issues.oz

Manifesto

How do we make Australia a better place to live in? This is the fundamental question I ask myself right now, as I prepare to run for parliament in the 2004 federal election. The question is better broken down to 2 parts. What makes Australia such a great place to live and what would make it a better place to live? That is to say, what needs to be protected about our way of life and what needs to be changed?

We are a nation of less then 20 million people, our rate of population increase is a mere 0.93% per year, we live on the largest island nation in the world. Yet despite our small population, slow population growth and spacious living arrangements we are still concerned about being over-run by a few hundred refugees each year.

Click here to read my policy on Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

A massive 20% of our exports to the world are rural in nature. Wheat, sheep, beef, wool, dairy etc etc. Yet, we live on the second driest continent on earth. Only Antartica is drier. We export more water then we import despite the fact that we live on one of the most arid lands on earth. Stranger still is the fact that we encourage this state of affairs by signing up to free trade agreements that will cause out rural sector to expand further still: further damaging the environment and further damaging our long term capacity to feed ourselves.

We are an affluent nation, the citizens of which have come to expect a high standard of living. We are paying for our hi-tech imports (cars, computers, TV's etc etc) by exporting non-renewable resources like the fertility of our soils and our finite mineral desposits. This is totally unacceptable and Australia must start making bigger steps towards the development of manfacturing and service industries that attract business from overseas.

Click here to read my policy on Trade and Industry

As a nation, our relationships with our closest neighbors, and indeed the rest of the world are becoming increasingly strained as we insist on slavish adherance to the American line at the expense of international diplomacy and plain old fashioned common sense. Why do we so blindly follow America into its misguided wars? Because John Howard doesnt believe that Australia is strong enough to make its way through the world without the shelter of a super-power. But he is wrong... Australia is mature enough now and Australians wise enough, to realise that our national best interest is not served by sending our sons and daughters to distant shores to fight an American War when the case for war has not been put, flimsy foreign intelligence has been relied on, and the Government has dubious unspoken motivations for going to war. What Australia needs in the new century of terror is diplomacy that will engage the rest of the world, all nations of the world, in a dialogue on how best to defeat terrorism. Not a policy of reckless adherance to super-power policies and foolish involvement in wars that do nothing to discourage would be terrorists and much to encourage them.

Click here to read my policy on Defence and Foreign Affairs.

Our education system is in parlous state of under funding. Teachers and Academics are some of the most undervalued professionals in Australia today. Our schools are in a state of decline as this Coalition government continues in its ideologically driven course of putting further burden on students and their parents. The Government, which well knows that Universities need much greater funding to meet the demand for teritary education in this country, still insists on keeping the funding to a mere trickle of what it ought to be. Rather than spend the money that needs to be spent, the Government plans on allowing Universities to increase course fees (by up to 25%) as a further burden on students who are already some of the poorest people in the country.

All this at a time when Australia so desperately needs to remain at the cutting edge of science and technology. This at a time when, rather then making it harder for Australians to capture jobs in the white collar services, we should be making it easier for Australians to bring jobs in the white collar services from overseas.

But this Governments unwillingness to spend money on education in the amounts that are necessary, has far broader implications then merely the future employability of the current student generation. Put simply, educated Australians are better Australians. Yet this Government spends a mere $13 billion dollars in Education each year, money spent making better Australians, and spends nearly $16 billion each year on defence. But lets not lie to one another. Let us strip back the layer of pleasant euphemism and political correctness from our political landscape. We spend $16 billion each year on killing people from other countries. Incredibly, we spend billions less each year on creating better Australians.

Click here to read my policy on Education

I think Howard fails to apreciate why he won the last election after so many years of screwing people around with his 1960's conservatism and indifference to matters that people really care about.

People were terrified. They still are.

They are terrified of being blown up while going about their day to day lives. They are terrified by big corporations and their steadily growing influence in society. They are terrified that they are losing all semblance of control in their leaders, lives, nation and destiny.

So at the last election they voted Howard back, almost entirely because he was the incumbent. No incumbent can possibly lose an election when people are as scared as they were in the months just after september 11.

