Suburban Active Citizen: 2013

Saturday, 28 September 2013

Some positive news from Abbott government

Just heard Greg Hunt (new Federal Environment Minister) on Radio National. His unequivocal support for the new IPCC report was very welcome news. As was the news that they are restoring funding to the Griffiths University National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (www.nccarf.edu.au )
Of course,, depends very much on how much funding, how much action will follow, but lets acknowledge any positive news, whilst keeping very alert for the negative stuff too.

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

We need a better voting system

Someone posted on facebook -
"There's nothing wrong with the senate system - the problem is with the voters!If people are dumb enough to vote for a party that has "liberal labor or independent" in it because they think it is accurate branding, then maybe they shouldn't be voting "liberal" or "labor" in the first place.
It is up to citizens to educate themselves, and if they can't be bothered then they can lump it."
Can't agree TJ. If you check the preference flow tickets of some, many of the micro parties, they are deliberately confusing. Even the analysis by some of the commentariat was not able to spot all the labyrinthine ways the preference flows went. The existence of the parties, the often misleading naming, and the complex preference flows, were deliberately designed to get a result that no ordinary voter would be able to predict.

The AEC also has a major part of the blame to share. Liberals are Liberals - There should be no Liberal Democrats party. It is deliberate misleading branding that would not be allowed in general advertising. Same goes for all those parties incorporating the words Liberal, Labor, Democrat, Republican, even Australia (including the ALP). "Independent" should only be allowed on it's own, not in conjunction with any other word. The Lib/Dems should have honestly called themselves the Libertarian Party. Or the Ayn Rand party. And then try to build their brand recognition. Not to be able toluck out riding on someone else's brand and the donkey vote
It's time to end the choice of either 1 single vote above the line, or 110 votes below the line. It should be Optional Preferential, either Above the Line (Parties), or below the line (Individuals). Vote as far down the list as you like. With no registered party tickets of preference flows. It is completely insane to claim any legitimacy for a system that allows your 109th preference to carry any weight!! Especially when you had no idea that would be your 109th preference!! And if you really don't care who gets in after your 1st or 5th or 85th preference, then that is a valid choice.

To avoid the donkey vote carrying any weight, there should be a dummy party first on the ticket. The "Anyone but the Rest" party would be good. Any vote for this to be ignored!! Probably the same for the last party on the ticket too.

Having said all that, some voters will still find a way to screw it up. But nowhere nearly as many. Just as we decided everyone should have brakes on their cars, instead of relying on everyone driving carefully, we should also design the voting system to avoid totally predictable accidents, and ban deliberate accident causing arrangements.

But then, someone will still be stupid enough to vote for Tony Abbott's corporatist mob. But, they will not be able to blame the voting system for what then happens! Of course, they could legitimately blame Murdoch and Abbott for false advertising. But that's a different problem!

[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]

Post Election Blues / Burn Out / Implosion

Just how stupid are Australian voters, helped by a woeful preferential voting system, micro parties prepared to sell their soul to a devil who subverts democracy, and a useless AEC, when they can elect a right wing nut job like David Leyonhjelm on the donkey vote!! For god's sake, even a very senior consultant of my acquaintance confessed to having voted for the Liberal Democrats because he "thought that was the Liberals. While Cate Faehrmann, who would be a fantastic Senator, misses out!!!
I really worked my butt off at remote Annangrove on Election Day. Perfect set up, every one had to come from one direction, through one narrow gate, only me and some quiet Liberals handing out. I was able to speak directly and meaningfully to nearly every voter who went through. Felt like my message was getting though about "The Environment needs a voice in Canberra. Vote Greens in the Senate at least". But when I check the results for Annangrove, comparing with 2010. No impact whatsoever. I think just 2 more people gave their first preferences to Greens in the Senate over voting Greens in the Lower House. Similar to 2010, but just a lower % of the vote. What a complete waste of time and money! Took me from 6am to 8am to man that booth and put up snd take down signs at equally useless Maroota and South Maroota. Would be so much better if we spent the time and effort in engaging these communities for at least 9 months beforehand, attending community meetings, articles in local church and school newsletters etc.

