Journalism and politics student Braden Smith, who is contesting Currumbin for the Greens in the Queensland election, told Green Left that the challenges to transition away from the state’s reliance on mining and energy are huge, but not insurmountable.
Smith, who grew up in Currumbin, joined the party following the 2022 federal election after it won three seats in Magan-djin/Brisbane. He said he was inspired by the fact that grassroots progressive left-wing politics could win “even in traditional Liberal seats, like Ryan”.
While concerned about climate change, he was mainly drawn to the Greens’ progressive economic policies. He is passionate about “expanding public ownership [and] having an economy that’s run for people and not profit”.
To realise this agenda, the Greens are proposing initiatives such as “a public bank, public mining company … [and] public developer” as a means of “reorienting the productive forces in our society for more people-centred goals”.
On how to make housing affordable, Smith said the Greens are proposing “a two-year rent freeze followed by ongoing [rent rise] caps of 1% after that”. It has also committed to building more public housing.
“We have proposed a public developer and also to reinvigorate our existing [Queensland] public construction company, QBuild”, which Smith said has been “left to slowly decline” by Labor and Liberal governments.
The Greens want QBuild to be given the power to “acquire insolvent building companies so that we can put people to work building public housing for our proposed public developer”.
In response to federal Labor’s “build to rent” schemes, Smith said the Greens want to take housing out of the market.
He said the distinction between social housing and public housing, and so-called “affordable housing” has been “deliberately obfuscated by Labor and Liberal governments” at the state and federal level “so that they can continue to push a more marketised model”. This model enriches construction companies and developers, such as Mirvac, which get away with “charging 20% above market rent for supposedly affordable housing”.
“Housing needs to be viewed first and foremost as a human right,” Smith said. “We can end homelessness … with public housing, with a vacancy levy.”
Smith said that private developers “have, fundamentally, quite well captured both major parties”.
He cited a recent report that shows the two major parties “have taken thousands and thousands of dollars in dirty developer donations … through a loophole in the system that has allowed them to take donations from companies owned by developers.”
He said the first thing needed was to get rid of the conflict of interest. “We need representatives in government to make these laws who aren't captured by the developer industry, who won't take a cent in these dodgy donations.”
From there he said high quality, medium-density development and public housing can be done “with proper community consultation”.
“A lot of the antagonism between the community and the idea of new housing — which is necessary to solve the housing crisis — is because, currently, we aren’t adequately working … with the community … to explain why things are happening, to get their input and then apply it in a constructive way.”
Asked about how MPs can build community campaigns on the ground, Smith said that getting more people to attend and support grassroots events and speaking at rallies is “absolutely essential to being a Greens MP”.
Smith said if the Liberal National Party wins government, “we’re going to see a lot of the hyper neoliberal politics come back from the [Campbell] Newman era”, adding “It’s particularly important to not just be objecting to it in Parliament, but to be mobilising outside … to form a kind of people’s movement to obstruct as much of [the LNP’s] toxic agenda as is possible or, at least, draw attention to it.”
In terms of ending the government’s reliance on coal royalties, Smith responded that first up there should be no new coal and gas mines. He said there needs to be “mass investment in publicly-owned renewable energy: solar, wind [and] hydrogen”. But, he added, collecting royalties from extracting coal and gas, “as long as it is still around”, is also important.
Regarding minerals essential for the energy transition, the Greens want to set royalties at a rate that is comparable with the rest of the world “instead of at the very low — on average 9% — currently being charged to resources [companies] across Queensland.
“We also want to establish a publicly-owned mining company so that we can directly take a stake in the resources.”
As for the challenges for transitioning the mining and energy sectors, Smith said the federal Greens have proposed a multi-billion dollar policy package “that includes job guarantees.
“At the state level, establishing a public mining company is a big one,” he said, adding “the priority in hiring for any public mining company would be former coal and gas workers”. This, Smith said, would “provide workers with job security after the transition” and “a plan to give communities more input … [for] what they want their communities to look like … without coal and gas”.
Smith said the task of transitioning every worker in the industry “is very possible in a wealthy nation like ours”.
[The Queensland election is on October 26. For more information visit the Queensland Greens website.]