South Australians not suckers for Labor Water Spin
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On 29 November all 79 of Victoria's Local Governments went to the polls. The Victorian Greens ran a record 95 candidates across the state, and early results suggest there will be many more Greens Councillors for the 2008-2012 local government term, some in places where Greens have never been elected before, like Queenscliffe, Port Phillip, Surf Coast and Glen Eira. In Yarra Ranges, Greens Councillor Samantha Dunn has been re-elected with more than 50% of the vote, and Greens have been returned to Melbourne, Yarra and Moreland City Councils. The Greens vote has doubled in parts of Brimbank and Banyule. Counting continues tomorrow. |
Local Government Elections
Walk Against Warming
About 15,000 people attended the 15 November 2008 Walk Against Warming in Melbourne, and many more at similar rallies around the country. Speakers urged our governments to urgently tackle the climate crisis. More info and photos
Brown Mountain is being logged!
Here's a message from long-term East Gippsland forests campaigner Jill Redwood:
Many of you will have been up the East Gippsland's forest camps and taken the walk down through the 'valley of giants' on Brown Mountain. Here's a photo from the area now being bulldozed and destroyed forever. Click on it to see what happens next.
Please call or write to the Premier John Brumby and Environment minister Gavin Jennings. State Parliament is on 9651 8911.
Say whatever the heart says, and remind them that forests are critical carbon stores and soaks, biodiversity store houses, water makers (Snowy catchment) and have huge tourism potential.
Renewing Melbourne and Yarra
We’re in a climate emergency and it’s time for governments at all levels to take urgent action. And as it gets harder to make ends meet financially, it’s time to cut your energy bills.
The Greens want to make Melbourne Australia’s most sustainable capital city. We will use the resources of Yarra and Melbourne Councils to offer inner-city residents and businesses:
* A free audit and retrofit of dwellings to reduce energy consumption (and power bills) by about 30%. For low-income households, we will also provide free insulation.
* Installation of solar hot water systems and solar PV panels on dwellings. If people can’t meet the up-front cost, Council will organise installation and they can pay the costs back from the savings to their power bills, so they won’t be out of pocket.
* In time, once the first two projects are established, ReMY (the new Renewing Melbourne and Yarra authority) will look at local renewable power generation, through means such as combined heat and power and installing solar panels on public structures. Read more
NZ election
Aotearoa New Zealand goes to the polls on 8 November. The Green Party's election campaign advertising has been a widely-praised sensation. It encapsulates with beautiful simplicity why people vote Green.
Click here to view their TV advertisement.
Click here to view their 'Vote For Us' campaign, which invites people to create their own Green billboard and email it to their friends.
If you know someone eligible to vote in the NZ elections, and want to encourage them to vote Green, please create a billboard for them now
ACT Greens win fourth seat
The Greens have won four seats in the ACT Parliament. There are seven Labor and six Liberal MLAs, so the Greens' support will be needed to form government. More info: ACT Greens website
Candidates sign Climate Pledge
19-10-2008 Greens local government candidates around the state are today signing the following Climate Pledge:
The climate emergency threatens all of us. State and Federal Governments are not taking the science seriously. It's time for local governments to lead.
I ____________________ as an endorsed Greens candidate in the November 2008 Council elections, pledge that if I am elected I shall do my utmost to make ________________ Council:
1. reduce its own net carbon emissions to zero, and encourage residents and businesses to cut theirs by 40% by 2020 at the latest;
2. work with neighbouring councils on joint projects to improve energy efficiency and cut carbon emissions;
3. press the Victorian and Federal Governments to reduce carbon emissions to a level which will preserve our natural heritage for our children and grandchildren.
The six Greens candidates for the City of Yarra signed the pledge leaning against a giant earth ball. Clockwise from bottom left are Alison Clarke, Cr Jenny Farrar, Cr Gurm Sekhon, Davis Clayton, Sam Gaylard and Amanda Stone.
Sleepout for the homeless
13-10-2008 Last Saturday night there was a sleepout to raise awareness of homelessness at Melba Park in Lilydale. Greens Councillor and candidate Samantha Dunn and her family participated. She took along a large cardboard box on which she wrote homelessness statistics from census night 2006.
* 16% were sleeping out
* 45% stayed with friends or relatives temporarily
* 21% were in boarding houses
* 19% stayed in hostels, shelters and refuges. More details
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The People PlanChoose the Melbourne you want to live in The Victorian Greens have released a discussion paper and website proposing a major upgrade of Melbourne’s public transport system. The $14 billion blueprint allows Melburnians to go anywhere by public transport with high-frequency train, tram and bus services covering 101 major centres.“The aim is to double capacity in the next eight years and to triple public transport use by 2020,” Greens transport spokesperson Greg Barber MLC said. More info Click here for the YouTube video or here for The People Plan website |
2008 State Conference
This year’s Greens State Conference was held on 13 and 14 September. As the conference was celebrating the centenary of Women’s Suffrage in Victoria, all conference members were welcomed by some “Suffragists”
and invited to sign a banner which represented the massive petition for women’s votes which was presented to parliament over 100 years ago.
A second greeting was given by Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Doreen Garvey Wandin who welcomed all participants to the land. The new Office bearers and Regional representatives for 2008-2009 were then announced.
WA Greens Senator Rachel Siewert was a keynote speaker at the conference, and outlined how the Senate has now changed, and what Party Status means for the Australian Greens. More
73 Greens Councillors elected in NSW
14-09-2008 The NSW Greens have elected 73 Greens Councillors in Saturday's statewide local government elections. This is a significant increase on their previous 58 Councillors, and a result that we hope bodes well for the November 2008 statewide local government elections in Victoria.
