Integrity in campaigning - Letter to the Editor

Elections are an infrequent and invaluable opportunity to choose our politicians and the values they carry.

Voters should not be fooled by new found promises of those claiming to be green, while having acted anything but.  If candidates and political parties cannot retain integrity during their election campaign, their election will invariably deliver disappointment to Victorians needing and deserving better.

If global warming were a crime - Letter to the Editor

The Cup Day Water Summit was necessary because the responses needed to avoid long-term droughts have been avoided by politicians for years.

For more than one fine day in November, political inaction on global warming will mean many of our cup’s, rather than runneth over, may well run dry.

A Stern message on global warming - letter to the Editor

The Stern Review is a stern reminder that failing to act responsibly soon will cost us more than we can afford.

Why is Australia alone with the United States as the only advanced industrial countries refusing to contribute to and build on the current global efforts underpinning the Kyoto Protocol? The answer lies in some people’s short term political gain being more important to them than Australia’s long term future.

The Heat Is On - Letter to the Editor

Climate change is the greatest threat to our safety, our economy and our future that we have faced in our lifetimes. 

Our national response to global warming, and the droughts, storms and water shortages it brings, is the most important thing many of us will witness in our lifetime.  In fairness to all, if those able to lead have shown they are not up to the task, it is time we asked them to move on.

Exceptional circumstances: Australia's global warming negligence- Letter to the Editor

One exceptional circumstance farmers face is a government than has chosen to mislead Australians about the reality of global warming. 

Doing something about global warming is like stopping smoking.  It may not fix everything, but it does improve your odds.

Who Can Afford To Finance A New Digital Television Channel?- Letter to the Editor

As uncertain and perplexing as the government’s new media ownership proposals are, a vital consideration is who of the ‘new entrants to the media market’ can afford to finance a digital channel?

As many were saying before the 2004 election, handing control of the Senate to the government was akin to handing over the remote control to our media. TV guide highlights now include Backpocket Blitz – Your Work Choices to sign or be sacked, ‘The Uncollectors’ - How to Privatise Anything That Moves, Nuclear Families, Big Brother John and of course, the Stock Market Report.

Our Task In Iraq - Letter to the Editor

With John Howard promising two years ago that Australia’s involvement in Iraq would ‘be months, not years’, our troops repeated redeployment suggests the ‘specific task’ the Prime Minister once spoke of is to do whatever, wherever and for however long American foreign policy dictates.

Night time AFL Grand Final?

The AFL Grand Final couldn’t possibly be played at night. All the pies would be cold by then.

Government Climate of Denial Sets Low Watermark

The Prime Minister identified that his government’s silencing of our public servants in Senate estimates is not as novel as it should be. 

Unfortunately, as damaging as the Iraqi wheat for oil scandal is likely for Australian farmers, it pales into insignificance when compared with our government’s obfuscation and inaction on climate change. Australian farmers have the right to know, as do all of us, why they have been misled.

Victoria - The Place To Be. Shot

Another bloody duck shooting season announced.

Victoria - The Place to Be. Shot.

Little Need Left for a Bill of Rights, Rather a Bill of What’s Left

Industrial relations, terror-threatening laws, and sedition laws signal that what many assumed as rights are under attack.

With much of what Australian’s assumed to be the progress of a civilised society under attack, the call for a ‘Bill of Rights’ may soon be better described a ‘Bill Of What’s Left’.

Maribyrnong Elects Green Mayor Janet Rice

Maribyrnong City Council has elected the west’s first Green Mayor, Cr. Janet Rice.

Cr. Rice was elected Mayor by her colleagues at a Special Council meeting on Wednesday 30 November 2005, following her re-election to Maribyrnong City Council this week with a stellar 37% primary vote. Mayor Rice is Victoria’s second Green Mayor and Australia’s fourth Green Mayor. Mayor Rice used her Mayoral speech to announce she wanted to “do politics differently” with a strong emphasis on participatory democracy.

