ACT Greens launch 2020 election campaign to Build a Better Normal

Speech by Shane Rattenbury MLA, ACT Greens Leader

Welcome

Thank you Tjanara for acknowledgement of country

Rapid change

As you have all experienced, we’re in an extraordinary historical moment. We started the year choking on bushfire smoke as the climate crisis made itself felt. We survived an incredible hailstorm. Then COVID-19 hit, unlike anything we’ve seen before, and we’ve all watched the economic impacts of the pandemic response around us. We’ve recently seen the most rapid global change any of us have witnessed in our lifetimes.

It’s affected each and every person in our community, and we have all had to change our lives in some ways - working from home, caring for or teaching children while trying to work, closing the doors of a business, losing work hours, losing work entirely, and let’s not forget the half a million people across the world who have died due to this pandemic already.
It has been a period of stress and uncertainty, posing a significant challenge to our mental health and wellbeing.

There’s a temptation at a time like this for people to just want life to return to normal, and that’s what the major parties keep promising. But we Greens know that the old normal wasn’t good enough. Normal was a world of rising inequality and falling quality of life, unsustainable habits and impending ecological catastrophe.

We must instead seize this moment, when everything around us is changing, to build a better normal, not snap back to the old normal. The Greens don’t want a return to a normal that fails to address the big challenges facing our society - climate change, housing affordability and people in insecure work with uncertain incomes.

The exciting part is we now know it can be done. We now know that policy can be driven by experts and evidence, not the rag-tag ramblings of the climate denying rump of the Federal Coalition.

COVID response

Australia has so far done very well containing the spread of COVID, especially here in the ACT. And we have seen momentous decisions taken to support our community financially. As people lost their jobs, their income, their financial stability, a spotlight was shone on to the shortcomings of the neo-liberal agenda.

I am genuinely grateful that ideology was put to one side, as federal income support packages were put in place. Hopefully the federal government continues to understand that unemployed people need a liveable income.

Unfortunately, these coarse support mechanisms still leave many people falling through the gaps.

The ACT Greens were pleased to work with the ACT Government over the past few months to identify those gaps, creating jobs for people in our community that the federal government abandoned, such as international students, temporary visa holders and people ineligible for either Jobseeker or Jobkeeper. We have made the case to ensure that long-term Greens priorities, such as additional tree-planting, Namadgi restoration and significant walking and cycling path upgrades, are being undertaken with these funds. Around 450 jobs have been created to support our community - delivering work as rangers - including indigenous rangers, city services staff, roads maintenance workers, IT and administrative roles. Funding has also been allocated to support the most vulnerable in our community, including $4.5m to expand mental health support services; and $7 million to meet increased demand for emergency relief and community services.

Greens role & achievements

Of course we haven’t just started this work during COVID. As part of our power-sharing agreement with Labor, we Greens play a unique role in the Australian political landscape and have been working hard over decades to set policies in the ACT that help shape a fair and sustainable future. We have shown that Greens in Government make a real difference.

We’ve convinced a sometimes reluctant Labor Government to invest in things that matter to our community – a homelessness and affordable renting solution through Common Ground in Gungahlin; significantly increasing investment in walking and cycling paths; building wetlands to improve biodiversity and water quality; getting our light rail network started; establishing an anti-corruption commission; taking justice reinvestment more seriously than any other government in Australia, and of course being the first city in Australia and 8th in the world to be powered by 100% renewable electricity. But there is so much more to be done.

Over the past few months we’ve seen governments make rapid shifts. It’s clear that now is both the right time and the best opportunity to build a better normal. We have a plan to bring the same boldness, decisiveness and energy we brought to climate action to reimagining our community - by ensuring everyone has a home, by greening our suburbs, acting on climate change, and providing meaningful secure work.

Let me tell you about some of our plans:

First, A Home for All

It is time to meaningfully address our housing crisis. Canberra has the highest average incomes in the country, and yet growing inequality means that people are still living on our streets, couch-surfing, and struggling to pay rents.

Ending homelessness in Canberra is long overdue – it’s been allowed to continue in Canberra for far too long – even through our cold winters and hot summers. We understand the clear link between rough sleeping and homelessness and mental illness. Homelessness makes it nearly impossible to hold down a job. It’s time to end these cycles.

That is why today I am announcing our Home for All plan, a plan to ensure that everyone has a home. This will be the largest ever investment in affordable housing in the ACT.

Key elements of the Greens’ comprehensive housing plan include:
• A $200 million investment to create 600 new affordable climate-ready rental properties for those in need;
• A $200 million investment to create 400 new climate-ready social housing properties;
• An immediate $21 million funding boost to Canberra’s underfunded specialist homelessness services;
• $8.5 million to deliver MyHome in Curtin, providing long term supported housing for 20 people with enduring mental health issues;
• $9 million to deliver new beds in Canberra’s homelessness services and to embed specialist workers in existing services to keep more Canberrans out of homelessness for good
• $8 million to deliver another 20 homes at Common Ground in Gungahlin; and
• $300,000 to commission work to establish an Aboriginal controlled Indigenous community housing organisation.

[Read more at → greens.org.au/act/a-home-for-all]

Our second plan is Investing in our neighbourhoods

During the COVID isolation period we have all been able to appreciate Canberra even more - its open spaces, local parks, walking and cycling paths and nearby nature reserves. And we want to make our neighbourhoods even better places to live. We risk losing what makes our city so beautiful unless we invest heavily in our neighbourhoods.

