Legislative Assembly (Lower House)
Goulburn candidate - Margaret Logan
I am campaigning to protect our environment, stop overdevelopment and stop corruption.
Upon leaving the Canberra High School I commenced working in the Public Service. Then I trained to be a teacher in PNG before living there. Having close contact with the indigenous and their customs was perhaps the most influential experience of my life. They were self sustainable; there was no unemployment and they did not use money! Later I became a computer programmer until I retired and moved to the forest in the Brindabella Range west of the ACT, allowing me the time to observe politics.
The current political system is dysfunctional because it depends upon donations. This results in the major parties making decisions which primarily support the corporations. For example, annually, the fossil fuel firms pay a few $millions to LNP and Labor in exchange for twelve billion Australian dollars (A$12 B) in subsidies.
Over the years when intermittently staying in Yass I have closely observed a bustling, multi-generational community which thrives without the tedium of traditional paid employment. My next door neighbours, who are now in their mid twenties, have never held a job lasting beyond a few weeks since leaving school. The internet currently states that there are over 500,000 unemployed who are seeking work. It is a nonsense to import labour to, for example, pick fruit. It is woeful that we have not educated our own professionals.
My living in the forest directed my attention to bush fires. 60,000 years of fire stick burning has reduced the range of Australia’s widespread vegetation to the most fire tolerant trees such as eucalypts and bushes such as Kunzea and Cassinia which contain volatile oils. The prescribed/controlled burning undertaken since the middle 1900s has not reduced the risk but worsened it; in fact it perpetuates the problem caused by the earlier inhabitants. We need to convince the fire authorities that, because it is the vegetation that does the burning, living fire breaks of fire retardant trees must be planted wherever possible.
Legislative Council (Upper House)
- Lead candidate - Councillor William Bourke
More details here.