PossAbilities

Hi Scott,

You're easily the best member of parliament, and you should totally be leader of the Greens. Its your actions in parliament which have gotten me talking to a lot of people about the Greens this time around. From speaking with people from across Australia, the two biggest concerns I've heard are:

Many long term Greens voters are talking about not voting at all this election. They say the lower house is broken by design and its impossible to ever form government given the current electoral system. Balance of power in the senate is important, but how do the Greens plan to ever win in the house? More broadly, do you have anything to say to the %10 of Australians who don't vote at all?

A huge number of people of all political stripes are also criticising the Greens for supporting the UN agenda 21 and the UN in general. There are many people claiming that the agreement will result in the environment being placed above humans, and the UN placed before Australia. In particular there is concern about the idea of education being unsustainable and cities becoming even more crowded.

Thanks for doing this, Poss

Dude, the Australian Pirate Party made him an honorary member, which wouldn't have happened if he weren't open to considering their proposals.

At this election, 47% of Australian voters are over 50 and both the major parties are right wing. The people on the classification board are pretty decent themselves, its the politicians who set shitty rules.

Even after we successfully campaigned to get an R18+ rating, they still refused classification for Saints Row 4, because of the "war on drugs". What is extra stupid is that by some measures, Australia actually has among the highest rate of recreational drug use in the world.

Bloody old farts.

I've read the UN source documents, and I agree that as dastardly plans go, Agenda 21 is pretty piss weak.

As far as I can tell the reaction originated from the far right in America against a perceived threat of communism, though it has now spread right across the political spectrum and across the globe through the power of tubes. I'm now even hearing it from extreme lefties, for whom it ties into the distrust surrounding the UN, World Bank and WTO. They point to UN approval of food irradiation in Codex Alimentarius, along with the terrible global free trade agreements we've been seeing.

The reason it spreads so easily is that many people distrust the UN, thinking its just another tool of a corrupt elite. Many don't like the idea of a single global government, especially not one less democratic than our national governments. Its basically the same disenfranchisement which is leading people to not want to vote at all, many people feel we simply have no influence over politics at macro level.

So, how do we counter the apathy brought on by powerlessness?