Bob Brown is an articulate and thoughtful man. After spending much time working with community groups he stood for the Tasmanian Parliament and won. The following election he steered the Greens party in Tasmania to a pivotal position of power and developed a broad range of policies on industry, education and health among other things.
He acted in what he saw as the best interest of Tasmanians in developing and partially implementing policies for Tasmania.
It was a pity then he made an opportunistic attempt to play on the Federal Government’s woodchip decision to get people to vote Green in February’s ACT election.
People should think carefully about translating anger over the Federal Government’s decision into votes for the ACT Greens. Long after the federal forests policy has been dealt with, the ACT will be saddled with any resulting Green MLAs who have little or no credentials about government.
Dr Brown himself, of course, might make an attractive candidate if he were standing for the ACT Assembly. But he is not. Instead, some very green Greens are standing. People who apparently have little or no policy skill and little or no experience in ACT community life.
There is an important role for conservation and environmental issues in the ACT election. But they have nothing to do with the south-east forests or Paul Keating. They have to do with environmental management and conservation in the ACT. And when you look at the report card, a clear distinction can be drawn between the Federal and ACT Labor Governments.
ACT Labor has to be given a fairly high mark on the environment and conservation. Of course, it has been nudged along by an articulate community and some well-informed local conservation and residents’ groups (as distinct from opportunist carpetbaggers with a national agenda not relevant to the ACT) and it has been nudged along by the Independents.
ACT Labor has revamped water and waste disposal and is continuing the process. It has taken a long time, but that is the price of getting an effective system “”owned” by the community. It has a good record on endangered species. Its national parks policy compares favourably to any other state or territory. On heritage and built-environment it has some black marks, but Dr Brown’s philosophies are certainly not going to help there.
Sure, ACT Labor has made mistakes and has some policy weak points, but generally they are not in the environment field.
Sure, ACT Labor might be a different kettle of fish in a majority government _ arrogant, less willing to compromise and less accountable. But if the ACT is to get the advantages of minority government (and there are many in a single-house legislature), the cross-bench needs to be occupied by people who have a demonstrated ACT record _ not necessarily political, but in sport, service clubs, unions, employer groups, residents’ associations, P and C groups and so on. The ACT does not need people on the cross-bench with some national ideological agenda whether deep Green, far-right, anti-immigration or whatever. These people will just use the Assembly as a forum for these issues without putting in the hard committee and community work.
February 18 is ACT election day, not south-east forests day _ important as they are in other forums. Voters should not vote for labels but look at the calibre of the people who are wearing them, because that is what will determine whether we have good government here.
That also goes for candidates in the major parties. The Hare-Clark system enables voters to stray from the party’s preferred order without having to stray from the party itself. The importance of the individual’s strengths in the ACT is made more urgent by the fact that voting patterns suggest that the major parties will not get all the seats and that minors and independents are likely to get three, perhaps four, seats and hold the balance of power.
But I don’t think voters will get enough information or bother to look at what they get in detail to make that judgment. Indeed, I’ll put my neck out and predict that at the February election at least two candidates from the fringe (loopey left or righteous right) who are virtually unheard of now will get seats.