Federal Funding 2010
Unlike the state Greens parties, the Australian Greens receives no direct public funding after federal elections. While public funding makes up the bulk of the Greens’ income, the Australian Greens national body misses out. After the 2007 election, the Greens collectively received $4 million in funding but none of this went directly to the Australian Greens. By agreement, most states passed on a fraction. The Australian Greens do not currently have a fundraiser. What’s more, most of the money raised from the Australian Greens’ recent letter of appeal (60%) went to the state Greens. For the 2010 election we need a national campaign with a national advertising budget, reliant on the expected public funding, like the bigger parties.
If you make a donation to the Australian Greens and want it all to go towards the national advertising budget, be sure to say so.
Southern Cross
Which brings me to the starry cross of our southern skies. I like natural symbols and have long advocated that the Tasmanian Tiger replace the British lion and Union Jack on Tasmania’s flag. Here’s a straw poll seeking your opinion on a new version of our redoubtable Greens triangle. Do you prefer it with or without the Southern Cross? You can go to my website at www.bobbrown.org.au and click ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or send me a note saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ plus postcode to GPO Box 404, Hobart TAS 7001. We’ll print the result in the next issue.
P.S. The triangle grew from the campaign to save the Franklin River – it began upside down but was turned pointy side up to nicely fit the slogan ‘No Dams’. The original United Tasmania Group (the world’s first Greens party, 1972) had six triangles in its logo. Designers often tell us what a powerful symbol we have developed. This straw poll has no official status but invites your (grassroots) input.
2010 and 2020
Twenty-ten has a good Green ring about it. The federal election will test us all out, and will showcase environmental policies more than any poll since the 1980s. The collapse of Copenhagen showed how right we were to reject the Rudd target of 5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 while compensating big polluters with $24 billion, including $6 billion transferred from households during negotiations with the Turnbull coalition.
Penny Wong refused to negotiate a better target with us. She should rethink. Scientists say that a 25–40% reduction by 2020 is essential to keep planetary heating below 2°C. Just stopping clearing of native forests and woodlands in Australia would give us 15–20% reduction for much, much less than $24 billion.
2010: our Senate year
The Australian Greens has the strongest team of Senate candidates ever. Polls give us a good chance of increasing our Senate team from five to seven or eight, but the polls have been wrong before. However, where we don’t win Senate seats, Labor will. So, even with no new seats the Greens are likely to gain the sole balance-of-power in the Senate. We are ready. But, make no mistake, it will bring excruciating dilemmas. The Rudd Government, largely backed by the Press Gallery, will demand that we acquiesce to Labor’s ‘mandate’ to govern. We will be strongly advocating our own electoral ‘mandate’.
Swifties
Paul and I have settled in to a new cottage in southern Tasmania. It has one bedroom, with my office and a guest room in a separate cabin, built on an old gravel quarry, by the sea, in a Eucalyptus tenuiramis woodland full of banksias. So we have been seeing quite a bit of the rare Swift Parrots. They fly north across Bass Strait in autumn to their winter feeding grounds in the woodlands from Adelaide to Toowoomba. Pictured on the back cover of this magazine is one outside the bedroom window (4 January 2010). It’s the fastest parrot on earth and crosses Bass Strait in three hours (the ferry takes all night). It has a five-grooved tongue specially adopted for eucalypt blossom, and, under Rudd government permit, its nesting trees at Wielangta (on the east coast of Tasmania) and Bruny Island are being logged. Last winter’s feeding trees near Bermagui (NSW) are being logged as you read this. Meanwhile, Garrett has rejected out of hand the recommendation of his own expert panel that he appoint an independent overseer of logging destruction in Australia’s forests. Where once huge flocks occupied our woodlands, now only 1000 pairs of Swifties remain.
Vote Green. And enjoy the coming seasons.
Bob