2015-03-16
Chris Harris (NSW campaign coordinator)
You can feel the energy starting to rise; It's a little like an earthquake, initially a slow rumbling and then everything starts to shake. In just a tick under two weeks NSW goes to the polls. The state office is filling with volunteers, the level of noise is rising, the volume of phone calls is rising by the hour… coreflutes, preferences, how to votes, pre-poll, days of action, state launch. All of those things are being managed simultaneously. Everyone is flat out for 12-14 hours a day.
Soon voters will head into polling booths, scrawl a few numbers in pencil on ballot papers, and once again make decisions that have the potential to change our State for the better. For us working on the campaign, it sometimes feels like we're barrelling towards election day without a chance to stop and breathe — but the truth is that voting has already started. Pre-poll opened on Monday — and we launched our interactive how-to-vote site that we think might be an Australian first.
While we expect NSW will follow the trend seen in Victoria and Queensland, with a large number of early voters, these last weeks are still a flurry of activity. If anything, early voting makes it even busier.
There are teams of doorknockers out in every community, having conversations with their neighbours about what they value and why their vote matters; there are volunteers making phone calls every night, assigning people to pre-poll booths and election day booths and talking to voters about their vote; how-to-vote cards are being printed in their hundreds of thousands; coreflutes are being despatched to all corners of the state; there's an election night party to organise!
Each campaign, every action is different. I started working in campaigns in the 80s but the one thing that never changes is the cameraderie and the lifelong friendships you make. Last year I was at the big protest at Bentley against Metgasco and it reminded me why we spend months and years of our lives grinding away in offices to build a better society. Our communities, our land, our beautiful environment — and the people who live in it, work in it, produce food on it — are worth protecting.
We've got a better chance of protecting those things with more Greens MPs in Parliament, our friends who will speak out on the issues we all care about.
THE BIG PUSH
Last weekend we knocked on 5000 doors and had 500 conversations with voters in inner-city Sydney alone. We haven't yet added up all the conversations we've had around the State.
This weekend was the State Launch, another amazing doorknock and the launch of our new television commercial.
Next weekend, the last weekend before election day, is yet another big doorknocking day of action — RSVP here.
And of course, there's always handing out how-to-vote cards, wherever you are in the State — please put your hand up to work on a pre-poll booth (already underway!) or for a shift on election day and someone will roster you on.
As we head into the final week, I know that as a result of the work of all the great staff, volunteers and candidates on this campaign and regardless of the outcome of individual seats, in the end we will have made NSW a better place through our combined efforts and the tens of thousands of individuals to whom we will have spoken about our vision for a fairer, cleaner, less corrupt state and country.