2016-06-06
Rosanne Bersten
Jim Casey is the Greens candidate for the Inner City seat of Grayndler in Sydney - the seat is currently held by Labor's Anthony Albanese. No one thinks the road is an easy one, but Jim knows the first job is to let the local community know just who he is.
Casey is 46 years old and lives with his partner and two kids — aged 5 and 2. Both of his parents were part of Australia's great migrant tapestry: his mother was a school teacher with an Italian background, while his father was a merchant seaman, Irish born and bred.
"Mum had a good feminist take on the world," he says now, while his father came from a strong republican tradition. Both were union members at work.
With that environment growing up, it's hardly suprising that Casey became involved in activist politics once he left school — from education campaigns and the peace movement to anti-corporate globalisation, and consistently through the lot of it, union work.
He joined the fire brigade in 1997, and was elected leader of the FBEU in 2009.
He answered these questions on an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon.
What do you remember about your first election?
I don't remember a lot about my first election, but my first electoral memory is of my dad putting up a Wanted posted of Margaret Thatcher saying; “Wanted for Murder” after the death of Bobby Sands.
Leadbeater's possum or eastern longneck turtles?
I'm more of a wombat guy myself, the bulldozer of the bush.
What's your precious place and why?
Cockatoo Island – it's a midden of culture, industry and reaches back before the White Fellas.
Favorite Greens policy?
Industrial Relations – because we are working to preserve the right to strike and recognise the need for working people to act together in solidarity.
Best part of your work with the Greens?
Seriously, the amazing Grayndler team – and I'm not just saying that because they will read this – I really have a smart, funny, hard working, switched on team that give me a huge amount of joy.
What keeps you going?
My inability to put up with bullies – that's both a professional and personal position and has always been a powerful motivation in my life.
Favorite political song?
Guns of Brixton – The Clash
Who inspires you? Why?
Mother Jones – the American union leader. That woman had a hard and heart-breaking life but after she had lost nearly everything she loved she kept working for others – a woman capable of enormous sacrifice and love.
Comfort food?
Resch's
What would you spend $20 billion on?
I would spend $5 billion on seed capital to support climate activists around the world, $5 billion educating young girls around the world, $5 billion funding the first few years of our refugee solutions and $5 billion building climate resilience in our region of the Pacific – becoming a good neighbor to our friends who live on low-lying islands and suffering drought.
Secret vice?
Noir science fiction from the 1970's
Best coffee/drink in town?
Bar Sport, Leichardt/Single Origin, Surry Hills
Three apps you can't live without?
I'm still not convinced there's much future in computers so I haven't invested in it in a very big way.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Scientist
Morning run or nighttime swim?
Neither, I am more of a dead lifts or boxing kind of guy.
What's your greatest hope for the future?
That we have the same level of compassion and care for the community and the planet as we have for our friends and family.
Magic wand to solve one world problem — what would it be?
That every little girl in the world would be literate and numerate
What advice would you give a new volunteer?
Enjoy yourself because trying to change the world is the only game in town and it's a blast.
You can travel through time – where do you go?
The future has not yet been written and I want to be a part of that.
If you weren't doing this for a living, what would you be doing?
My "road to damascus" moment was the Black Saturday fires in Victoria. That was the moment that the climate change issue really fell into place for me. So if I wasn't doing this. I'd still be a firefighter.