Life on the West Island - Reaching for the stars

Elections should be about a contest of ideas. Politics should be about reaching

for the stars and offering a better society – Adam Bandt, Member for Melbourne.

The West Island is enduring the final throes of a tedious federal election campaign, which has almost totally lacked vision, hope and bold ideas for a better and brighter future. One major political figure has described it as a contest between a government that deserves to be turfed out and an opposition that’s got no vision. This quote comes from a leader who has presented a fully-costed comprehensive and visionary package of policies and initiatives to strengthen both the national economy and environment, reduce inequality and achieve much greater social cohesion.

His name is Adam Bandt, who is the leader of the Australian Greens and who has been by far the most impressive and accomplished public performer in the 2022 federal election campaign. But although his party has greatly improved its standing in the published opinion polls, it stands no chance of forming a government, particularly because of the features of our electoral system, including compulsory voting, single-member electorates and a preference system which guarantees that the least unpopular candidates are elected, rather than the most popular ones.

According to Mike Seccombe, writing in The Saturday Paper, the Greens, as the third party in national politics, attract more voter support than the Nationals, but get nothing like the coverage their size should warrant. The days are long past when the party that grew out of the environmental movement could be dismissed as a bunch of tree huggers.

If the opinion polls are correct the election on May 21 could well result in the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate in their own right. Seccombe continues in short, it’s time to take them seriously, all the more because they represent the antithesis of what people are increasingly complaining about: the Bib-and-Bub duopoly of major parties with small ideas.

When he appeared at the National Press Club, Adam Bandt demonstrated the changed nature of the Greens under his leadership. He showed that they still maintain a fierce commitment to protecting and enhancing the nation’s precious natural environment, but as well have worked hard to develop a full suite of economic and social policies in a way that the Morrison government has totally failed to do. In fact, in nine years they have barely made any significant reforms while presiding over a huge increase in debt and lavishing taxpayers’ money on doubtful priorities and lining the pockets of their corporate mates. As well, Labor’s “small target” strategy has shifted the party away from bold and necessary reforms, giving the impression that its “Light on the Hill” is burning much less brightly these days.

Both at the Press Club and in other in-depth interviews, Bandt has demonstrated an impressive calm and articulate manner, together with an ability to explain the vision and details of Greens policies and to set them in an overall context of national political, social and economic challenges and opportunities.

Naturally, the Greens have very strong policies on combatting climate change through rapid reduction of the use of fossil fuels (coal and gas), building a huge capacity to generate renewable energy and to transition jobs to new industrial opportunities, including venturing into the mining and exporting of rare earths and minerals and building giant clean batteries for domestic use and for world markets. They support the creation of green hydrogen projects to generate electricity, manufacture clean steel and power new industries including electric vehicles and green steel. The Greens also propose to greatly reduce the nation’s species extermination rate and to take aggressive action to protect the Great Barrier Reef before it is too late.

But the policies developed under Adam Bandt move way beyond these traditional environmental areas. The Greens home page contains details of dozens of proposed initiatives under many headings including:

• Equality and justice for all including especially LGBTIQA+ citizens;
• Fully-funded frontline homelessness services, renters’ rights and building affordable social housing;
• Ending violence against women;
• Removing the barriers, fixing the systems and eliminating structural discrimination faced by disabled people;
• Dental and mental healthcare covered under Medicare;
• Wiping student debt and free education for all;
• Implementing a treaty with First Nations peoples, followed by adopting the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a voice to parliament;
• Building a stronger social safety net with a guaranteed living income of no less than $88 per day for all.

Citing Adam Bandt, Mike Seccombe outlines how the Greens propose to fund these ambitious visionary plans: the basic premise of the Greens agenda is simple: tax the billionaires, the big corporations and the dirty industries to fund ambitious social and environmental goals. The party would enact a new 40 per cent super profits tax to apply to corporations with a turnover of over $100 million, assessed on their net revenue after tax. The independent Parliamentary Budget Office has calculated the mining component would raise $124 billion and the wider component $214 billion over 10 years. The party would introduce an annual 6 per cent wealth tax on Australia’s billionaires – 122 people at last count – to raise a further $40-odd billion.

Seccombe agrees with Bandt that this would be more than enough to fund all the Greens proposals, including the building of a million new affordable homes over 20 years, and more.

Bandt has made the Greens a genuine third force in West Island politics, and says he is optimistic for the future: After three or four decades of Labor and Liberal alike embracing neoliberalism, throwing people to the wall, engaging in a race to the bottom, we are now the only defenders of progressive social democracy. And I think there is still a big, beating progressive heart in Australia.

The Greens are reaching for the stars. The looming election will show how much support they have for their visionary agenda.