The Greens

To date M.Shriek has largely concentrated on the dominant political force in Moreland, the ALP.

However, a pluralistic democracy requires some form of legitimate alternative. The following two posts detail the two foremost political alternatives in Moreland: The Greens and The Liberal Party.

At the local and state level, the primary political opposition is The Greens.

Political performance to date
So far the Greens have made inroads to political fortune in Moreland without achieving compelling success. There are two Greens on the City Council of Moreland, and the Greens have had a presence on Moreland Council for 8 years.

At state level, the City of Moreland captures the seats of Brunswick and Pascoe Vale, as well as a slice of Preston. In Pascoe Vale in 2006, the Greens polled just over 12%, an increase of about 1000 votes from 2002 - modest efforts by anybody's standards.

However, in Brunswick the story is different. Those who have spent a bit of time around Brunswick will know there have been some significant demographic changes in the past 10 years. Older migrants are moving out and younger chats are moving in. In 2002, The Greens polled the seoncd most first preference votes, just over 24%, against the incumbent Carlo Carli. In 2006, Greens candidate Cyndi Dawes raised this to just under 30% of first preference votes. With Liberal Party preferences, this put The Greens at 46.37% of the two party preferred vote.

The Labor vote in Brunswick dropped by some 5% between 2002 and 2006. Further demographic change, a further drop for the ALP primary vote, and Liberal preferences will see The Greens win Brunswick in the State Election next year. It promises to be a doozy.

Readers will recall that the ALP candidate in the State Election next year is Jane Garrett. The Greens have not yet announced their candidate for Brunswick, but M.Shriek imagines that having performed so well last time, Cyndi Dawes will have another go.

How active are The Greens in the hyperlocality of Moreland?

There is a barebones information page on the Victorian Greens website, but of more interest is the Moreland Greens local site, Green Moreland City. Green Moreland City is a rather nifty drupal site which nonetheless needs some love. The last post from the Moreland Greens was to announce the results of the November 2008 Local Government elections - some 12 months ago!

Prospects for the Future


As this DHS map shows, Brunswick is one of the wealthiest parts of Moreland. The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Census data indicates that Moreland is the youngest population in Moreland:

15-24 years	2006
Brunswick	16.00%
Coburg	13.50%
Pascoe Vale	11.10%
Fawkner	11.60%
Glenroy	12.00%
25-54 years
Brunswick	54.10%
Coburg	46.80%
Pascoe Vale	43.10%
Fawkner	36.00%
Glenroy	39.50%
55-64 years
Brunswick	7.30%
Coburg	8.20%
Pascoe Vale	8.00%
Fawkner	8.40%
Glenroy	9.00%
65+ years
Brunswick	11.50%
Coburg	14.00%
Pascoe Vale	20.10%
Fawkner	24.00%
Glenroy	21.30%

And if Cr Jo Connellan's election results are anything to go by, The Greens are very politically popular in Brunswick.

So are the Greens the real political alternative in the seat of Brunswick? Or is an independent more likely to pose a serious challenge to ALP new-comer Jane Garrett?

OHS haiku

Blue stone walls witness
Yet another needless death
Please be safe at work

Prepare. Act. Survive.

This is the new refrain to guarantee fire safety this coming fire season.

So far, it feels a lot like being in the scouts. You get to feel responsible without having any real responsibility other than staying alive. You get to talk about survival and consider the grim prospect of mass tragedy. If you're sufficiently enthused, you can join a volunteer brigade and get a uniform.

It's all very self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is a good thing. But in terms of fire safety, so is a collective effort, and so is having the government constructively engage. Recent state-sponsored efforts to prepared Victorians for the coming fire season leave a lot to be desired.

October 11-18 is Fire Action Week. For you and I, this is a week to begin preparing for the summer ahead. For the State Government, it is a week of telling you and I to begin preparing for the summer ahead.

Fire Action Week has seen any number of compelling intitiatives to ensure we are fire safe and fire ready. For example, Monday's Age contained an 8 page lift-out on how to 'be prepared'. Step 1 (not listed in the lift-out) was 'be prepared to read through the Sports section to obtain your lift-out'. Non-readers of the Sports section of The Age should feel free to perish.

We have also had John Brumby's Fire Action Week Address:




However, the real cracker during Fire Action Week has been the implementation of the 'Probably Best to Go, Unless You Really Want to Stay and You Are Adequately Prepared, Except if it is an Emergency, in Which Case for God's Sake Don't Stay' policy. Formerly, Victorians were encouraged to decide early whether in the event of wildfire they would stay and defend their property or evacuate. The bushfires of Black Saturday earlier this year exposed a fatal disparity between understandings of the preparation needed to stay and defend a property, and the reality of a widespread lack of preparation. Now, Victorians are being encouraged to Stay and Defend unless it happens to be a Code Red day, in which case, they should evacuate. So long as it is not too late.

Others have already deeply criticised the confusion which will surely result.

But in part the issue here is not so much that the State Government needs to vastly improve the effectiveness of its communication techniques. It also lies in the government's willingness to ensure there is adequate fire coverage from professionals as well as citizens. Earlier this year, an independent Board of Reference recommended the State Government increase the number of professional CFA firefighters. In August, Premier Brumby acknowledged there would be 700 'seasonal' firefighters deployed this coming summer.

This is a measure which falls some way short of the recommendations required to ensure we are adequately protected this summer.

There is a need for more professional firefighting coverage across Victoria.

Wherein lies the value of delay?

Population Control

Honourable Member for Wills Kelvin Thomson has been causing something of a stir lately.

On 17 August this year, Mr Thomson made a speech in Parliament endorsing two propositions:

1. That the world's population needs to be stabilised.

2. That Australia's population needs to be stabilised.

The Hansard text is here, or you can watch the full speech below:



Most readers will know that population control is already practiced in a number of countries, particularly India and China. In the past few decades, notions of population control have been shunned in the west, largely thanks to relatively-recent support for the view that control over reproduction is a basic need and right for women. However, with unprecedented levels of concern over climate change has come calls - such as Thomson's - to revive discussions on how to manage overpopulation.

In his parliamentary speech, Thomson delivered no suggestion as to how we might remedy the problems exacerbated by overpopulation. Rather, he outlined how overpopulation might make more difficult the management of issues such as global warming, food and water shortages, housing affordability and over-crowded cities, species extinctions, waste and terrorism.

Naturally, the proposition that population requires stabilisation has been met with considerable criticism. But it has also received a great deal of acclaim. Neil Mitchell has observed that one way or the other, population management is a discussion this nation needs to have. Others have suggested a vote-harvesting exercise: that Thomson expects to achieve nothing more than public sympathy in the polling booth.

This last approach deserves closer attention. Population control is a matter of considerable importance for environmental groups, and Thomson stands to gain credence among these groups for his stance. But Thomson has also called to cut migration not for reasons of population control, but rather for national security. In a speech to school students some 10 days earlier, and subsequently in a mail-out to his constituents, Thomson suggested slashing Australia's migration programme to 1990s levels would 'provide authorities with much more time in which to assess applications, and thereby improve Australia's security'. This position is likely to prove popular with those voters who sympathised with the War on Terror.

How do we quantify the urgency of a national discussion of population control? When will it be too late?

Is there value in Thomson's suggestion that Australia should cut migration levels to permit a greater degree of national security?

Should Australia manage its population, and if so, how? How can population control be reconciled with individual rights for reproduction?

Thomson has foreshadowed a series of compelling national conversations. The way to ensure it is more than a vote-harvesting exercise is for the public to seize the initiative, and input their own views on population control.