Australian Labor Party finance minister Lindsay Tanner announced on June 24 he would quit politics at the next election. His seat, the electorate of Melbourne, could become the first lower house seat one by the Greens in a federal election.
Greens candidate for Melbourne Adam Bandt is running a serious campaign. The Greens say only one in 10 people who voted ALP last time need to change to the Greens for Bandt to win the seat.
Bandt spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Ben Courtice about his campaign.
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What’s your impression of the change in prime minister?
It’s a significant event that we’ve got the first woman prime minister and I congratulate the prime minister for that. The jury is still out, though, especially in Melbourne, where people pay attention to what people stand for, as to what her Labor Party will say and do on key issues like asylum seekers and climate change and same-sex marriage.
What effect will Tanner’s resignation have?
One of the things it might do is focus people’s minds on the issues rather than personalities. So, as well as all those key matters of principle for the Greens around asylum seekers and climate change and same-sex equality, it’s also giving us the opportunity to campaign on some other issues.
People know that we’re good on the environment, but we’re also going to this election calling for dental care to be part of Medicare; for massive investment in mental health, which has been neglected in all the health reforms; really the kind of things that are going to involve using public money for the benefit of the public.
Are you enthusiastic about the report by Beyond Zero Emissions, Zero Carbon Australia 2020?
It is a great report because it shows that technically it is possible for us to move to a renewable energy economy rapidly. What it’s going to take is political will to do that.
I want Melbourne to lead the way by becoming the first city that moves to running on renewable energy, as close to 100% as possible, and I’ll be going to the election advocating a similar transition away from coal to renewables.
People used to talk about nation-building projects, perhaps now we need to talk about planet-building projects.
The Melbourne electorate is very diverse, from housing commission flats to the very wealthy. Have you been getting support from any particular groups?
The Greens have been the people in parliament standing up for people on low incomes. The classic example of that is the current Labor Party legislation around income management, which we opposed in the Northern Territory, because we opposed the NT intervention.
We now oppose Labor’s plan to roll out the quarantining of people’s unemployment and pension benefits across the country, which is what they are planning to do.
Our policy is aimed at making life easier and giving better services to people who live on lower incomes, many of whom live in the electorate, so I’ve been spending a lot of time door-knocking, talking to people one-on-one.
Labor went into the previous election promising to tear up Work Choices. What do you think of that, and how do the laws affect the poor people you’re trying to represent?
I want to make sure Work Choices is dead and buried and never comes back to life, but Labor only put it halfway in the grave and they kept all of the harsh restrictions on industrial action, on unions exercising their rights at work.
Those all stay under Labor’s Fair Work Act. My campaign will be to take Labor at its word and really rip up Work Choices.
Many workers say to me when they try to strike an enterprise agreement with their employer, they find that all the cards are stacked in the employer’s favour. Many people who have to work with it day-to-day know that many of the worst elements of Work Choices are still there and I would campaign in parliament to repeal those parts of the legislation.
Are you confident at this point in the campaign?
I don’t accept the premise that Tanner resigning makes things easier. It makes the contest certainly more interesting. He had a personal following, that’s not to be denied, but on the other hand we’ve got a new prime minister and we don’t know who the Labor candidate is going to be for the seat.
The contest is still going to be really tough and we are up against it when it comes to resources, so in some ways it’s a bit of a David and Goliath battle. I’m expecting that they’re going to put more money into their campaign. I have no doubt there will be a very well-resourced opponent.
[For more information on Adam Bandt’s campaign visit www.greens.org.au/melbourne .]