“Solidarity, looking out for one another, and standing alongside those having a go to make things better - these are my values.”
I have been a part of direct action activism all of my adult life, and have been heavily involved at various points in the following campaigns:
Public education;
Refugee rights;
Against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq;
The movement against corporate globalisation, particularly the M1 actions of the early 2000s.
Climate change.
I have always worked to be an ally to those organising in their own communities, and have been a committed supporter of campaigns including:
for women’s reproductive rights;
marriage equality;
in defense of trans rights;
against Black deaths in custody.
Solidarity, looking out for one another, and standing alongside those having a go to make things better - these are my values.
Politics should be about creating the best possible world for every living thing in it. Instead, it's about maintaining the status quo.
Corporate profits are booming, but real wages haven’t risen. Housing is ludicrously expensive. After year on year of record-breaking weather events and what are supposed to be once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters, the need for real action on climate change couldn’t be clearer. And we are living through a pandemic that exposes and exacerbates so many of the inequalities that lie in the heart of our society.
It doesn’t have to be like this. We have the wealth and resources to end poverty, to de-carbonise our economy, to give dignity and security for all. But transformation like that needs a change to politics as usual - a change to the system itself.
For many the prospects of real change, or indeed any change, have never felt so distant. The major parties refuse meaningful action on climate. We work harder for less. Our social services are hollowed out, our communities fragment under pressure. Systemic racism is experienced by First Nations people everyday - over policing, poverty, and new stolen generations. Violence against women and children is endemic.
I am a firefighter, a unionist, a climate change activist, and a proud member of the Greens NSW. I led the Fire Brigade Employees’ Union for seven years. In that time the FBEU was one of the first Australian unions to take a position on climate change, and one of the only NSW unions to engage in successful mass industrial action. Since standing down as a union official I have continued working inside the climate change movement through the Firefighters Climate Alliance, including a range of both written and spoken media work, as well as speaking at various events including some of the School Strikes for Climate. I have spent my adult life fighting for the kind of meaningful change for both people and the environment that is so desperately needed.
The connection between social change and environmental action is at the heart of my world view. We cannot build the kind of movement capable of de-carbonising our economy unless that movement also addresses the needs of ordinary people. I am a socialist because unless we unite people to fight for both their society, and their environment, we can fix neither.
We are a broad party, representing a range of progressive thought and experience, but not yet big enough or broad enough. To create the world we want we have to build new connections, and reach new supporters. Parliament is a stacked deck against ordinary people, but it is also a platform from which we can amplify, and help build, the kind of movements that can remake our world. If preselected I will work to do just that. I hope I have your support.