Advance Australia Fair - Building Sustainability, Justice and Peace
Closing plenary - Working together to build an alternative
Sunday 31st July 2005

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Senator Kerry Nettle

The Greens, NSW

Thankyou for the opportunity to join with all of you on this Aboriginal land. I would like to talk about a vision for our community. It is a vision for our community where all can share in the excitement and inspiration of the kind of life we want to live. This is one of the exciting things that we can take from this conference. Later, I’ll comment on some things you can do from tomorrow as I’m sure you are looking forward to spreading the enthusiasm that you’ve felt this weekend with others who are a part of your local community.

Just before I came here today I had the opportunity to go to a beautiful place where I hadn’t been before: Williamstown on Port Phillip Bay. I took part in the demonstration opposing the dredging of that bay. It was a great rally because it involved a wide variety of people. Some were from the local fishing community and others were people who lived in the local community and just wanted to be involved.

There were Greens and other environmentalists participating and it was an excellent picture of one of the things that I want to talk about here today: coalitions - working in coalition with a whole range of different people who share a common goal and a common interest.

Coalitions don’t necessarily have everything in common. In this example, the activists want to protect Port Phillip Bay, whilst some are focused on protecting the rights of workers, or improving the conditions of indigenous justice. Working together in coalition is what gives us strength, what gives us power. In the next three years, with the current political climate, we will need that strength. We need that power. We’ve got it, but only when we work together.

It was great to hear earlier comments about the Industrial Relations campaign. There is a lot of hope in these comments. Particularly by letting people know that there is an avenue, a way that their voices can be heard.

I heard the Prime Minister this morning on 3AW and Neil Mitchell was asking him questions about whether people’s meal breaks and public holidays would be protected under his new Industrial Relations system. The pressure he has been feeling could be heard in the way he answered that question. You can also see the pressure on the face of Senator Amanda Vanstone struggling to defend the way in which detainees have been taken from Maribyrnong out to South Australia without water or a toilet break. Watch that pressure on their faces and know that you and your colleagues have been a part of making them feel that pressure.

You have been a part of making them have to consider their decisions. They are not going to make the decisions that we want them to make unless we force them to hear the messages, the ideas and our positive energy.

There are a couple of good examples that demonstrate the way in which we have been working together in coalitions. One of the recent issues is the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia. People from diverse groups have worked together on these issues – such as Church groups, Liberal party backbenchers, Greens members, and people who are concerned about their local community or even their friends from Afghanistan.

I would not have thought that I had tremendous amount in common with some of those backbenchers. But we do have some common values. This is all we need in order to work in coalitions. We just need to be able to say:

‘I agree with you that children should not be locked behind razor wire. I agree with you that people should be brought before a judicial review rather than being held indefinitely in detention. I am going to work with you to achieve that outcome.

And yet by working with you in that coalition I am not going to change in any way The Greens long standing commitment to end mandatory detention. However, I am going to commit to work together with you to achieve this particular change’.

Sometimes that is difficult. Sometimes it is really hard to work in coalitions with people with whom you know you share different views. I think that Melbourne is actually the birth place of some of the greatest coalition campaigning that we’ve seen in recent years. The meeting of the World Economic Forum here in 2000 and the S11 rally out of the front of Crown Casino was an example of how a lot people from really different places came to meet each other face to face and say, ‘You are the people who also share this value.’

I met people who were involved in the Construction Forestry, Mining and Energy Union by being involved in that S11 campaign. I’ve since had the opportunity to work together with CFMEU members on other issues: whether it is stopping our native forests being burnt for electricity generation in NSW or Green bans on the development of a particular special place. Through those coalitions where we shared some – but not all – common values, more opportunities and more avenues for networking and improving change emerged.

And, it is really fun. You get to meet people who, like you, care about these things. People who want to work with you to achieve those kinds of objectives. This is one of the messages from this weekend.

That isn’t to say that if you are someone who is committed to indigenous issues you are going to go out and work on environment issues for the next two years. Perhaps if you care about the rights of workers in this country and you are a member of a trade union but none of the other people in your workplace are, you can have a conversation, perhaps in your meal break, with them about some of the things that they care about. If they share your ideas urge them to join their union. Frank was talking earlier about wearing a T-shirt that has a message on it: ‘Someone is going to ask you a question tomorrow’. This will make people think, ‘Hey what’s that all about? What’s going on there?’

Maybe you can put your money where your mouth is when you see those pictures on television of children in Niger and what they are facing – perhaps you can ring up one of those organisations that are committing money. You can send money to provide food available to those who are dying in refugee camps.

Maybe if you are not a part of a political party you can become a progressive active alternative voice.

These are just some of the things that you can do to spread the enthusiasm and the inspiration that drives you.

I particularly enjoy working with people that don’t often come across Greens activists on the same platform. When I go on the radio with the President of the Pear and Apple Growers’ Association who is a member of the National Farmers’ Federation and we talk together about the way in which quarantine laws are going to be weakened by the US Free Trade agreement: I feel like I’ve done a really good day's work. Because I know that people who are reading The Land newspaper are going to think: Hey wait on! Here is a story about somebody from The Greens and the National Farmers’ Federation being on radio together, working together.

This is what working in coalition is all about. We are actually changing people’s minds. We are not just talking to the converted, we are not just sharing in the joy and celebration with our friends, but we are reaching out and getting our message to others.

You all know how much fun it can be and I’m sure you’re all going to be a part of those activities from tomorrow and for the next three years. We’ve got a lot of work to do but it is great fun and we can all do it together.

Thankyou!

The Australian Greens

NSW Greens

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