Greens have been elected to Maribyrnong, Moonee Valley, Whitehorse and Yarra Ranges Councils, with pending results bringing potential wins in Brimbank, Macedon Ranges and Mount Alexander.

On current votes the newly elected Green Crs are Janet Rice – Maribyrnong City; Ben Opie – Moonee Valley City; Helen Harris OAM – Whitehorse City and Samantha Dunn – Yarra Ranges Shire. Those waiting final counting are Miles Dymott – Brimbank, Megan Hannes-Patterson and Kate Lawrence in Macedon Ranges and Philip Schier in Mount Alexander Shire.

These results could bring the increase of Victoria Green Councillors from 10 to 17.

Kevin Andrews is right, in more ways than one. Introducing the Government’s most radical changes to working conditions since Federation, he said Work Choices was all about ‘raising’ working conditions.

Given the Americanisation of both our language and workplace relations, the law would more aptly be described as ‘razing’ work conditions.

The Crown in right of the Victorian Government first pinched Royal Park’s open space for the Hockey and Netball Centre, then the Games Village, now the Children’s Hospital.  Perhaps tomorrow, a freeway. Paving over parks is cheaper for Governments than investing in them, as bean counters, Joni Mitchell and yellow taxis know. 

Seriously, its time the Crown began building up our public open space treasures, rather than raid them, and lent its support for Royal Park becoming The People’s Park.  In name and nature.

The Federal Government professes to value families. That may well translate to the Government sizing up the family silver so it can sell it off in its drive to transfer public debt to household debt.

With the full privatisation of Telstra now in the Government’s jumbuck with National Party sanction, what else of our family silver we paid for with our taxes is to be flogged off? Medibank Private? Aussie Post?  Who knows? It appears everything is up for grabs in the most radical privatisation push Australia has seen for years.

The workplace laws the new parliament will pass will allow the majority of employees to be sacked, whether fairly or not.  I suspect many who trusted the government’s election appeals to self interest will be surprised if they are the ones who face the consequences of outlawing redress for unfairness.
 
Many Australians relying on their job security to feed a family or a mortgage will be hoping the ability to be unfairly sacked is meant to apply to someone else.

Can you imagine your family sharing a cake and the hungriest among you being given a piece 10 times smaller than the others?That is what the budget is proposing.  Richer people will receive tax cuts of over $60 a week, poorer $6. 

It’s hard to imagine treating members of our family in the way we allow our politicians to treat our less fortunate folk.

Most of us have been eating our Weeties long enough to know there were once Labor and Liberal parties that stood strongly for the ideals associated with their names.  With the conservative controlled Senate installed in July and a convergence of the major parties, Australia could face a future of a two party system choreographed by two dimensional policies with differences that are increasingly paper thin.

The only thing certain about the next three years is that, in whatever guise it takes, the conservatives of whatever party they belong will radically change Australia.

Labor’s decision to put Family First ahead of the Greens guaranteed election of their only Senator on a primary vote of less 1.9%, giving the Government a very useful one vote buffer to create a conservative coalition in the Senate.

It is empty rhetoric for Labor to handball political power to a conservative coalition and then to carry on about industrial relations, the full privatisation of Telstra, the emaciation of the Committee system or the dumping of any other meaningful progressive economic, social or environmental policies into the conservatives’ high temperature incinerator.

The ALP can swear on a stack of Bibles that they didn’t want or expect this to happen, but I think they are more capable than that. They knew what they were doing; they took a risk they didn’t need to take and in doing so elected Labor’s first Family First Senator.

As a devout Media Watch watcher, I am surprised that one of the strongest Press Council decisions, about matters which through conservative control of the Senate may now have great implications for media ownership and content, has not been aired on your program.

Perhaps the watch needs winding?

Melissa Fyfe’s story ‘Aborigines seek bigger say in mountain country’ was a breath of fresh alpine air. Being employed by the Victorian National Parks Association in 1988 to convince the Victorian Parliament to create the Alpine National Park, I had the privilege to witness our political leaders coming together to create an important part of our invaluable heritage. The Alpine National Park was created with a recognition that indigenous knowledge was an invaluable part of that heritage.