We will invest in our local infrastructure - footpaths, bike paths, playgrounds and public spaces. We want to plant hundreds of thousands of trees, expand our wetlands and look after our bush with our Caring for Country conservation package – to address the heat island effect and support biodiversity. And we believe the community needs to have more say in just how that money gets spent.

The Greens want more participatory democracy, where government facilitates processes for suburbs to come together to collectively prioritise how to spend money in their neighbourhood. The community can decide whether they want more trees, an upgrade to their playground, improved lighting, or perhaps hold a Party at the Shops. It will be their choice.

[Read more at → greens.org.au/act/neighbourhood-democracy]

The next plan is Jobs for our community

Our plan creates hundreds of jobs that support a safe future for all of us, our children and grandchildren. We know the importance of jobs that address our long-term climate challenges and support our community. We’ve already been creating these local jobs through the COVID period - working with Government to deliver Jobs for Canberrans and hundreds of smaller infrastructure projects for our community. I’m sure you’ve all seen things being upgraded in your local community lately – paths, roads, school buildings and grounds, pools.

The Greens will commit more funding and jobs for city services and environmental repair to continue this work caring for our neighbourhoods and environment, by increasing funding for bush regenerators, wetland workers, indigenous rangers and tree planters - not just directly working for government, but also jobs that support volunteers – we understand that essential groups like Landcare, Frogwatch and our Catchment Groups need regular and reliable funding.

We will also embed Ngunnawal cultural practices in land management, by increasing the designated number of Indigenous and Ngunnawal rangers.

As well as creating new jobs, and giving our community sector funding certainty, the Greens want more job flexibility. COVID has offered us all a unique opportunity to trial different ways of working utilising technology. We all now know that we can work from home, we can be more flexible about the hours we work, we can decrease our transport emissions while still attending meetings, and we can better balance our time and our lifestyles.

Unfortunately, we have seen that COVID has had higher impacts on women both on the work and home fronts. The Greens believe that a more flexible working week would enable everyone to better balance their lives.

[Read more at → greens.org.au/act/repairing-the-land]

Finally our Climate action plan

While the COVID threat loomed over us this year, it arrived in Canberra on the back of the biggest bushfire threats and impacts to the ACT since 2003; and of course after 2 months of smoke that we endured as we smelled our precious south coast forests burn over summer.

The climate emergency is still here, and while society rightly focuses on the COVID crisis now, the Greens are also still focused on addressing our climate challenges.

We now need governments around the world, and here, to work with the same boldness and decisiveness as was used for COVID and apply it to the climate emergency.

The Greens have already proven that world-leading climate action is possible in Australia.

We are now running our city on 100% renewable electricity, and we have world-leading emission reduction targets. These have both happened ONLY because the Greens have been in balance of power – both on the crossbench, and in the Cabinet room.

But now is not the time to rest on our laurels. Here in the ACT, while we have cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 40%, transport is our biggest remaining source of emissions. There is no single answer to cutting these emissions – we have already delivered stage 1 of Light Rail, and we need to keep improving public transport; we need to make it easier for people to walk and cycle around our city, and we need to make our vehicles zero emissions.

Our climate plan includes electric vehicle subsidies and charging points, housing efficiency retrofits and green infrastructure for our suburbs to address the heat island effect.

[Read more at → greens.org.au/act/just-transition]

Conclusion

The Greens are already bringing to government a long-term view of a reimagined world - where we wisely invest our time, energy and resources into a better future for our children and their children. What sets the Greens apart is our commitment to listening to the community, and bringing your voice to government decisions and into parliament.

If this pandemic has shown us anything, it's that we can achieve amazing things when we put our minds to it and work together. We’ve heard politicians from the old parties and industry groups clamouring for a return to normal in the wake of COVID-19. But we MUST make our environment and lifestyles more sustainable and our community and infrastructure more resilient. To return to a normal that does not address the big challenges facing our society - climate change, housing affordability, insecure work, rising inequality – returning to that normal is to fail.

As we look now to a post COVID recovery, now is our chance to ‘build a better normal’ by ensuring everyone has a home, by greening our suburbs, acting on climate change, and providing meaningful, secure but flexible work.

It’s now time to treat the climate crisis, the housing crisis and the jobs crisis with the same boldness and decisiveness as we have the COVID-19 crisis.

Now is our chance, and the Greens are ready to take on these challenges. Ideas we’ve been pushing since our inception are on the table, and the decisions governments make now will shape the future of our society.

We can be proud of what we’ve achieved here in Canberra by bringing the voices of the community into the Legislative Assembly and pulling the Labor and Liberal parties towards better outcomes. But there is so much more to do, and the old parties won’t do it unless we’re there to drag them out of their old thinking. We MUST seize this moment, when everything around us is changing, to build a better normal, and that’s what the Greens will do, with increased numbers, a bigger say in government, and more momentum after the coming election. The only way to do this is to elect more Greens to the Assembly. With your support, the Greens will keep striving to deliver a stronger, safer, more resilient and more equitable community for all of us, now and into the future.

This is our promise to Canberrans – we are here to build a better normal, with you and for you.

Friends - let’s make it happen!

Thank you!

[E&OE]