With pic::: Kerrie Tucker recylces some of her posters from her unsuccessful 1993 Senate campaign. By CRISPIN HULL The Greens, who are now the leading minor parties and independents in the ACT elections, have a global and local message that would radically change society. The woodchip debate has brought the Greens into the limelight, but the ACT election policy and the Greens’ leading candidate are not widely known. Kerrie Tucker heads the Greens ticket in Molonglo and if there is no significant change in voting patterns in the last week of the campaign she could replace Michael Moore and hold the balance of power in the Assembly. “”Green” can mean a lot of different things to different people, and Greens policy goes well beyond natural environment matters. The Greens policy says: “”We aim to transform the political, social and economic structures that disempower people.” Tucker is an artist and gardener employed by the Canberra Environment Centre. She has lived in Canberra for 20 years and stood unsuccessfully in the Senate election in 1993 as Greens candidate.
She is “”committed to making Canberra the first ecologically sustainable city”. She says: “”We want to see a commitment from government to be sure that community participation and consultation is truly representative of all the people in a group or and area . . . . “”There are really interesting examples . . . For example, one woman I talked to from Brisbane, she was working in the Westend area of Brisbane and it had a lot of people who didn’t speak English, so they did artwork. They made a picture using fabric and paint to say how they wanted their area to be. So that was an example of reaching people who normally wouldn’t dream of coming to a residents meeting of a community-group meeting.” Question: What happens if you find that the community view is different from one of your policies or what you want.
Tucker; “”Well, we say quite proudly that we have ecological sustainability and social justice at the bottom line of all our policies. . . . So what you would say to the community is to recognise that for these reasons certain things have to happen. “”Houses have to be solar passive, use water efficient appliances and be energy efficient. “”We see a need for This, This and This _ for well-thought out reasons, which have been come to with consultations with experts of various kinds, so you come up with these bottom lines and that’s not hard to do. . . . “”So what you do is give the community ownership of decision making within those parameters.” Question: what about urban consolidation? Tucker: “”It isn’t just blocks of flats where everyone is cut off from each other, but it is looking at that social aspect in design so you have more ability for communal and open living as well as opportunity for privacy. There is a social need as well as an environmental need not to keep pushing into greenfields.
“”We would only see this sort of development (urban consolidation) happening on public transport routes, corridors. “”So we have this idea of a very efficient public transport system and the urban consolidation occurs only along those corridors. For people living along them now you would come up with a strategic plan based upon those corridors and in time that devilment would occur. It is not something that you would do overnight. Question: Where do you get the $400 million for light rail? Tucker: “”We support further investigation (into light rail) because the evidence we have seen suggests definitely that light rail works better. There are environmental advantages. . . . What it is now is that people don’t like using public transport. It hasn’t got a good feel and those sorts of subtle things are actually important.”
Question: Opponents of light rail say it is not good for people, especially women who have four drop-offs, and need a car. Tucker: “”Well I was one of those women who had four drop offs and didn’t have a car. So it is was worse for me, because at least those people have cars. And if they are defending their right to keep doing that at the expense of having a really good public transport system then they don’t have a lot of consideration for the poorer people who don’t have the car. “”This question is a big question. It is not just about light rail. It’s about do we look at business as usual: we’ll make this a bit better; we’ll make this a bit better; we won’t have light rail because we can spend the money on health. Or do we say the health of this city in the long term will benefit form reducing local air pollution . . . .
“”You really (should) take a big view of how you want the city to work — which is the ecocity concept that we’re trying to develop. And once again it’s big stuff; it’s new stuff. But it’s taking the view of how you could make this city work well. And it means taking a few big steps to change the behaviour patterns and it’s very hard for some people. “”On disincentives for people driving their car, we would see that as necessary. Ultimately it’s going to be better. “”I have lived in different places in the world. And my favourite place I ever lived was a Greek village on an island where there were no cars and no roads and there was shared open space which was the rocky island . . . . and I saw how it was for all the people. I’m not suggesting we duplicate that here exactly, but it was the style of living that worked. It worked better.” Tucker said she would like to see a grater sense of community.
“”Since I’ve been doing stalls, I’ve had several women come up to me and say that they have an idea that they want a local neighbourhood soup kitchen _ not for down and outs, but for you and me, if you don’t feel like cooking but you want to go somewhere and take turns in cooking, or you can cook if you can’t pay.” On employment, she said it was important for people to see themselves as creative beings. As an example of how to deal with the despair of unemployment she recalled how her daughter had seen a 17-year-old woman on television saying she was going to commit suicide because she did not have a job.
“”(My daughter) said; “Why doesn’t she make a basket and sell it at the local stall.” The Greens policy statement calls for job sharing and the reduction of working hours to share the available work; the abolition of payroll tax; a 1 cent surcharge of petrol; Medicare to increase on a sliding scale to 2.5 per cent; funding for alternative medicine and a carbon tax. On the question of what the Greens would do if people disagreed with their policy, Tucker said the answer lay in education. With wide enough education she felt sure people would agree with the Green bottom line of ecological sustainability and social justice and then make choices within those parameters.