The NSW Greens' best results was in Byron Shire, where Greens Mayor Jan Barham polled 50% of the primary vote, and where there is likely to be a Greens majority on Council. In Leichhardt the Greens outpolled both Liberal and Labor, and elected five and possibly six of the twelve-member Council. In Marrickville, five Greens were elected with 40% of the vote. Four Greens were elected in Waverley, three each in the Blue Mountains and Woolahra and two in Sydney City. More info NSW Electoral Commission website
Inquiry into water management
03-09-2008 New Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young writes:
As you may have heard, last week I successfully moved a motion to establish a Senate Inquiry into water management in the Coorong and Lower Lakes.
The Murray-Darling river system is in crisis. Southern and eastern Australia are running out of water. Inflows to the Murray Darling are at their lowest in 116 years. Water storages and irrigation allocations are hitting their lowest ever levels. Cities and towns dependent on the system are experiencing a water security crisis, instituting severe restrictions and yet are still unable to guarantee ongoing supplies.
With this Inquiry, we move from talk to action to save a national icon and help Australians in need. Due to the urgent nature of the issue the Inquiry has a very tight deadline.
The closing date for receipt of submissions for water management in the Coorong and Lower Lakes is Thursday 11th September 2008. I urge you to submit to this important Inquiry. More
Save Tibet Hot Air balloon
The Australia Tibet Council has a "Save Tibet" hot air balloon flying across Melbourne over the next few weeks to help highlight its cause.
Those of you in Melbourne can keep an eye out for it in your morning skies. More info
High and dry
24-08-2008 Greens volunteers have made a short film about the plight of the lower lakes, Murray mouth and Coorong in South Australia. These are now in a state of environmental disaster, because no fresh water is flowing down the Murray River. Wildlife, farmers and local communities are all suffering. The film is part of the campaign for Greens candidate Lynton Vonow in the Mayo by-election. Click here to view it.
Click here to hear Bob Brown speak about this crisis at a public meeting in SA last week.
Embracing Change: Why We Need Leadership on the Climate Crisis
On Monday 11th August 2008, Brian Walters SC gave a speech at Melbourne High School about the need to embrace change urgently to avoid climate catastrophe. We've had several requests for copies of Brian's speech, which commenced as follows:
"This past week we have seen Penny Wong, the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, after negligible effort, give up on restoring river flows to the Murray Darling, and announce support for allowing the sea in to the lower Murray system so as to permanently destroy the freshwater ecology of the Coorong and associated wetlands - which are internationally listed and protected.
"At the same time, our Victorian government has refused to accept the independent VEAC report into saving the river red gums of the Barmah forest along the Murray by giving them the regular drinks they need.
"What the Brumby government will do is spend millions of dollars on a pipeline to take water away from the Murray and bring it to Melbourne.
"Over the last 30 years a third of Melbourne’s water catchments have been logged. According to Melbourne Water and CSIRO studies, we lose at least 30 gigalitres each year from these catchments because of logging – equivalent to the water used by 150,000 Melbourne households.
"Instead of buying out all the timber licences for a mere $3.9 million, the State government has committed – not to water conservation – but to spending over $3 billion on an energy intensive and environmentally destructive desalination plant.
"Under its present leaders, our political system seems as arterially sclerotic as the Murray Darling itself." Read the whole speech (pdf)
No Road Tunnel public meetings
Wondering where exactly the $9 billion Eddington road tunnel would go? Where its exits and entrances would be? Who needs to travel that route? And why, when so few people travel that way, it's even on the drawing board?
In May this year, Greens MLC Greg Barber discussed these questions with a packed public meeting at Kensington Community Centre. The meeting was one of a series intended to inform the public about the tunnel's impacts.
Click here to see the meeting video on YouTube. Find out about upcoming public meetings. Download more information about the tunnel route (2.77MB).
West Papuan refugees say they can't go home
11-08-2008 Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda has told the Sydney Morning Herald that a group of 43 West Papuan refugees who arrived in Australia in 2006 now want to return to their Indonesian-controlled homeland.
The Australia-West Papua Association has called this an attempt to mislead the international community regarding the true state of affairs in West Papua. It says as recently as Saturday, a West Papuan man was shot and killed by Indonesian security forces for raising a flag during traditional celebrations.
The Australia West Papua Association's Herman Wainggai is the spokesperson for the group of 43, and disputes the Indonesian Foreign Minister's claim.
"All refugees want to go home. People don't choose to become refugees; it is because their home is not safe. We are the same. We came to Australian because West Papua is not a safe place.
"On Saturday a 35 year old man was shot dead while taking part in a United Nations celebration. How can we return to that?" Photo: Morning Star (West Papuan), Indonesian and SOS flags above crowd on Saturday in Wamena, West Papua. More info, plus photos from the Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights
Historic vote for the NT Greens
The Greens in the Northern Territory have recorded an average of 15.9% across the seats they contested at the 9 August election, and their highest ever Territory-wide vote.
In Nightcliff Dr Emma Young (pictured at left) polled a stunning 23.6%, up from 15.7% in 2005 and the highest Greens primary vote ever in the NT. Emma said, "It is a great result. With one in four voters choosing the Greens over the old parties, whichever one forms government would do well to consider carefully the Greens policies favoured by voters.'
More details on NT Greens website
 More stories in the Archives. |
Rally against Rudd`s anti-union laws