How we can win

We can win a Senate seat in Queensland if we have a lead Senate candidate who can conduct a strong campaign.  We need to raise our vote to 10% in a state where we are up against the combined entrenchment of the 2 major parties, and the wealth and self interest of the mining and developer industries.  Queensland Greens need a candidate who can put in 100% effort.  I am that candidate.  I have committed myself at every level of the party, and ( despite having been asked on more than one occasion to stand for the Senate,) I have now reached a stage in my life when I am confident I have the experience, the fortitude and the energy to run for the Senate.     

My ability to withstand pressure is a matter of public record

The next parliament is likely to be the most stressful in the history of the Australian Greens.  Predictions are that we could win 7 seats and hold the balance of power. (Bob Brown will be faced with several senators with little or no experience, as well as the immense pressure that comes with balance of power.)  This is the kind of pressure that tore the Australian Democrats apart in spite of the fact that they had twenty-five years parliamentary experience.  In Queensland, we cannot afford to elect a part-time senator.  We need a strong voice to keep our issues on the agenda - issues that are of national and international significance.  My ability to withstand pressure is a matter of public record, as I effectively managed as secretary and deputy-convener of the Queensland Greens at a time when we had no staff and few resources.  I have advocated for Queensland at national conferences where bigger and better resourced states expected us to give way to their interests.  I have held strong when my civil disobedience and arrests landed me in overnight detention during the worst of the Bjelke-Petersen days.  I do not relish these stresses, but my commitment to the principles that we Greens espouse gives me the courage and resilience to continue.  I have been tested through 30 years of grassroots political activism, and I have 19 years experience as a founding member of both the Australian Greens and the Queensland Greens. 

Building the party across Queensland

Finally, we need to elect a senator who will be mobile and committed to travelling the state.  We need a senator who is prepared to experience first hand, the impact of this state’s mining and development disasters, a senator for the Great Barrier Reef, a senator for the inland rivers, a senator to say No to Traveston Dam and the horrific overdevelopment of the southeast.  But just as importantly for the Queensland Greens is that we have a senator who understands the need to build the party organisationally.  A senator who will be free to visit regularly our regional branches and give them as much support as the senator’s role allows.  I will use the Senate role to help break through at local, state and federal level, so that Queensland Greens are heard at every opportunity.

The challenge for our generation

I think there is one other concern that many members harbour about any of our candidates and that is how deep their conviction goes.  When I was in Mackay recently a member of the branch wanted to know what drove me philosophically and how she could be sure that I wouldn’t sell out as so many elected to parliaments before me had. 

In a number of speeches that I have had to give as spokesperson for the Greens I have spoken about the need for a sense of place and how that lack of a sense of place allows any number of developmental travesties.  But we desperately need also to foster a sense of time. 

As a professional historian I am keenly aware of how our sense of time has become hopelessly distorted.  Let me explain. 

I spoke at the Queensland Conservation Council’s 40th anniversary seminar at the Queensland Museum recently.  The afternoon wore on and speaker after speaker referred to on-going environmental problems which they had been campaigning on over several decades until someone bravely asked, ‘How can you keep going when all the environmental indicators show that we are going backwards?’  John Sinclair, the champion of Fraser Island who had bravely withstood defamation and other writs from Joh Bjelke-Petersen governments, immediately responded ‘You’ve got to engage.  What’s the point of living if you don’t engage?’
I guess I would add that we also fight because we have the freedom to. 
This is the joy of living in this era when so much other news seems designed to disempower us.  We’re the first generation with the standard of living and the political power to enable us to engage.  It is why we formed the Greens. 
And when you add the extension of knowledge and education to that wealth and power you can add that it is the responsibility of our generation.  Others had to fight hunger, famine and repression.  We have to fight for the planet and our own much-loved Queensland part of it.
So yes we know how desperate this election is for the environment, for the planet and especially for Queensland.  But I want to contest this election on our behalf because I finally can. 

The media experience, the campaign knowledge, the family support have finally all lined up and I know that I can get out across this state to take us over that 10% hurdle so that with preferences we can scrape home with that elusive 14% and a senate seat. 

That’s what I bring professionally to this party – a sense of time and a sense of awareness that this is the role of our generation.  Our grandparents had to fight wars and depression but our generation has the wealth, the scientific knowledge and the freedom to defend this planet from the tyranny of others and it is our duty to do so. 

I have the time and support to wage a full campaign, I have the resilience to face the pressures that lie ahead if we are successful, I have the knowledge, history and commitment to use the senate role to build this party so that we are no longer the poor cousins of the Australian Greens.  I want you to put me No. 1 on your ballot.