Yet Howard misunderstands what it is about his incumbency that made him attractive to voters in november 2001. It's not because further market de(re)regulation, and funding cuts to health and education makes people feel better when the dust of terrorism has barely had time to settle on the streets of New York.

It's because people presume the incumbent will give them something consistant. When everything around you seems to be changing too fast, your instinct is to stabilise your environment in as many ways as possible. Even the political environment.

But Howard has blown that. When he stands up in parliament and tells us about how well the economy is doing despite the growing fear of terrorism around the globe i cringe to myself. When night clubs burn in bali nobody logs onto the internet to check out how the stock market is doing.

At such uncertain times as this people want big government. They want to feel like the government will protect them. That when they get ill their treatment in a hostpital will be assured because public health is well funded. That their children have a secure future because accessable public education is a priority in this country. That the government is ready and able to deal with terrosist threats, but won't lunge into foreign wars that exaccerbate the problem just because its deemed important, perhaps for economic reasons, to cosy up to George Bush. Let's face it, theres nobody that really feels safer now that Saddam and his imaginary nukes are off the scene in iraq.

People want to feel protected by the government (economically, socially, physically... in all ways that word can be meant) and they want to feel that the government understands their need for stability.

In one sense the electorate want "big government". They want a government that is going to spend the money to care for people. Yet simultaneously, they want small government. They want a government that is going to disengage from the world. They want a government that is going to move cautiously. One thats not going to do anything rash... just one that's going to do its best to keep Australia stable.

John Howards positive attitude and vigourous morning power walks are not infectious. They are unnerving. People are STILL terrified. Howard seems unable to find policies that acknowledge that. For his opposition (the rest of the nation), the key to removing him this year will be to find policy and politics that do. What needs to be protected in this country, is the understanding common among Australians that the Government is duty bound to protect us. What needs to change is the Government.

Send Ryan Albrey to Canberra

It is remarkably easy to run for federal parliament in this country.

In fact to get your name on the ballot in a federal election, all you need to do is gather the signatures of 50 voters (who are registered to vote in your electorate), and pay a $350 bond (which you can reclaim in the unlikely event that you poll more then 4% of the primary vote).

Having learnt this only just a few weeks ago, I intend to run for parliament in 2004. At the moment I hope to be the Member for Hasluck. Of course I use the term "hope" in the same way that it might be used in the sentence "Some day I hope to flap my arms and fly to the moon".

In order to have even a small chance of winning the seat as an independant I will need to poll at least 20% of all first preferences. That is to say... 16,000 people would need to prefer me over all other candidates in the electorate. A tall order when you consider that the vast majority of Australians vote for the candidate attatched to the party led by the high profile canberra politician they dislike the least. That they might be better represented by a totally unknown candidate would probably not occur to the average voter.

But I need for many other things to also go my way. I need to hope that I get a high proportion of my votes from disaffected Labor voters. Picking up say... 6,000 first preferences from typical ALP voters would be perfect, because while it would still leave me in only 3rd place on first preferences, it would make it much easier to slip into second place after all but the last 3 candidates have been eliminated and their preferencces distributed. This is because, in order to achieve an absolute majority in 2 candidate prefered terms, I need only poll better on preferences then Labor (rather then poll better on preferences then both Labor AND Liberal), since the Labor candidate will preference me in front of the Liberal candidate.

In essence, the trick of it is to target Labor voters and eat into as much of the Labor vote as possible.... since all I need do is poll better then Labor and Labor preferences will shoot me over the line, beating the Liberal candidate to the seat.

Of course this leaves me with some internal conflict. The last thing I want, is to be seen as helping the Liberal party to win a vital marginal seat and form another 3 years of government. It is important that the ALP are strong in Hasluck and able to hold on to this seat if they are to form the first federal Labor Government of the new century. This is where I give thanks to our system of preferential voting. I will be encouraging anyone that votes for me, to place Labor before the Coalition on their ballot paper and I will be distributing how to vote cards, on and before election day, that explain how to do so.

I'll keep you posted in the coming months on my efforts to raise a warchest (hah) confirm my official candidacy and draft a policy base.