The Australian Press Council found a 31 August 2004 Herald Sun article headed ‘Greens back illegal drugs’ to be ‘irresponsible journalism’ which ‘seriously misled’ readers and damaged the Greens. The Herald Sun’s appeal against that decision, the Press Council’s most severe ruling that I am aware of, was rejected.

The Australian government’s poisonous attempts to highlight the transportation costs of returning Mamdouh Habib to Australia are a smoke screen to cover the fact they appeared to do next to nothing to assist an illegally detained Australian citizen and their apparent inability to come to terms with long standing tradition that people should be assumed innocent until proven guilty.

Greens Senator Bob Brown will be at the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne today (Friday 14th January).  A rally will be held at 1pm in William St outside the Supreme Court.

Tasmanian Forestry giant Gunns will seek $6.3 million worth of damages, alleging that 20 people, including Bob Brown, Peg Putt and the Wilderness Society, have been involved in campaigns against it.

Greens have been elected to Melbourne, Greater Bendigo, Yarra and Moreland City Councils. On current votes the newly elected Green Crs. are Fraser Brindley - Melbourne; Julie Rivendell and David Jones – Greater Bendigo; Jenny Farrar, Kathleen Maltzahn, Gurm Sekhon and Sivy Orr – Yarra; Josephine Connellan and Andrea Sharam – Moreland.  They join Maribyrnong Crs. Colleen Hartland and Janet Rice in bringing much needed Green voices on behalf of their communities.

The Greens are proud to have run a strong, honest and open election campaign that will see more Green local councilors serving their communities than ever before.

Today’s electoral results confirm that despite a Green vote across Victoria of more than four times that of Family First, grubby preference deals with the ALP and Democrats have delivered the sixth Senate seat to Family First.

The Greens number 1 Senate Candidate David Risstrom is making an eleventh hour plea to the electorate to ensure the voting public are aware that, because of preference arrangements, they could be unwittingly delivering key Senate seats to Family First.

One of the world's most respected scientists has highlighted evidence that global warming may already be affecting crop yields, and that there is likely to be worse to come.

The soaring rate of drug abuse in young Victorians show the Howard government's rigid policy has failed, said Greens No 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom in Melbourne today. "The Greens harm minimisation policy will save young Australian lives."

Greens Senate Candidate David Risstrom and Greens Melbourne House of Representatives candidate Gemma Pinnell will tomorrow join with Indigenous Independent Senate Candidate Richard Frankland and Democrats Senate Candidate Jess Healy at a joint media conference to sign an election 'pledge' designed by Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation in Victoria and the Refugee Action Collective.

The pledge will commit the candidates to a more human policy on asylum seekers, the implementation of the AMA's Healing Hands Report which proposes a $452 Million annual boost to address the health crisis in Indigenous Communities, the establishing of a Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission, and a Bill of Rights.

Greens Victorian No. 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom will continue his tradition of involvement in Bicycle Victoria’s ‘Ride to Work’ Day. Thousands of riders from all over Melbourne will converge on Federation Square tomorrow morning for the annual ‘Ride to Work Day’, where they will be rewarded with a healthy breakfast.

The Greens will negotiate for at least 1 percent of the annual federal transport budget to be allocated to bicycle pathways and facilities.

The Australian Labor Party today ‘joined the dinosaurs’ in locking in a fossil fuel future, with its announcement of a new $300 million coal to gas power plant in the La Trobe Valley, said Greens Victorian number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom.

Greens support remains strong despite concerted conservative attacks. Today’s AC Nielsen Age Poll published in The Age shows support for the Greens at 12% in the Senate.

The Greens Lead Senate candidate David Risstrom has issued a late challenge to “true liberals” to cast a protest vote for his party at next weekend’s federal poll.

