LRC 90.3
1. It’s federal election season, so go on - give us your associated party’s elevator pitch. What 3 things will you do for young people / students and Australia as a whole? 2. Do you think poverty and wealth inequality is increasing or decreasing? Why do you think that is?
3. With the recent spike in gas/petrol prices and rumours on the ‘inevitable’ spike in prices of coffee and wheat, what demands should Australians be having from their government to address this issue?
Greens Club 1. The global pandemic presented 3. Where fuel for vehicles is concerned, Australia with a chance to solve long-term problems. Instead, inequality has skyrocketed and the climate crisis has gotten worse. As Australians struggled to keep their head above water, billionaires and big corporations received massive taxpayer handouts and made record profits. Billionaires and big corporations have too much power, and the Liberal and Labor parties can’t tackle these long-term problems because they rely on millions in donations from them. The Greens offer real progressive politics by refusing to take dirty money from oligarchical corporations and bringing real action to issues the Liberal and Labor parties refuse to adequately address. We need urgent action to address the rampant crises in Australia such as the housing and inequality crises, the climate crises, and the increasingly inaccessible right to education. These policies represent Greens values of equality, the public interest and services for everyone.
2. In a wealthy country like ours, everyone who wants a decent job should get one and no one should live in poverty. Instead, unemployment is high, insecure work is out of control, around 20% of our population are receiving payments that aren’t enough to survive on, and 1 in 6 kids are living in poverty. Meanwhile, 1 in 3 big corporations pay no tax, and Australia’s top ten billionaires increased their wealth by 68% during the pandemic. Corporations received billions of dollars of public money and some funnelled it into profits and executive bonuses. It is time to make the billionaires and the big corporations pay their fair share. Through this, we can give a job to everyone who wants one on nation-building, planet-saving government projects. By adopting a national job and a liveable income guarantee, raising every income support payment above the poverty line to $88 a day and abolishing mutual obligations, our wages will begin to rise again, further boosting economic recovery. 16
we now have no choice. Over the next decade, we need to rapidly transition to renewable vehicles instead of hindering their research and adoption. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity to take the Greens plan for 700% renewables seriously. This would mean not only replacing coal and gas power stations but switching transport and industry to clean energy too, as well as becoming a renewables superpower, exporting our renewable energy to the rest of the world through renewable hydrogen, solar electricity and green metals. This clean energy revolution will create hundreds of thousands of well-paid, long-term jobs, enabling workers in fossil fuel industries to transition and farmers to be paid to farm carbon and protect the land. Liberal and Labor are holding back this brighter future because they want to protect their political donations from the billionaires and big corporations that mine and burn coal and gas. But with the Greens in shared power, we will be able to set a goal of 700% renewable energy and have a government-led clean energy revolution over the next decade to fight the climate emergency.
Socialist Alternative 1. Despite living in a representative democracy, the parliamentary system does not give the vast majority of people the ability to enact large-scale positive change, especially when it comes to crises like war, disease or environmental catastrophe. The Liberals are the party of the rich and powerful of Australia but the Labor party provides no meaningful alternative. It is only through mass collective action
