Hi, I’m Ethan Hrnjak, your Greens candidate for the seat of Mackellar in the upcoming Federal election. As one of your elected Councillors on Northern Beaches Council, I know the difficulties faced by our community, namely, the cost of living, housing and climate crises.
This election, I’m the only candidate offering genuine, concrete and visionary solutions to these issues. Instead of marching to the neoliberal drumbeat of tax cuts and deductible lunches for businesses, I know that we need to make real, progressive policy in this country again if we want to counter the rise of the far-right.
By taxing the billionaires and making large corporations pay their fair share, we can fund the inclusion of dental, vision and mental health into Medicare, build hundreds of thousands of public, affordable and accessible homes, make preschool to PhD education completely free, put a hot breakfast in front of every public school student and invest in a publicly owned renewable energy revolution that will drive down energy costs, supercharge our transition to net-zero and drive our economy into the future. These policies are all possible and doable, we just need the political willpower and the guts to do it. Unfortunately, this biggest barrier to people-powered policy are the vested interests in Parliament that dictate how public policy in this country is set. Billionaires and big corporations who donate to both major parties, the right-wing and Independents have unfair influence over our politicians
The only way to keep Dutton out of power this election is by voting Greens. We have always been open to working with any political party to deliver real action on climate and inequality, but Dutton’s Liberals have made it clear they are the party of climate wreckers, big business and the top end of town. In the event of a minority Government, The Greens will never support Peter Dutton, the same of which can’t be said for most of the other candidates running. We all know that a Dutton-led Government would be absolutely terrible for our country, our environment and our way of life - but if the right promises are made, who knows how some crossbench MPs will vote.
What we know is that the polling suggests a hung parliament is likely, and the influence of the crossbench has never been greater. That’s why billionaires like Clive Palmer, Gina Rhinehart and right-wing lobby groups such as Advance Australia are fighting so hard to keep us out. They know that thanks to our strict political donations rules, it is the people of Australia that inform how we vote in Parliament rather than vested interests. The Greens have always refused corporate donations and cap individual donations at $16,300 so that people like Simon Holmes a Court don’t have any more influence and power than the Australian voters. It is not the mark of a fair or egalitarian society where one candidate can be outspent 10-1. Let's aspire to do politics differently, starting by cleaning up our Parliament and kicking out the vested interests that are holding back real progress and action on the issues we face.
If you genuinely want honesty, equality, fairness and integrity in your elected representatives, the only real option on the ballot this election are The Greens.
