Who are you voting for?

The media seem to think they know who will win the election. The media and in particular the Murdoch press, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Australian think they can influence who will win.

But THEY do not decide who will be in Government.
                                                                 
                                          YOU DO!

YOUR democratic right to vote is a very big responsibility. Many communities throughout the world do not live in democracies and cannot choose who will run their country but you do. In this country, your opinion matters. In this country, you can choose who will lead us and who will make our laws.

This precious gift was given to you by people who fought for democracy here in Australia and who fought in wars for our freedom. Many died, so that each one of us would have the right to vote.

                         This is an unknown soldier who was killed fighting for democracy, in the First World War.

So don't take what you read in the Herald Sun or The Australian which are influenced by their conservative/right wing owner, Rupert Murdoch, on face value. Neither should you believe everything you hear and see on TV. The media is always trying to sell you something and the two big parties will try to sell you a lot of spin. So, voter beware!  Make sure you are well informed.

Where to start? 
What issues are important to you?

For many it is hard to think beyond job, schools and childcare. But when you vote for a party or candidate, you are also voting for a larger group of issues and if you look a little deeper you may find that those who appear to be saying what you want to hear, are in fact not giving you the whole picture!

Pauline Hanson is a good example of this. On the surface, she sounds patriotic but dig deeper and you find thinly disguised ignorance and bigotry. Pauline's policies are hollow, racist, sexist and very damaging to many Australians. Her policies look for quick fixes and ignore human rights and environmental concerns.

So what other issues concern you? If, like me you have a family, then you will be concerned about those top three issues: job, education and health and of course all the things associated with them such as home, transport and life style.

But these issues are very much influenced by a number of other more broad ranging concerns such as the state of the environment in which we all live, the economy and our relationships with other countries; whether or not our country is at war and who our trade partners are.

War
For a number of years Australia has been involved in conflicts overseas such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Australians and many more Afghanis and Iraqis have been killed in these conflicts which have cost the country billions of dollars. Billions of dollars spent on wars could have been spent on your children's education, medicines, health, transport, on preserving our environment and helping asylum seekers. who are usually fleeing those very conflicts!
 
Asylum Seekers
And then there is the issue that is often sensationalized by the media and misrepresented by both sides of politics for political gain; asylum seekers on boats.

Recently Kevin Rudd announced measures to do with asylum seekers that he says will stop people dying at sea or 'stop the boats'. Sound familiar? Well it should because he has swiped Tony Abbott's catch cry...'Stop The Boats' which Abbott in turn stole from John Howard.

But most people who have done their research know that shunting asylum seekers off to New Guinea and Nauru is extremely expensive and of course doesn't actually stop the boats. Like you and me, a person who seeks asylum is concerned for their family's health and safety. An asylum seeker, by definition, faces extreme danger in her own country and so is willing to make a hazardous journey, if necessary by boat, to another country; any country that has signed the UN Convention on Refugees, that will hopefully, offer  safety. http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html

Australia is a signatory to this agreement. http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/f/myth-long.php

The number of people arriving in Australia on boats to seek asylum is very low. http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/BoatArrivals

The journey is very dangerous and many have died but this is not a reason to renege on our obligation to the UNHCR agreement. http://www.rethinkrefugees.com.au/in-the-news/un-report-criticises-offshore-processing-plan/ 

People who have tried to come to Australia to escape persecution in their own countries, find that they and their children are imprisoned and further persecuted by the country they thought would offer them refuge. It is another case of our country's institutions enacting a double damage on innocent people. It is in the end, abusive and it is illegal. http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/asylum-seekers-and-refugees 

The Australian newspaper and some Coalition politicians are calling for our country to take it's name off the UN agreement. This is very concerning. These people want us to become a less humane country!

Labor and Liberal

Traditionally, Labor and Liberal have been on opposite sides of politics but over time the differences between them have become fewer and fewer.

Labor, as it's name suggests, originally had links to socialism and unionism and was once the party that supported Australian 'battlers' or the workers. Whereas the Liberal Party, whose name wrongly suggested it was broad minded and inclusive, had its origins in capitalism and industrialization, including, the industrialization of farming. It was the conservative party who sided with big business and the bosses.

These two originally small interest groups, have dominated Australian politics for the past sixty years.

It makes sense when you understand that once there were only two main classes of people: the workers and the bosses. These two classes always struggled against each other. The leaders of business and industry (the haves) were and still are driven to make as much money as possible for as little cost as possible and of course the workers (the have nots) fought and continue to fight for reasonable wages and fair work conditions.

The Australian Labor Party saw itself as building the country from the ground up and the Liberal Party saw itself as building it from the top down.

Labor and Liberal each had their place and together they maintained a fragile political balance which mostly helped our country to grow and prosper.

As Australia grew in population and prosperity so did the middle class. Sadly, few of us realized that prosperity came with a price. Mining, agriculture and industry have denigrated rivers, forests and tracts of land the size of Queensland, with the further denigration of our indigenous people.


With the growth of the middle class the boundaries between the two parties began to blur. Even the two logos now look remarkably similar!The Australian Labor Party has moved from socialist left to the conservative right, losing a substantial portion of it's original labour and union stronghold. Not surprisingly, the Liberal Party has continued moving ever further right, losing any connection it may have had to the meaning of its 'liberal' name. Both parties now have conservative policies. Both parties will deliver conservative outcomes, with Labor only marginally ahead of Liberal in its care for workers, human rights and the environment.