The day wasn't helped by finding our wonderful Campaign Manager had given me only Berowra HTV's, when I was manning a shared booth!!! And several people calling me, on a booth as far away as you can get and unable to do anything for them, because they could not get any answer or return calls from the person who was supposed to be manning the phones and computer for the day - our wonderful "Campaign Manager". Even people calling me to say they'd arrived at the booth to find there was no kit for them. Along with the "Tonnes" of left over HTV's that out campaign manager told me about, after he'd ignored my message that he had over ordered by 20%. But these happenings were not so bad, as they completely matched my expectations too.
But most of all -
A completely unnecessary all out battle in our local branch.

I've posted previously (Campaign Shambles) about how un-organised our local campaign was, deliberately so. A misguided belief that grass roots democracy means no organisational responsibility can be delegated to anyone but the Convenor/Campaign Manager, who mistakenly tries to do everything himself. Did I mention that I a pulled out of the campaign team meetings because they just were so bad, leaving me with totally negative feelings each time. Again resulting in me having an average of about 4 or 5 hours a night of sleep for the last week or so, trying to make up for lost time and lack of organisers, to get people on to all our polling booths. I think only me doing station handouts (well, apart from one effort by 3 others doing one station for one morning). No, tell a lie, the one ultra reliable distributor from Pymble too. And us totally missing the first 2 weeks of pre-polling. I think I was doing pre-polling at Sydney Town Hall before anyone was doing pre-polling locally. It wasn't till I started doing this that I twigged no-one was doing it locally, and I found that the pre-polling locations had not even been updated in the EMS Election Management System, and that no EMS reminders were going out. Indeed, even the polling places for Election Day had not been corrected in EMS!!! And I don't think anyone got around to allocating anyone to pre-polling in important places like Chatswood and Castle Hill, even in those most important last couple of days. But the "Campaign Manager" seemed to be completely oblivious to this. His view was that everything was going well.

So I was determined we would have a serious post campaign review, and try to set the basis for the next campaign, where we must be better organised. Start at least 9 months out, have designated organisers for different groups of tasks, so we could allocate volunteers to them, etc. I posted my motions for the next meeting of the local group, calling for a Post-Project Review, and also calling for a complete review of the Vision, Aims, Mission and Objectives of the local group.

When one person thinks they know everything about
how to run a campaign, and won't listen to suggestions.

I also threw in some deliberately provocative statements to try to get a reaction from members, calling the group complacent and self satisfied. After the very Ruddesque self congratulatory postings of our "Campaign "Manager", where you might have thought we'd run the best ever campaign, what other adjectives could I use??

To try to reduce the inevitable bun fight, I proposed to the Campaign Manager/ Convenor that we meet beforehand so that we could try to sort out beforehand as much as our disagreements as possible. After all, I had to respect at least the huge amount of personal effort he had put into the campaign, in his Ruddesque fashion of trying to do everything himself. Whilst at the same time completely wondering just what he had actually achieved in his heroic two weeks off work.

Despite low expectations, he still managed to surprise me, his response was absurd - he would only meet me a) if I withdrew criticisms of the campaign management in my own personal blog,
b) with a mediator or witness present !!!
In very quick fire succession he knocked me off as a manager of the various group facebook pages, pages I had set up and nurtured for 2 years, and to which he had not once contributed. And quickly descended to very childish behaviour along the lines of "please sir, he called me names".

OK, my responses were a bit quick too. I'd pretty much decided the post election review I had called for would be my swan song with the local Greens group. I'd probably be better off joining the local CWA group to get action than expect anything from this present mob. But with this kind of attack response, and the complete silence and lack of support from other members of the group, with one or two exceptions offering to mediate, I decided I'd go out kicking as much arse as I could. The local members, a few of whom did email their support, need to be provoked into taking some responsibility and some action to make the branch active and effective, and to make that possible my last efforts might well be best aimed at taking out the "Don't Rock the Boat" brigade as I went.

I decided that for me to have any chance of being heard, I would ask for state intervention, and James Ryan has volunteered to come to the meeting. I'm only sorry that someone as hard working as James has to spend time on our useless little branch and it's sorry state of affairs. Especially when I have such low expectations that there will be any real change happen. I think the "Don't Rock the Boat" brigade will remain in charge, nothing will happen. Maybe I need to provoke the few people I have hopes of to not sit on their hands.

