Tag: Goldstein

‘Safe’ Victorian Liberal seat held by Tim Wilson, ex Policy Director & spokesperson for right wing IPA vs even better known teal, Zoe Daniel

Another interesting electoral contest for 2022 is that taking place in the wealthy Victorian suburban seat of Goldstein on east side of Pt Philip Bay, with 9 candidates on the ballot.

Following Vote Climate One’s traffic light ranking, ● there are three green lights: Greens’ Alana Galli-McRostie a real-estate conveyancer running for the first time; independent (Sustainable Australia) Brandon Hoult a person with a disability running for the second time; and independent Zoe Daniel a well known ABC correspondent for 30 years also running for the first time. ● one orange light: Labor’s Martyn Abbott public servant with a finance background running for the first time. And, ● five red lights: the Liberal incumbent Tim Wilson running for the third time; United Australia Party’s Catherine Reynolds chiropractic doctor and registered nurse running for the first time; Liberal Democrat’s David Segal stockbroker running for the first time; Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Lisa Stark business woman running for the first time; Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party’s Ellie Jean Sullivan musician and entertainer who previously ran in Bentleigh in 2018.

At this point, with three weeks to go, the contest is likely to boil down to a face-off between Tim Wilson and Zoe Daniel. The Labor and Greens candidates are also likely to garner significant numbers of first preferences, so their preferences from faithful party members may affect the result. These four have debated their differences in public:

Some background

Goldstein is another seat that may be decided by thinkers rather than believers

Tim Wilson (the incumbent) is a very smart, ambitious, and opinionated young man who maintains a high public profile. I have been aware of his presence for several years and even invited him to address an atheist and freethinkers group when I was its convenor. Clearly he has his personal opinions – many of them progressive, but even back into his early days as a mouthpiece of the Institute of Public Affairs what most impressed me was his willingness to spruik far-right propaganda for those he represents. Today he is still a good puppet telling people what Scotty from Marketing wants them to believe. This is particularly evident when he flogs the smoke and nonsense of the COALition’s climate and energy policies dictated by their National Party partners.

After 30 years as a top ABC correspondent observing the often dismal reality of the world including climate catastrophes, Trumpist America and the rapidly thawing Arctic, Zoe Daniel is a woman who sees and thinks about reality as it is, and does not try to hide its awful taste with Kool-Aid. She is an observer and thinker, who is very good at communicating with other thinkers.

As one of the most affluent electorates in Victoria that has been well served in the past by Liberal moderates (e.g., Ian Macphee who was a hero of mine in the Fraser era). To some degree many in the electorate have associated the Liberal Party with their personal wealth, and have become ‘rusted on’ Liberal voters, prepared to believe whatever ideas the Party marketed to them. Wilson’s survival in Parliament depends on this.

However, we should all consider that people in Goldstein were able to build their wealth because they were intelligent, observant, and thoughtful enough to tell the difference between genuine opportunities and believing in fairy tales. Thanks to all kinds of extreme weather events and climate catastrophes the reality of the existential risks we face in the next few generations are becoming obvious to all who have not let themselves be blinded by the myths, fables, and lies spun by the fossil fuel puppets.

Goldstein is NOT a safe Liberal seat!

For a community of thoughtful people, Zoe Daniel is the kind of thoughtful, motivated and powerful independent person to represent your interests in Parliament. Personally, I think there are more of these kinds of people in Goldstein than there of the sleepwalkers blinded by clouds of COALition bulldust who would vote to keep our current fossil fuel industry puppet government in power.

If voters consider the evidence and THINK before they vote, I have little doubt that the green light candidates will gain the majority of first preferences amongst themselves. Whether one of them will win the seat in the end depends on how voters manage their remaining preferences. Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System and its voting guides are designed to help people rank their preferences in such a way that if a green light candidate is given the first preference, and doesn’t win, the vote will still go to another green light climate friendly candidate as long as any remain in the running. Only if there are no more green or orange light candidates alive can the vote be given to a red light candidate.

Vote Climate One is also providing downloadable blank ballot formats so preferences can be decided at home, so the choices can easily be transferred to the formal ballot paper in the voting booth. Check the bottom of the your electorate’s page in the voting guide. (If you don’t find it now, check again in a couple of days as they are being progressively loaded into our system.)

See Climate Sentinel News‘s Corrupt leaders, casual media, gullible believers for a different and sometimes humorous take on how use preferential voting to make the kind of humongous political transition we need to make to cleanse the Parliamentary stable of its many years accumulation of bulldust.

In any event, the IPCC tells us that this election is probably our last chance to change our current puppet government to one that will act in our behalf to resolve or at least mitigate the accelerating climate crisis.

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We need to turn away from the the Apocalypse on the road to hothouse hell, and we won’t do this by continuing with business as usual!

It seems to have taken the clear thinking of Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who concluded school was pointless as long as humans continued their blind ‘business as usual’ rush towards extinction.

In other words, wake up! smell the smoke! see the grimly frightful reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for an existential climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.

Scott Morrison and his troop of wooden-headed puppets are doing essentially nothing to organize effective action against the warming. In fact all they doing is rearranging the furniture in the burning house to be incinerated along with anything and everyone we may care about.

In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. Like Georgia Steele, people hope for their children’s futures. Greta doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future.

Featured Image: Boundaries of the Huges Electorate from Vote Climate One’s Goldstein Electorate page. Click candidate names for more details.