2018-08-24
Since 1998, Colin Smith has been the Australian Greens’ archivist. He gives us a glimpse into his time with the party, as well as sharing his greatest hopes for the future.
1. What do you remember about your first election?
I don’t remember much about it as it happened about 60 years ago. At the time my politics could best be described as centrist. I remember having no trouble understanding preferential voting; that I never voted Liberal and took their how-to-vote (HTV) for guidance on who not to preference; and that I always looked for someone to put ahead of Labor.
The first election at which I campaigned was the NO DAMS one in 1983. I went to a polling booth overlooking the sea in the NSW electorate of Eden-Monaro to hand out HTVs promoting votes for the Democrats in the Senate and Labor in the House. Andrew Peacock came by and admired our Rock Island Bend posters.
My first election with the Greens was in 1996 when Peter Singer was our lead Senate candidate for Victoria. I did HTVs at a primary school in Bruce in Melbourne’s far east. Our candidate got 2 percent + and Peter Singer didn’t do much better. Kennett was in power and Howard came to power. It was depressing.
2. Endangered Australian animal that's captured your heart?
Red-tailed black cockatoo – Calyptorhynchus banksii.
3. What’s your precious place and why?
At my big old desk with a bit of a view of Port Phillip Bay. I like to sit there and think and write.
4. Favourite Greens policy?
Donations law reform, because without it we will struggle to achieve many of our other policies. And its corollary: refusal of all compromising donations offered to us, because without that we will lose our precious credibility. I'm very glad to see that progress has recently been made on this front in Victoria. However, the Commonwealth law remains scandalously unsatisfactory.
5. Best part of your work with the Greens?
As the Australian Greens' volunteer archivist since 1998, getting most of our paper archives – the raw material of the history of our first 15 years – into good order and transferred to public repositories where they will be kept forever – safe, retrievable and available. If all our archived files and folders were stacked in a single column it would be about eight storeys high.
6. What keeps you going?
As regards doing the archives in particular: the knowledge that if I didn’t do it no one else would. More generally, the satisfaction of knowing I have done something worthwhile – however small. And seeing opportunities to do more.
7. Favourite political song?
“Joe Hill” – especially as sung by Paul Robeson.
8. Who inspires you? Why?
Preeminently, among many others also admired, Nelson Mandela, Bob Brown, Gillian Triggs, Julian Burnside, Angela Merkel, Pamela Curr, Sally McManus, Rosie Batty and Sister Brigid Arthur of the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project – for their various brands of leadership and courageous commitment to causes that really matter.
9. Comfort food?
A Walkers Pure Butter Shortbread (the brand being important) washed down by a cup of Earl Grey tea.
10. What would you spend $20 billion on?
Funding the struggle to get the human race to realise that global warming could tip us into an age where human life is nasty, brutish and short – indeed, where the very survival of our species is under threat – not to mention the survival of the rest of life on Earth as we know it.
11. Secret vice?
Fits of childish rage – sometimes about dreadful things that matter like Donald Trump, Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton – but at other times about very petty things that don’t matter.
12. Best coffee/drink in town?
A banana smoothie.
13. Three apps you can’t live without?
Microsoft Word, Safari and 1Password.
14. What did you want to be when you grew up?
A truck driver.
15. Morning run or night time swim?
Neither. But I take cold showers and a daily walk. And I ride a bike pretty often.
16. What’s your greatest hope for the future?
Before I die, to publish my amateur treatise on the problem of mind versus matter.
17. Magic wand to solve one world problem — what would it be?
I struggle to decide between global warming and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I choose the latter because I think only magic can get that deadly genie back into its bottle.
18. What advice would you give a new volunteer?
Do – because even if the situation is hopeless you will feel better for having tried to make it better. And remember Bob’s proverbial advice that “something will fall out of the sky”.
Focus on things you are good at – but be a bit adventurous. Try not to be self-righteous about your good works, however good you know they really are. Remember that you live in a country where it is still relatively safe to work for truth, justice and the Green way, so you should make the most of your opportunity.
19. You can travel through time – where do you go?
I’d like to check out what actually happened around Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem, Mesopotamia and Greece between about 30 BC and 50 AD.
20. If you weren’t doing this for a living, what would you be doing?
As I am living on my superannuation and savings – a sort of guaranteed adequate income – I have already done everything I shall ever have to do ‘for a living’. So I guess I am already doing 'what I would be doing'. Which is working as hard as ever – but rather more on things I really care about and want to do.