Federal Pre-selection and the NSW Greens - my speech full text.

Amanda Findley at the Ashfield Town Hall pre-selection forum 19 June 2015

Following is the full text of the speech I delivered at Ashfield Town Hall on 19 June 2015 as part of the meet the candidates forum for the NSW Greens pre-selection. The prepared speech was delivered, followed by a 3 min speech chosen from a random topic and a half hour preparation time. The fifteen mins. of questioning afterwards was an intense and broad ranging flurry of topics. Even though I was nervous going into the session,  I enjoyed the rigor of the session. If you are a Greens member reading this and you have watched the You Tubes from the session you will see that I didn't quite finish what I prepared and the text is slightly different as I adlibed through my own content.

Just for context here is the scenario I was given for the second short speech

Renewable energy and war

You are elected a Greens senator and become a leading advocate for a new form of highly cost-effective solar technology that is pricing out both coal and gas from the Australian energy market.

You are hosting a 'half way there' party to celebrate the first year in which more than half of the electrical energy used in Australia was generated from renewable sources. Much of the success has been because of the new solar technology.

The mineral tantalum is a critical feedstock for the production of the new solar technology.

The day before your party, a United Nations report is released showing that mining for tantalum in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been responsible for escalating a war that has already killed 100,000 people and is likely to get much worse as the demand for the mineral increases.  Other countries can produce tantalum but at very much greater price, with consequences for the cost-competitiveness of the new solar technology.

Speech for Greens pre-selection.               

I want to pay my respects to Aboriginal elders past present and future and to acknowledge that the land on which we meet was is and will always be Aboriginal land.

I have spent the last 8 years enjoying my  apprenticeship within the party, which started with a bang when I threw myself in the deep end and contested the 2007 State election. I haven’t looked back in fact I think my life has sped up considerably since making that initial decision. 

I keenly felt the defeat of Kerry Nettle during that election and found it difficult to reconcile why NSW voters couldn’t see what we Greens could see. The planet needed protecting from climate change, that asylum seekers had a right to seek asylum and that our fragile environment needed all the help we could give it.

Part of my apprenticeship had been served on Shoalhaven City Council – I was elected for two consecutive terms and I am currently considering my future in local government.

The 2015 state election really brought home to many the importance of local campaigns, conversations, strong local groups and critical issues. We Greens didn’t   need to move to a more conservative position within the political spectrum but our dedication to environmental protection and standing up for the vulnerable shone through. Even though we achieved electoral success our average vote remained virtually unchanged,  more than ever a plan to tap into the fertile ground of Western Sydney were millions of potential voters reside is needed.

We have fantastic local groups working in Western Sydney building The Greens profile, but imagine what we could do by strategically focusing annually on a geographical area and making a concerted effort with the local groups. Working with NGO’s and community groups to provide interesting and interactive forums that inform our policy work, mass doorknocking  events,  the holding of a number of our SDC’s in the chosen region. Many of you have experienced working in small groups, how draining it is just to work through election cycles. What a difference a pledge of one day per member Could make in, promoting a Green’s inspired future,  the hope we could generate for those who feel like there is little.  I remember as a young person living in Campbelltown that there was so little hope it was easier to look for opportunities to obliterate yourself than it was to look for allies who seemed invisible.  We have to be there for people and they don’t need to look hard to find us, especially when concerns about housing and basic needs are high priority.

Part of building our narrative of hope is to refocus on tackling climate change. Some in this room grew up with cold war threats of nuclear war, some of us enjoyed the relative calm of the interwar years, but we need to offer hope for Generation Z and beyond, who are growing up in a world threatened by climate change.  The next election cycle offers us great opportunity to differentiate ourselves once again by promoting a national campaign similar to the NSW 100% Renewables. With iron ore and coal prices declining, and our PM declaring war on wind energy and  wind as a blight on the landscape we need to capitalize swiftly and continuously on the benefits of a renewable energy future, possible, affordable and essential, should be the three words on the lips of all. The economic benefits are not hard to sell and we can recruit those householders who have great home solar stories to tell to help us in imagining a renewable future. I have had some involvement in the home and remote solar industry and many of our  clients didn't identify as ‘being Green’ but when we spend  time talking to them about that you can see a shift in thinking taking place. The technological revolution continues apace and we are the only party that embraces science over corporate greed. We need more open communication and build our allies with the scientific community.

Our environment is continually under threat, State Governments continue to undermine decades of progress that put some protection into a development system that was tipped so far in favour of the developer. If campaigns are the life blood of The Greens then it is surely our responsibility to roar loud and often about the Federal Governments current legislation that seeks to hand the administration of Commonwealth threatened species protection over to the states. In the last month the EDO have made it clear that such an act will see a massive decline in environmental standards. Environment Victoria seem to be the only group making a concerted campaign effort in this space and we need to take a more prominent position- main stream media might not find it ‘worthy’ but our friends in the 5^th estate can ensure that the message and its importance isn’t lost.