The Greens Victorian number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom today said he was very disappointed with the action of the Assemblies of God backed Family First Party in launching a dishonest federal advertising campaign against the Greens.

The Greens Victorian number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom today said he was proud to be part of a forward thinking progressive political party, demonstrating by the Greens willingness to advertise online throughout the 2004 federal election.

The traditional Liberal seat of Kooyong in inner east Melbourne is looking increasingly marginal as voters flock to the Greens.  But in a twist on the 'Doctors Wives' syndrome, Greens number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom and Greens Kooyong candidate Peter Campbell partners are both female doctors.

David Risstrom No.1 Greens Candidate for the Senate said today “John Howard has recently made some encouraging statements on protecting iconic Tasmanian native forests such as the Tarkine and the Styx, but it looks like he may be now losing his nerve. If Howard caves in on forests due to union and Gunns Limited pressure it will not only be a national disaster, it will be a national disgrace” Mr. Risstrom said.

Greens number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom said today that he is expecting a tip top on-field showing for the national green team that is 'nothing less than history in the making'.

Risstrom said that having spent their time in the Local, District and State Leagues, The Australian Greens have clearly reached critical mass in the National League this election. A series of solid on-field performances and several major league election wins in the Federal Senate and the House of Representatives, have catapulted the Greens to national prominence.

Victorian Greens number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom today said he was 'very encouraged' by the national Morgan polls indicating surging support for the party. Today’s Morgan Poll indicated the Greens Senate support to have jumped 7.1 percentage points to 12 percent points, resulting in a potential gain of four Senate seats, including new Greens Senators in Victoria and Tasmania.

The Victorian Greens Number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom today expressed disappointment in the Victorian government for conducting GM crop trials in secret in rural Victoria.

The Victorian Greens Number 1 Senate candidate David Risstrom today condemned the decision of the ALP and Democrats to preference to the extreme right Family First Party ahead of other progressive parties including the Greens.

For the first time ever the Greens have won crucial Labor Senate preferences in Victoria and nationally, ahead of the Democrats, Coalition, One Nation and other significant minor parties. In addition to the previously announced agreement between the Greens and Democrats to swap Senate preferences ahead of the major parties, it has become even more likely that the Greens will win a Senate seat in Victoria on October 9.

The Greens would take the GST off all forms of public transport, making tram, train, ferry and bus fares 10% cheaper, Greens Senator Bob Brown and lead Victorian Senate candidate David Risstrom said in Melbourne today.

The Greens No 1 Senate Candidate for Victoria David Risstrom has joined Greens Senator Bob Brown today in urging Melbourne voters to send a message to Federal Liberal and Labor to save Tasmania's old-growth forests at the ballot box on 9 October.

Greens Melbourne City Councillor David Risstrom will today make the move from Greening Melbourne City Council to Greening Victoria, where as the Greens No. 1 Senate Candidate, he is likely to be elected to the Australian Senate in the Federal election.

There is plenty of room for the Greens and farmers to work together to address environmental protection,” Greens Senate Candidate David Risstrom said today. Commenting on the call in the Financial Review by the National Farmer’s Federation for government support to farmers for environmental protection work, Councillor Risstrom agreed that sustainable farming is in Australia’s national interests.

The Greens welcome the Rio Tinto view that climate change is a deadly threat to humans and “the most serious environmental issue facing the world.”  Victorian Greens Senate Candidate Cr. David Risstrom said today that comments by the chief of Rio Tinto’s global energy business, Preston Chiaro, reported in Wednesday’s Age are a welcome and honest position.

Victorian Greens No 1 Senate candidate and Melbourne City Councillor David Risstrom welcomes recent comments by Mark Latham, John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull and Senator Bill Heffernan that Tasmania’s old growth forests must be protected.

Australian Greens Senate Candidate for Victoria and Melbourne City Councillor David Risstrom today attacked claims by the National Party that the Murray River is in better condition than what most people think.

