an industry super fund.
Profits
Responsible Investment Funds have consistently outperformed average mainstream funds. The average responsible investment fund returned 11.34% per annum, compared to 8.18% per annum generated by the Large-Cap Australian Shares Fund Average, and 9.05% per annum performed by the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index (over the last 10 years). See the Responsible Investment Association Australasia’s Benchmark Report for more details: http://www.responsibleinvestment.org/riaa-research/
Find out more
At Ethical Investment Advisers we can provide you with the information and assistance you need to set up and run a self managed super fund which suits your personal financial needs and ethical values. We specialise in providing environmental and socially responsible investment advice for self managed superannuation funds. Make your money count. Start investing ethically.
There are only a few weeks left to get your films into the West End Film Festival’s 2014 short film competition.