Do I feel any better after writing this blog. Well, not much. But sharing my frustrations with anyone who is interested to know is probably a little cathartic at least.

Subscribe and see if I get my act together and find a better way to contribute to fighting for the environment and a fair-go society..

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Campaign Shambles

[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]

Well, here I am unexpectedly at work early, so time to write a blog for a change.

Why at work early ? Because I got up early this morning to do campaigning at the train station. But first I had to go pick up materials from the verandah of the Campaign Manager. But, what do you know, the materials for station handouts were not there. Another abortive effort to help in the campaign.

I seem to spend every journey to work and back musing, perhaps fuming, over how shambolic this campaign has been, right from the beginnings. But first, a bit of history.

Having picked up a fair amount of experience in the NSW 2011 state election, I was looking forward to contributing at the 2012 Local Government elections, but when I was selected as a candidate, finally and very belatedly, I declined to be the Campaign Manager too, and stood down as Secretary. But, I soon had to adopt the signature "Acting Campaign Manager", as no-one else would do the job, or contribute much at all. One of my fellow candidates was fantastic in looking after the media side of things, while the other, much more experienced candidate, did zip, nada, nothing toward the campaign. And the supposedly experienced volunteer who was going to look after printing and a few other things, well, he just disappeared for weeks and simply did not answer any emails, text messages of voice mails. And the secretary never appeared or did anything.

Fortunately, a couple of the stalwarts helped out, while the usual suspects came to meetings, but really did nothing much at all.

So, having learned from that experience, I was determined to make some changes for the Federal 2013 election campaign.

Get the candidates selected early
Get the campaign organisation in place early
Be the campaign manager, or at least the logisitics manager.

But I failed on all three counts

The local group dragged it's feet for 6 months before finally choosing candidates, much too late for them to really build any sort of profile with the community
The local group simply kept prioritising other business over getting the campaign organisation established early
Circumstances, or maybe something more suspicious, conspired to defeat me in my objective to be the campaign manager.

The group had fallen in to such dysfunction, with a secretary who never turned up to meetings. meeting notices being either late or none existent, meeting schedule changes, venue changes meaning we were down to really small numbers. Culminating in April in me, a regular attendee, not being able to find out when the monthly meeting was supposed to be on.

No email notice of the meeting, nothing on the fledgling website (started by the convenor of the group), nothing on the group facebook page.
No response to any of the emails, voice mails and text messages I sent to the convenor.
No one there when I went at the usual regular schedule place, day and time

So I missed the meeting.

And what do you know, at the next meeting I find that our completely non-communicative Convenor has nominated himself as the Campaign Manager. Somehow that struck me as all rather too much of a convenience. But, whatever, let's run with it.

At last some action on candidates. But for weeks no organisation being put in place.

Finally, after much pushing, we start to have campaign team meetings. Usual mix of suspects, those who want to do something, but won't volunteer to be an organiser, and those who are there just to make sure no-one does anything they don't agree with, calling for the right of veto over anything.

But talk about shambolic meetings. Just one excited campaign manager telling us how much wonderful stuff he is doing. Never any time to talk about real organisation, getting volunteers on board, getting organisers, an organisation in place.

Oh yes, and just to make it more interesting, suddenly declaring that he is only going to campaign in one electorate, not the two we are responsible for !

Finally, by some back door manoeuvring, we get at least one meeting that is at least partially organised. By this stage I was pretty weary of the whole thing, but still volunteered to do a few things.

But then - what do you know, the damn Campaign Manager suddenly starts doing the things I had volunteered for. Says how easy it is, but nevertheless does it wrong and massively over orders materials.

And at a non-campaign meeting, my proposal to start to put in place some local group "jobs" is undermined and rejected by this same campaign manager/convenor. The same campaign manager who, to my face, said it would be hard to find a good candidate, when I felt I had been a pretty good candidate at the council elections.

Quite simply, I could not work with this totally disorganised person, who is not a manager's armpit! But have to admit, is good at creating events and press releases. Just would be good if the events were in the right place and properly publicised, at least to our members and supporters. As long as they don't take precedence over the really necessary work of the campaign logistics.

