I am aware that one should always make room for renewal in politics. A democracy is the healthier for the turnover of the depth of talent there is in its community.
When we imagine the world a century from now, when we look our great grandchildren in the eye and see them smiling back at us because they know we cared for them, we smile too!
Our bodies and our minds are fashioned by it. Our hearts resonate with it. There will be little joy for the human spirit if we destroy the natural fabric of Earth with nothing left to do but go shopping.
I have seen such an immense change from the total repression and criminality of homosexuality in my lifetime. It does make me much more buoyant and optimistic about the future. If that change can occur in that time there’s hope for many other changes.
Globally the Greens have arisen like a spontaneous combustion, a reaction to the narrow-minded state-backed exploitation of resources and wealth for a few at the expense of the many.
The reality is that if we in this rich, lucky quarter of the planet cannot make a stand for the 30 million other species we share this planet with, let alone our own species, then who can?
With a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war, the US and Australia could ensure every starving, sunken-eyed child on the planet could be well fed, have clean water and sanitation and a local school to go to.
Renewable energy is proven technology, the price is dropping, the rest of the world is going that way, that’s where our investment should be going as well.
We must have an expansionary vision, one that captures the imagination and diversity of the whole community, one which benefits a nation which has moved beyond the basics of literacy and numeracy and which wants to develop a learning culture.
