2018-09-14
We pull back the curtain to reveal the person behind Green Magazine each month: the Greens’ National Communications Officer Joana Partyka.
1. What do you remember about your first election?
It was the 2004 election – after a lifetime of watching my parents cast their ballot I remember feeling very excited to finally be able to enter my own private cardboard AEC booth to vote myself. I don’t remember who I voted for but I do recall hoping the Mark Latham-led Labor party would prevail over the Liberals. I think we can all agree we dodged a bullet there!
2. Endangered Australian animal that's captured your heart?
Anyone who knows me well knows that I have had a lifelong obsession with wombats.
3. What’s your precious place and why?
I'm a major homebody, so my little office/studio at home. It’s full of light, books and houseplants in various stages of decline.
4. Favourite Greens policy?
I have a few favourites: ending corporate influence in the political system and our stance on refugees.
5. Best part of your work with the Greens?
Working with a diverse range of people from across the entire country to help make real, tangible things happen. It’s a really energising, extraordinary feeling to know I helped the cause in some small way; that I’m fortunate enough to use my skills for something that makes a difference to a lot of people.
6. What keeps you going?
The hope that real, meaningful change is on the horizon. Recent governments in this country have been dithering at best and dangerous at worst, peddling shameful policies that barely even bother to conceal their personal agendas anymore. That's even if they have their shit together enough to govern at all!
The recent rise of the alt-right is also absolutely frightening to me – that alone is enough to keep me going.
7. Favourite political song?
Lately I’ve been really digging ‘This is America’ by Childish Gambino.
8. Who inspires you? Why?
In no particular order and to name just a few: Clementine Ford, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, the March for Our Lives kids, the NFL players taking a knee on the field, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mehreen Faruqi, lawyers working pro bono to represent asylum seekers, asylum seekers themselves. I'm inspired by anyone who stands up for what's right, anyone who's overcome adversity, anyone who fights on behalf of those unable to fight for themselves.
Also: women in general. Women are inspiring as hell.
9. Comfort food?
Anything in the ‘baked goods’ food group: pizza, bread, soft pretzels, cookies … I could go on.
10. What would you spend $20 billion on?
I’m not sure how far it would go, but I’d prioritise three things:
1. Abolishing offshore detention, and processing and resettling refugees in Australia;
2. Improving the public health system;
3. Providing better social services for those in our community that are most vulnerable, like people experiencing homelessness, people fleeing domestic violence situations, older people and people with disabilities.
11. Secret vice?
Watching/listening to ASMR videos on YouTube. They're pretty weird, but if you experience ASMR they will rock your world.
12. Best coffee/drink in town?
I stopped drinking coffee at the start of the year (wah!), but Howdy in Bayswater (Perth) does a mean decaf.
13. Three apps you can’t live without?
Instagram, my banking app, and Google Maps to direct me to places I’ve been before heaps of times.
14. What did you want to be when you grew up?
There was a period of wanting to be a vet, until I realised I pass out at the sight of blood and insides. Then I wanted to be an actor, until I realised auditioning has a similar effect on me.
15. Morning run or night time swim?
Neither – I can never drag myself out of bed early enough for a jog, and I despise swimming. I like cycling, Pilates and #lifting.
16. What’s your greatest hope for the future?
That our culture and power figures finally start addressing toxic masculinity with the gravity – and policy – it requires. That women no longer have to live in fear for their lives wherever they go, and that we aren’t blamed when men choose to assault, rape and murder us.
It sounds a bit airy-fairy, but I also hope for more compassion in the world. Too many people these days seem quite content to let bad things happen, as long as they aren’t happening to them directly. It’s scary how people can so readily dissociate and detach.
Oh, and a treaty for First Nations people, once and for all.
17. Magic wand to solve one world problem — what would it be?
Where to begin? It’s so hard to choose, but if I had to pick one I’d say the dismantling of patriarchal structures and norms, and getting rid of misogyny and toxic masculinity. I truly believe that by eradicating them we’d also eradicate many of the world’s other problems.
18. What advice would you give a new volunteer?
You don’t need to have any experience to make an impact. As a relative newcomer to the Greens, my first volunteer experience was handing out how-to-vote cards at the recent Perth by-election – I was left to my own devices after a brief orientation and was trusted to just run with it. There's a place for you if you want it, so just do it!
19. You can travel through time – where do you go?
I’ve always felt drawn to the 60s and 70s – the fashion, the music, the activism, the moustaches.
Or to some time pre-2016, to somehow stop Trump from becoming president.
20. If you weren’t doing this for a living, what would you be doing?
Working on what’s currently my side hustle: a fledgling ceramics business and freelance illustration.