“It’s about time that we stopped thinking about water as something that we only have to worry about when there is a drought – or an election,” Melbourne City Councillor and Greens Senate Candidate David Risstrom said today. Commenting on the initiative by Northeast locals in sponsoring a public forum about water issues in Wangaratta on 6 September, Greens Senate Candidate David Risstrom acknowledged that water would be an election issue for many people in the Northeast.

Victorian Greens No. 1 Senate Candidate David Risstrom welcomed comments by the Vice Chancellor of Adelaide University Professor James McWha, that at least one political party opt for low or zero fees for university and open entry to universities. “This is exactly what Greens higher education policy has been for some time”, said Cr. Risstrom.  

Greens Senate Candidate for Victoria, Cr. David Risstrom, has pledged to present a bill that requires the economic, social and environmental implications of proposed laws to be identified and genuine progress indicators to be published.

The announcement today by the Prime Minister John Howard of an 9 October election is his attempt to avoid scrutiny of the children overboard affair in parliament said Australian Greens Senate candidate for Victoria David Risstrom. David Risstrom the No 1 Senate candidate for Victoria represents the best chance of a Victorian Green to be elected to federal parliament. The Greens support is stronger now and than in any previous election and many political commentators are saying that Cr Risstrom is likely to get elected.

The rights of many Australians with disabilities to have their say in the federal election could be restricted if access to polling booths is not improved, said Australian Greens Senate candidate for Victoria and Melbourne City Councillor David Risstrom.

“Cattle grazing in Victorian Alps is increasing fire risk, spoiling our water and costing taxpayers a lot of money. It should be stopped!” says No. 1 Greens Senate Candidate Cr. David Risstrom.

Reports that the Federal Government is considering a medium-level nuclear waste dump for Victorian sites require three responses: 1/ The government should publish the list of sites it has considered; 2/ The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader should rule out support for a nuclear waste dump in Victoria; and, 3/ All parties in the upcoming election should commit to extricating Australia from the nuclear waste cycle by banning the import of nuclear waste and ending the export of uranium from Australia.

The State Government should rule out another freeway for inner Melbourne, whether above ground or below Royal Park, said Victorian Greens Senate candidate for Victoria and Melbourne City Councillor David Risstrom.

The federal government should redirect the $425 million held back from the Mitcham-Frankston tollway to public transport improvements in Eastern Melbourne announced David Risstrom Australian Greens Senate candidate for Victoria and Melbourne City Councillor.

Today at the Victorian Greens State Conference, David Risstrom, Australian Greens Victorian Senate candidate and Melbourne City Councillor, called on the international community to act immediately to solve the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

David Risstrom the Australian Greens Senate candidate for Victoria and Melbourne City Councillor today said that the success of Australian Olympians in Athens demonstrates how free education benefits Australia.

"Obviously a public supported sporting education for people who attend the AIS has had great benefits for Australia. We do not expect AIS athletes to pay for their sporting education because we know the investment in a professional sports education system produces world class athletes. Our results at the Olympics demonstrates that".

Support for the Greens at 11% producing an electoral result putting Labor ahead, has been identified by Coalition front bencher Kevin Andrews as a ‘big risk’ that will effectively result in a ‘Labor-Green coalition running Australia.’

What Mr. Andrews is really saying is that the progressive politics of the Greens is a risk to the Coalition’s re-election, and more of the same old tired policies of yesteryear.

The recommendations of Labor Senators on the Senate Select Committee on the Free Trade Agreement provides 42 reasons not to endorse the FTA, introduced by one statement recommending that ALP Senators agree to it.

The so-called Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States is a major threat to the Australian entertainment industry and will 'cancel the show' for Australian artists and entertainers said David Risstrom, Greens Senate candidate for Victoria.

“A special showing of Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 911’ at The George Cinema, Fitzroy Street, St. Kilda tonight will see more than 200 avid viewers hoping that the USA focussed Fahrenheit 911 will become an Australian Celsius 488”, said Greens Senate candidate Cr. David Risstrom.

