An election forum with a twist, held at Tuggerah’s Red Tree Theatre on Sunday, May 1, attracted over 100 community members and high-profile speakers – but not the Liberal or Labor candidates.
The event – called “Integrity and Our Future, what to know before we vote” – was hosted by community organisations including Central Coast for Social Justice, CC Friends of Democracy, Climate Future and Future Sooner.
It was an opportunity to turn the conventional candidate’s forum on its head by putting issues of high community concern and interest first then allowing candidates to respond.
Alan Sunderland, ABC editorial director from 2013 to 2019, spoke on integrity and accountability.
Sunderland noted Australia had ranked seventh in 2012 for government corruption but, by 2022 had slipped to 18th.
“We have dropped 11 places in the international rankings by a respected non-profit group,” he said.
“Never before have I lived in an environment where damning complaints about politically corrupt ways of spending our money come to light and the response is to say … we accept those recommendations but we’ve done nothing wrong and we won’t do anything about it – except for one thing: funding to the National Audit office has been cut by about 10 per cent despite claims for it to be increased,” Sunderland said.
“When ICAC comes out in NSW and has its findings against the then-Premier, it is labelled a kangaroo court. “The (Federal) Government, as we know, has gone to great lengths not to endorse, embrace or create any kind of meaningful commission against corruption,” he said.
Referring to organisations such as the ANA, ABC and Commonwealth Ombudsman, he said: “I realise governments traditionally, and it doesn’t matter whether they are Coalition or Labor, or one day a Green government, who knows, governments find it very difficult to fund things they can’t control.”
Richard Weller from Climate Future said: “It is innately unfair and false to tout ‘business as usual’, giving false hope to communities like the Hunter coal miners. It is just not right. A fair, safer and more equitable approach is to have a well-thought-out transition plan.
“We’ve got enormous opportunities in renewable energy and we just need to take advantage of it. Any kind of cost-benefit analysis for the region or for Australia as a whole shows the opportunities of moving early to renewable energy far outweigh the cost.”
Gary Blaschke from Future Sooner has been a long-term campaigner on the health impacts of coal-fired power stations and coal ash dams.
He pointed out the federal electorate of Dobell covered a larger area than “the Dominican Republic, Tonga or Bahrain, so we are talking about a massive area for these people who want to represent us to be able to understand”.
Blaschke noted there were no environmental boundaries between Shortland, Dobell and Robertson and the impacts of coal mining and electricity generation affected the whole population.
“Coal communities like where I live in Lake Munmorah in the division of Shortland have endured decades of environmental destruction and human health impacts because of their proximity to the now-decommissioned Lake Munmorah coal-powered fire station, the operational Delta-owned Vales Point and Origin’s own Erraring power stations.”
“Not only do we endure increases in particulate pollution with Vales Point recently … recording a 123 per cent increase in P10 particles and over 200 per cent increase in PM5 particles in the year 2020-21 despite generating less electricity.”
He said evidence of chronic health consequences have been swept under the carpet by politicians.
Lana Tu from the Refugee Action Coalition gave a compelling speech about the plight of those in detention because they had arrived in Australia by boat to seek asylum.
“Refugees may be elders, resistance fighters, democracy activists, journalists,” she said. “People flee because of push factors like persecution or war.”
She said Kevin Rudd, when he became Prime Minister again in 2013, was the first to state that no asylum seeker arriving by boat would be granted asylum, contravening their human rights under UN conventions.
She said 13,700 people were incarcerated or living precariously and giving them permanent visas would resolve the issue, noting both Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison would continue the crisis.
David Shoebridge, who has resigned from the NSW Parliament to run for the Senate, said social and environmental justice “really does start with First Nations justice”.
“There is a reason I put my hand up to run for the Greens in this election … part of what we are doing here today is not being bystanders in democracy but coming in and insisting that this is a collective job to come and fix the broken democracy that we have.”
He said the “false” competition between Labor and Liberal was proof of the broken state of our democracy and the continuing use of 19th- and 20th-century technology based around fossil fuels was damaging our health and planet.
“Both the Coalition and Labor are [committing] to actually open up new coal and gas operations and make the situation worse.”
Federal candidates who were invited to speak at the forum but did not attend included Member for Dobell, Emma McBride (Labor), Member for Robertson, Lucy Wicks (Liberal), Liberal candidate for Dobell, Michael Feneley and Labor candidate for Robertson, Dr Gordon Reid.
Two candidates, Cath Conner (Greens, Dobell) and Jeff Lawson (Indigenous Aboriginal Party, Robertson), did attend and speak.
Lawson said he was standing to represent all the people of Robertson and would focus on reforming land councils, reducing Aboriginal deaths in custody and improving health outcomes for Indigenous Australians.
“We’ve got a small period of time to really focus on the issues that at a federal level will make a difference to all of us, like climate change – because if we don’t fix it now, if we have three more years of inaction, it will be too late.”
Both candidates said they wanted to improve the availability of affordable housing and give more children and adults access to education without debt.
Jackie Pearson
This article was first published on www.thepoint.net.au ESG News Site