The Federal election 2010 will be over by tomorrow night (a lot of sighs of relief).
It was a valuable chance to start working on a model of how to have a voice for citizens in elections on issues of importance to them.
From the Transition Town perspective (Transition The Grove in our case)there are two ways we have explored approaching this:
[ul]What issues are important in The Grove as a local area?
What position are candidates taking on issues such as climate change and oil supply which are drivers for building local resilience at the same time as keeping abreast of global trends in these matters?[/ul]
We started developing a list of questions that directly address both these perspectives. That has been partially successful but has a way to go and needs a lot more discussion and input. This discussion could happen from the wider Brisbane Transition Hub for the wider focus questions. It needs to happen among us locally for the issues that are important to us locally in the Kedron Brook catchment and the suburbs of Upper Kedron Ferny Grove Ferny Hills Arana Hills and Keperra.
Developing a list of questions can happen over time to use in future elections too.
The questions for this election were sent to all the House of Representative and Senate candidates for here that we could readily (with quite a bit of research) get email contact details for. We also used Twitter to communicate with candidates who were on Twitter.
We also let all the candidates know who we could that any of their supporters living in The Grove could join if they shared our Aims and participate in the Forum issues and discussions on the election on Transition The Grove website. So far none have.
We only got one reply (from Sandra Bayley Greens candidate for Ryan). Top marks Sandra. Sure The Grove is a fairly new kid on the block and there were too many questions. But it also left us feeling that the candidates weren’t ready to respond to direct questions about climate change (such as: Do they know what the current levels of carbon in the atmosphere are in parts per million? or How do they find out the latest developments about climate change?). They either don’t think it matters or they don’t know.
The more that The Grove develops a sense of itself and starts discussions about local matters the more we will be able to convince our candidates for election that it does matter to respond when we ask what they are promising in terms of what matters to us locally.
We have good reason to think through all that our political candidates promise or say they have done for us and ask what the actual on-the-ground benefits will be in our own suburbs here in The Grove.
We have an important job to do building local resilience for a successful transition to a future we can all live in. We need our elected candidates’ help and support. They are very important people and have access to resources and power to make policies that support our efforts in resilience-building or undermine our efforts. Much better to be working together.
We talked with candidates & their representatives when we met them at the Ferny Grove markets the Yooralla St Community Garden at The Gap booths by the road side. We rang some up. We attended a sausage sizzle at Upper Kedron Park. And started to run out of steam.
It proved remarkably difficult to track the policies that local candidates were putting.
It was easier to check some of their party websites but trying to cross-reference the policies on their websites on different issues is still incomplete it is such a big job. Very interesting though.
Climate change got little focus. Oil supply got none at all that we spotted.
In Ryan electorate in particular it is clear that the suburbs in The Grove (Upper Kedron Ferny Grove and Keperra) have a quite different demographic & are in a different catchment from the rest of Ryan and it is difficult for the candidates to get their heads around what matters to people here. Most of their electorate offices or where they live are not in this valley. They might have a candidates’ forum at the University of Queensland but that is a very long way for people from here to go to attend.
Another lesson that is there to learn is that once elected we need to be aware what our councillors and politicians are doing. We need to be ready to work with them to give them full recognition when they are working for us in a way that brings benefits good policies and local resources. If they are falling down on the job we need to provide that feedback and think harder before we elect someone next time.