Today’s launch of the Lion Garden Youth Housing Project in the heart of Chinatown, Melbourne is the culmination of a long standing co-operative approach between governments, community groups and philanthropic organisations.

The Lion Garden was made possible by contributions from the Victorian Department of Human Services, the Sydney Myer Centenary Fund, the Lions Club, Gospel Hall, Urban Seed, Melbourne Citymission, the City of Melbourne and Melbourne Affordable Housing.

“The Greens have made sustainability an election issue.  Nothing will make us back down from that”, said Victorian Greens Senate Candidate Cr. David Risstrom. We believe rural Australia should have a strong long-term future based on sustainable farming, strong regional communities backed by decent services and an investment in local people. The VFF have consistently backed anything-goes free market policies that have sold farmers and their families out for a song.”

Today at a march for NAIDOC Week, Cr David Risstrom, the Australian Greens Senate candidate for Victoria, said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should continue to stand up for their rights to be treated with respect and to fight for self-determination.

"The Bracks Government appears to have given bay dredging the green light, but there is nothing green about it", David Risstrom Australian Greens Victorian Senate Candidate said.

The Victorian Greens extend their warm congratulations to the Greens in Victoria (Canada) on their excellent result in the Canadian election. All across Canada the Green vote soared, from less than 1 percent to over 4 percent. The further west you go in Canada the better the Green vote generally got. In Victoria, near Vancouver, the Greens scored 11.7 percent, the second highest result in Canada.

Greens Senate candidate and Melbourne City Councilor David Risstrom has welcomed the Bracks government's water reform as recognition of the importance of Victoria's waters but claims it does not go far enough.

“The Government’s attempt to close the rolls to new enrolments on the day they call the election is a crass and cynical move to exclude young people from their right to vote”, said Greens Senate Candidate David Risstrom. “The government wants to send young people to electoral purgatory, because they know young voters are more likely to vote Green than conservative.”

Many Victorians are unaware that their taxes are paying for cattle to use the Victorian Alpine National Park as a fattening paddock for alpine grazing.

“The Federal Government’s Auslink land transport scheme is creating a future of more and more roads, more single vehicle car trips, continuing poor public transport and no relief for a transport system embedded in increasingly expensive and scarce fossil fuels”, said Victorian Greens Senate Candidate Cr. David Risstrom.

The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research report on the failure of the 30% private health insurance rebate confirms what the Greens have been saying and supports our policy to abolish the rebate.

The Victorian Greens congratulate the organisers of the Stand Up For The Forests Rally and all Victorians for their heartfelt support for Tasmanian and Victorian forests at the World Environment Day Rally in Melbourne on Sunday 6 June.

To mark World Environment Day on Saturday June 5, Australian Greens Victoria branches all over Victoria will hold ‘Green Garage Sales’ to raise funds and promote ‘Reducing, Reusing and Recycling.’

Greens Melbourne City Councillor and Senate Candidate David Risstrom has called on the Victorian Government to come clean on the risks to residents from butadiene gas ships and long term storage on Coode Island.

Councillor Risstrom said there is an urgent need for the public to know what risks they face and whether the Government is protecting their interests.

Melbourne City Greens and Victorian Greens Senate Candidate Cr. David Risstrom condemned a proposal to transport highly dangerous butadiene in gas ships up the Yarra and to keep them it storage for decades to come at Coode Island.

Making public the proposal, Greens Cr. Risstrom asked, “Why haven’t the community been made aware of the risks they will face? People have a right to know.”

"Labor is set to endorse Prime Minister John Howard's agreement to cut down, burn and poison the grandest forests in the Southern Hemisphere at the fastest rate in history," said Melbourne City Councillor and Greens Senate candidate, David Risstrom yesterday. “Opposition leader Mark Latham's speech on the environment shows he won't save any of Victoria and Tasmania's threatened iconic forests and wildlife from obliteration, Cr Risstrom said.