I AM a legal and business studies teacher from Albury, in Wiradjuri country, working in a rural high school.
I’ve lived in Albury for five years, although grew up in a small community outside Bendigo. I am passionate about regional Australia and the people who live in it.
The Greens strongly support regional communities in a number of areas:
■Environment — protecting old growth forests and the Murray is vital to the tourism industry.
■Education — fully fund public schools to the nationally agreed standard and free early childhood education for low-income earners.
■Climate change — investment in renewables and reintroducing government owned electricity will reduce power bills by $200 a year; and
■Health — adding dental to Medicare and increasing face-to-face mental health services in regional areas.
Our plans are all fully costed and can be supported by making the tax system fairer and ensuring large corporations pay their fair share.
Greens members and candidates also include farmers.
Our policies are great for the farming industry — we are the only party that will stand up against mining interests that threaten groundwater and we are serious about addressing climate change.
Farmers and Greens care about the long-term sustainability of our land and water. Most people in regional areas who think Greens and farmers do not get along have probably never met a Green.
The basin has been threatened by cotton, corruption and climate change. Large multinationals have been given huge allocations of water and unmetered access in the northern parts of the basin which has allowed for theft.
The Murray-Darling Basin plan is not working for anyone — both farmers and the environment are suffering.
Of course we need farms to be successful for food and fibre for our nation, but the reality is that huge amounts of cotton and rice are exported.
In times of drought, we are essentially shipping the products of our water resource offshore, often for the benefit of large multinationals.
The Greens are calling for a national Royal Commission; an end to donations from corporate irrigators to political parties; and for future modelling to include the impacts of climate change.
Pausing the plan is not going to work. We need a plan. If we were to suspend the plan then the only people to benefit would be those at the top of the systems — communities in the west would still be left dry.
The Greens know the plan needs to be overhauled. To ensure the long-term health of the river, the environment needs to be at the centre of its goals.
Without a healthy environment, we risk the Murray River suffering the fate of the Darling.
Farmers know how important protecting the environment is for sustainability. Taking all the water out of the system known will have long-lasting impacts on the communities dependent on it.
Regional and rural Australians know that the old parties are working for the benefit of corporate interests (over $100 million in corporate donations for Labor and Liberal since 2012).
People are waking up to the idea a safe seat does not attract government investment or interest.
When the Prime Minister suggests he was unaware of the pain being experienced by farming communities in Farrer, you have to ask, what has our safe Liberal member been achieving for us?
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