Since then, I've done a little bit of work here and there, quitting Campaign Team meetings and avoiding any further contact with the Campaign Manager. Doesn't help being patronised by a Candidate either.

And frankly, the campaign is now seriously failing in some of the basic tasks.

We are half way though pre-polling, with 4 pre-polling stations to man. And so far not one person has been there to hand out how to vote cards. While, unbelievably, the candidate and other excitable volunteers are busy Flash-Mobbing lowly populated rural areas of the electorate that have a low % of support for us, against all the advice from seasoned campaigners, and the statistical analysis I did for the team.
With only 10 days to go, we have probably only around 25% of the polling day slots filled (and most of them by my early efforts)
Broadcast calls are going out for volunteers to come forward, which confuses and probably irritates those people who have already volunteered, but have not been told where they are rostered, and have not been used for the things they volunteered for earlier.
I am the only one so far to have done any station handout, done with the old materials I happened to have at home. Whilst the only other volunteer for station handouts is unrealistically saying from 7:45 to 9:00, when the real traffic is from about 6:45 to 8:00

So that is why I am so pissed off, fuming. It could have been done so much better. It reminds of some sports teams I have played in, where the self appointed best player also appoints himself as coach, thinks he can do it all on his own, but in fact his efforts just make the whole team just less effective, even angry, and not even bothering to turn up. But try telling the "star" that. Or others, who are dazzled by the star, but cannot see the damaging effect the star's narcissism is having. The "Manager" is not really even supposed to be on the field. They are supposed be making sure we have the right players, we all understand the tactics, and giving a bit of coaching on skills, lots of encouragement to those players trying, exhortations to those not really puling their weight, looking for more players to bring into the squad to gain experience for future games and seasons.

Last time a coulple of us managed to pull the fat out of the fire by working our butt offs. But I had a job then where I could spend a lot of time. This time I doubt I can "work miracles" in the last week as I did before.

But then I remember what I am doing this for

Greens are the best chance we have of having a decent voice in parliament
Cate Faerhmann is a great candidate, deserves every support, every effort
The local Greens group is not reflective of some of the great people who are in the Greens

So, I've cancelled stuff I had booked for this weekend, and let's see if I can get my mojo back. A weekend working bee to put signs and kits together will probably be a make or break. If I have to put up with our over excited but bloody useless campaign manager, I think I'll probably break.

Postscript: The expected weekend working bee never materialised. I checked with several people who had expected the working bee, who were willing to help, but no notice about it went out.

[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]

Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Own the Vocabulary

How Doublespeak Is Ruining Our Environment is a great article from the Huffington Post.

Something I think we should address more. We must use plain, honest language and not fall into using the double-speak of those who would have us believe the Climate Change is either not happening, or nothing to worry about.

These are some of my preferred phrases and vocabulary, and I encourage other people to use them all the time.

not Global Warming or Climate Change - Climate Chaos

Dirty Fuels -in place of Fossil Fuels The Dirty Fuels Industry. Or perhaps that should be the Dirty Fools Industry

In NSW, not Planning Reform, rather Planning Abdication

What are your ideas for the vovabulary we should be using ?

Saturday, 23 February 2013

Anguishing over how to contribute

Disappointment after loss at council election

I felt really good about running for Hornsby council, really looking forward to being able to positively engage with the community, work hard for a better community. But I was running as a Greens candidate, and the Greens popularity dipped at the time of the council elections, and we lost both our council seats. The Liberals stood as a party for the first time in Hornsby council elections, and swept all before them. The only "seat" that didn't go Liberal, or "Liberal Independent" was the third and final seat in my ward. It was a close fight between myself and two former councillors (Independent and Independent Liberal), with Mick Gallagher, independent and former mayor winning out. Now a lone dissenting voice on council, I think he might almost be regretting being there. He really only wanted to try to stop either of the appalling Liberal candidates being elected as mayor. So now the progressive part of the community in Hornsby has no voice on council, as council comes totally under the sway of the state Liberal party pushing its agenda to slash planning and environmental controls. Very depressing.