The growth of a new political alternative.

Meanwhile, in the 1970's many Australians were waking up to the flip side of Australia's prosperity and growing middle class. Large groups of Australians began to demand that we use our country's resources more wisely and preserve our wild places such as Lake Pedder and the Franklin River in Tasmania. These people were referred to as environmental groups.

They tried to stop the development of uranium mines in Kakadu National Park and stood in front of bulldozers in our ancient old growth forests, which scientists now tell us are the oldest, most carbon dense forests in the world. In other words, our forests keep a lot of the greenhouse gases, which cause human induced climate change, out of our atmosphere and replace it with clean air that we all need to breathe. They are also home to more species than we have been able to count.

Environmentalists began to demand that all urban, industrial, agricultural and mining developments should be safe for us and all other Australian species. During the fight to keep uranium mines out of Kakadu National Park, the environment movement joined forces with the aboriginal land rights and peace movements and began it's journey into Australian politics; eventually becoming the first Green party in the world.

This was the birth of the Australian Greens led by the famous environmental and human rights activist, Dr.Bob Brown.

Since then the Greens have become an alternative force in Australian politics next to the two almost indistinguishable, tired, old parties, LIBLAB.

The Greens now have a presence in parliaments throughout Australia as well as in many Councils with a number of Greens mayors. They have been able to negotiate some great outcomes for the Australian people. Free dental care for 3.4 million kids being one, a price on carbon being another and they are constantly advocating for public education, health, affordable housing, public transport, renewable energy, the arts, sustainable development, jobs and prosperity, marriage equality, asylum seekers and of course a clean and healthy environment.

All Australians are supported by the Greens whether they be here or overseas, our first Australians, new to our shores, religious or athiest, wealthy or poor, LGBT, single, married, parent or child. I have listed all those I could think of because the Greens support us all. More and more businesses, industrialists and farmers now vote Green because they want to grow their businesses in a successful and prosperous, renewable energy future. They see the old parties as dinosaurs.

Why is this information not in the media?

The media doesn't help. The Australian and the Herald Sun and other newspapers to a lesser degree and TV news and current affairs are only interested in selling a story and they most often report where the money is. Mining, big business and the fossil fuel industry largely support both Labor and Liberal.

LIBLAB are driven by their desire to be in Government. That's where the word 'spin' comes from. They will 'spin' a story in order to gain the greatest support from the Australian people. They will say what they think you want to hear.

LIBLAB rely on big business for campaign funds and this influences policy decisions. Why did Labor water down the mining tax which created a billion dollar short fall in the budget, prompting them to take money from the most vulnerable in our society, single parents? Have a guess.

But single parents were not the only ones to lose out. There were cuts to universities, the DSE, research, overseas aid and environmental bodies. Do you know that mining companies like those owned by Gina Rinehart pay less for petrol and for tax than you and I?  Do you know that coal mines and dirty, expensive coal fired power stations are subsidized by the government?

Let me make this clear. Single parents, universities, the arts, forests, the unemployed, hospitals and asylum seekers LOSE and the miners WIN.

What can you do about it?

So now is the time for YOU, the voter, to realize that there is a viable alternative to the two tired old parties!

Way back when the Greens were forming a political party, Clint Eastwood was catching bank robbers in Dirty Harry. Pardon the very big gun! It's a metaphor for climate change. Remember when he said,

 'Ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?" Well do you, punk?'

As you probably know, scientists tell us that we have only a few short years to try and fix climate change. At the most it is ten years. They also tell us that if we don't, we can say goodbye to our homes, our cars, our life styles, our transport, our food, our water and what's left? Oh yes, the air we breathe.

Do you know what the Liberal Party under Tony Abbott, who until a few months ago said he didn't believe in human induced climate change, says they'll do about it? They say they will plant trees. Hey, planting trees is good, right? Yes it's good but how long do trees take to grow? We need to plant trees for the future but we also have to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases now, before it's too late.

In 2010 Tony Abbott was at a meeting in country Victoria where he was heard to say that human induced climate change is 'crap'. http://blogs.abc.net.au/victoria/2009/12/climate-change-is-crap-tony-abbot-said-to-the-pyrenees-advocate.html

Tony will repeal the price on carbon (emissions trading scheme) which has not significantly increased costs to the consumer and has managed to reduce carbon emissions in Australia by 15%! It has also helped to fund  the development of the renewable energy industry providing 24,000 new jobs.... 

Tony will support the fossil fuel industry which is the biggest contributor to greenhouse emissions next to agriculture.

Tony will increase taxes.

Tony will not help schools.

Tony will cut essential services to health and education.

Tony will help to chop down the last of our native forests and will allow loggers to further poison drinking water in many parts of Australia, not the least being in Victoria and Tasmania.

Tony will allow mining everywhere, especially in NSW and Queensland. EVEN UNDER YOUR HOUSE if needs be because Tony always says YES to mining companies. That's where his campaign money comes from!

Tony will allow industrial fishing fleets to deplete our seas of fish.

Tony says he will turn back the boats, full of people seeking asylum from persecution.

If you vote for Tony Abbott in this election, what will your kids say to you in ten years time when the world's temperature rises over two degrees and it becomes unlivable?

 

So, do you feel lucky? Do you want to take your chances with Labor or much worse, Liberal?

Don't rely on luck. Vote 1 Green in both the Senate and the Lower House. Your children will thank you and you'll be glad you did the right thing.