My vision is to be a strong voice for our community on issues that matter to people who live on the Mornington Peninsula.
Last week Australians bore witness to what has been described as “one of the most extreme disasters in our colonial history.” This was not a natural weather event, as the Prime Minister and Coalition ministers described it. This disaster was due to climate inaction.
The projections for flooding in last week’s IPCC report, are incredibly worrying. The report says with sea level rise of just 0.5m — which we will likely see this century, and maybe as soon as 2050 — what is currently considered a “one-in-100-year flood event” could happen “several times a year.
Bridget McKenzie from National Party said now is not the time to talk about climate change. Scott Morrison said something similar during the devastating bushfires in 2020.
I’ve been talking about climate change since 1992. I agree it’s no longer the time to talk. It’s time to ACT.
Those of us here today care about climate action. In fact, my KTCs show that many of us living on the Mornington Peninsula understand that we need climate action. And we need it now.
The challenge is to convince those who read the Murdoch press that we are in the midst of a climate emergency. We won’t get climate action until we build public consensus in Australia that climate action is good for all of us.
Neither coalition nor ALP has strong climate polices Their policies are proof that we won’t get sufficient climate action until corruption (not only political) and political donations policies are overhauled. We urgently need fossil fuel money taken out of politics so we can phase out fossil fuels.
The Greens have had an ambitious climate policy for many years, but the 2009 Emission Trading Scheme is one of many examples where the Greens proved they don’t have the required negotiation skills or ability to build a consensus??. We need grown up Independents at the table who know how to negotiate.
Once fossil fuel donations and their political influence are off the table, we need all MPs from all parties to listen to the science. We can then develop a whole-of-economy approach to get our greenhouse gas emissions down by 75% in the next ten years, and we must start now. Australia already has the solutions to make this happen.
Rapidly switching to renewable energy, and electrifying homes, businesses and transport systems will boost our economy and create millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. It will also protect our homes, livelihoods and ecosystems from further catastrophic harm. It also has the potential to save every households thousands of dollars a year.
As Prof. Hilary Bambrick from the Climate Council says: “We just need to get on with it.”
So today we start getting on with it.
Just to be crystal clear: I will be listening to the experts, not those with a vested interest. But I also need to listen to, and learn from, different views in the community. This is the purpose of Policies in the Park: for me to listen.
How this works is: We all break out into small groups – so the first thing we will need to do is to define what these small groups will be. A few of us will wander around in a minute to hear what topics interest you most.
Secondly, we spend half an hour in these small groups discussing the specific topic – while focused on solutions, not problems.
In each group there is a scribe – someone who takes notes about the main things discussed in these small groups. I have notebooks and pens
We then come back together as one large group – and each scribe will inform us about what was discussed. We all (myself included) then have the opportunity to ask questions about anything that is not clear – or that we may need more information about.
I will then go home and bring this all together into a document that I will share with you all via email. And you will be encouraged to provide feedback through comments/track changes.
All my policies on the website will be dynamic documents. I genuinely welcome critical feedback. My policies may change as I learn more about the issue from people in our community.