Since losing there I've been wondering how to contribute now. And starting a new and interesting job has distracted me. But now it's time to do something.

But what to do. There's a lot of areas that need community work that I am interested in. But trying to find local positive thinking people to work with seems to be areal problem.

Local Greens

The local greens group seems almost moribund to me. Whilst a few people are keen and active, we seem to be weighed down by

people who want to limit "activity" to a once a month 2 hour meeting. [PS: Now down to 1.5 hrs a month, as people must get home to watch Q&A !!!]
Want to deal with the minutiae of procedure and process at local and NSW level.
some who are passionate, but seem to be unaware of how their emotionality about issues deters me and others. No sense of trying to get the message across to the uncommitted.
Almost a split between Pragmatics (We need to get elected to get things done) and the Idealists (we cannot compromise our ideals at all).

My desire to be active putting out a positive Vote for Us message, convincing swinging voters, just seems to be constantly hitting a dampener.

Local "Citizens" campaigns

There are some local groups that are moderately active as Citizens. Berowra District CA, Community Voice, NOHRAG. But either they are too localised to be relevant to me, or too wishy washy. Can I fit in and add some passion and action, or will I be judged as too passionate, too blunt, too undiplomatic?

There really is a desperate need for a well organised group to pool resources to come up with progressive ideas for Hornsby, not just turning it over to the developers, leaving local Residents Action Groups to protest, and individuals fuming but ineffective. We need to develop some positive forward thinking for Hornsby.

What happened to GetUp! - I used to get info from them, they had at least one local Get Together.
[Postscript: I managed to host a GetTogether earlier this year. Maxed out at 20 people really quickly., There is interest out there to be tapped into]

Climate Action

I'm "in" Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), Parramatta Climate Action Network (ParraCAN), and in touch with 100% Renewables and AYCC. But there doesn't seem to be any activity locally.

IT/Social Media Contribution

I could make an effort to contribute more to groups in the IT & Social Media area. But which to concentrate on ? NSW Greens is crying out for improvements, but no chance of getting into the clique. Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Greens struggles to get anything off the ground. Maybe work with www.energy-without-carbon.org

But what is it with local Greens who refuse to use Facebook? Serious problem of being ~~too old~~ technophobic I think!

So, which way forward ?

Currently my thinking is

2013 - In local Greens, concentrate on the local Campaign for Sept Federal election.
Just do our own thing, even my own thing, and ignore the non-suburban messages that come of NSW Greens. Build an enthusiastic, positive team. [Postscript: Wishful thinking indeed. See posts from Aug and Sep 2013]
Late 2014, early 2015 - Greens campaign for NSW 2015 election
Jan - Sep 2016 - stand for council as a "Local Independent Progressive". Fully in line with Green principles, but clearly a local equal with being a "Greens". Get support of the local organisations that want a progressive voice on Council.
Between times ?

Work toward developing a "Hornsby Active Citizens Network" (A Positive Agenda for Hornsby, Synergy, Progressive, Alliance*, "Grass Roots Democracy"). More than just Community Voice.

Develop progressive plans for Old Mans Valley, Waitara Oval, Asquith shops, Heritage etc.
Make Hornsby Council accountable for money, sustainability
Bring in valuable individuals who want to contribute to their community

Work with active Climate Action groups. Don't worry about setting up my own branch for Hornsby.
Make contact with groups that could be a source for "Hornsby Active Citizens Network", Climate Action,

Churches
Lions, Rotary
Resident Action Groups
Businesses

Maybe link up with a more active Greens group, such as Northern Beaches or Ryde Epping, to maintain my spirits and enthusiasm.
Incidentally work with and support Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Greens, until such time as the group changes to being positive, progressive, active.

---------------------

* Alliance - maybe like Sydney Alliance.
[Note: This is my personal blog, expressing my personal opinions, often working out my frustrations. If you don't want to know my personal opinions and my frustrations, then don't read it. And certainly do not ask me to censor my personal blog because my opinions don't match yours. If you disagree, or if I have any facts wrong, I encourage you to Comment, or to contact me. Please respect my openness, and share your opinions and response with me at least, with all if you can. But please, no behind my back whispering]