umbers in parliament alone will not change politics. Indeed, real power comes from the capacity to organise on the ground, in society; mobilising hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people. It is this capacity that provides the platform to wield real power in parliament.

During the Griffith campaign we developed the capacity to knock on 10,000 doors a week, reaching more people in the electorate than the corporate media was able to, but with in-depth conversations that changed people’s minds and brought people along with us. The party must develop this as a permanent capacity across the country, where we can reach hundreds of thousands of people in a single weekend.

This was the underlying theory behind our recent Housing Megaweekend of Action, where hundreds of Greens volunteers across the country came together to fight for renters and investment in public housing.

More than 20 teams across the country went out doorknocking or ran market stalls, speaking with community members about Labor’s housing plan, which in its current form will make the housing crisis worse.

Over the course of the weekend we collectively spoke with more than a thousand people around the country and asked for their feedback on whether the Greens should refuse to pass the plan until Labor agreed to substantial changes or, wave the plan through without any changes.

quick snapshot for anyone who has missed it: right now, Labor’s plan involves gambling $10 billion on the stock market and only investing some of the returns on housing (last year the gamble would have lost $120 million). And even in its best case scenario, their plan still wouldn’t even cover the increase in the affordable housing waitlist, let alone start to tackle the existing backlog. The vast majority of people we spoke to rejected Labor’s plan and instead agreed with the Greens' call to invest directly in building enough public and affordable housing to tackle the scale of the crisis.

Labor needs the Greens’ support to pass their housing plan through parliament. The problem is that right now their plan will make the housing crisis worse, and this could be our one opportunity to secure real action in this term of government.

We have told Labor we are ready and keen to negotiate in good faith - in exchange for our support we have put four key things on the table:

• Guarantee at least $5 billion of investment directly in public, community and affordable housing every year – that could build 225,000 homes
• A national freeze on rent increases and doubling rent assistance for 1.5 million renters
• Minimum design standards for all social and affordable homes
• $1 billion for First Nations housing

Unfortunately, as I write this, Labor is still trying to ram their dodgy plan through parliament without meaningful negotiations.

Yet, the feedback from over 80 percent of the conversations we had across the country was crystal clear: The Greens should not support Labor’s plan, until Labor is willing to make substantial changes that include direct investment in more public housing and a national plan for renters. At doorknocks and stalls right around the country we spoke to people who are copping massive rent and mortgage hikes. Many of them were furious at the fact Labor wants to spend $368 billion on nuclear subs, but can’t find an extra cent for renters or invest even $5 billion in public and affordable housing.

We spoke to lifelong Labor voters willing to sign our petition calling on Labor to accept the Greens demands to invest $5 billion in public and affordable housing every year. We spoke to single mums already contemplating homelessness because they couldn’t afford any more rent increases.

ince our weekend of action I’ve been spending a bit of time this week thinking about why this type or organising is powerful, and why I think it’s the pathway forward for the Australian Greens as we continue to grow and wield more power.

There’s a few reasons for this. Firstly, it’s been really remarkable to see the impact that just a couple days of this kind of campaigning has had when it comes to strengthening our position on the housing bill.

Since our weekend of action, every piece of media about the housing bill has mentioned our doorknocking efforts, and it’s given us far more credibility and demonstrated how serious we are in our demands. In fact when I appeared on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing it was the first question they asked.

I can say too, that it certainly gave more weight to my negotiations with the government this week to be able to point to not just the Greens policies, but to the feedback we received from Labor’s own constituents.

The other thing to say is just how powerful it is to take politics to regular people in an organised, strategic way. In a political landscape where the average person is switched off from politics and doesn’t engage with their local representatives, we have to make the extra effort to ensure that the decisions we’re making about their lives are communicated fully.

As a party, we are most powerful when we’re acting and communicating in a way that takes us outside of the Canberra bubble. Ordinary people are experts in their own lives, and we have so much to learn when we get organised and have this opportunity to test our messages, and genuinely consult the public.

In the year preceding the federal election my campaign had tens of thousands of conversations, which were instrumental in not only shaping our communications strategies, but developing a deep and thorough understanding of public sentiment on key policy issues. There’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t continue deeply consulting with our communities after we’ve gained power. Indeed, I’d argue that it’s even more important to engage meaningfully when we have an opportunity to wield power.

One defining aspect of politics is the major disconnect between politics and civil society, in particular the Labor and Liberal Party. Building a capacity to reach people directly, and bridge that disconnect, gives us a major advantage over the major parties, giving us the ability to genuinely speak on behalf of people and adopt political positions that reflect what people actually think on the ground.

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