[Pil-pc-oceania] Politics?

[steve_burns at wvi.org]

Dear all,

I'd concur with David and John.

Would want  to state for the record that I am a member of the Greens; keen
to see people engaged in politics but when it comes to the concept of a
Permaculture Political party, I wonder about a few things, such as

1. although many Permies might vote Green, a solid block would also vote
for other Parties... we are NOT a homogeneous group
2. the energy involved in starting and then maintaining a legal political
party is huge - who is going to do that and why would that be a good thing
to do with their energy?
3. maybe more local councillors would be the right point of initial
interaction - building some PC design into local planning reg's would be
interesting, for instance
4. diluting the primary Green vote (especially in the Senate in the Federal
election) makes oddities like Family First getting a Senator (after polling
less than 2% primary vote) more likely - if the Left vote went first to the
Greens instead of via splinter parties, the Greens would have a quota in
their own right and we wouldn't have our Senate decided by dodgy backroom
deals done by the major parties (primarily the ALP!)

I'm personally regularly challenging myself to consider how best to balance
my time - and if I had to chose between my party political activity and my
community-based practical work (climate change/local food production
focussed), then I'm sure that the local and community-based stuff is
actually making more difference in the world right now.  As long as I can
also contribute to a progressive political presence in Australia, I'll do
that

so there you go -   : )

Steve



                                                                           
             Champagne                                                     
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Well said David, I agree.

Top-down thinking \ bottom up action is a better way to go here. So many
good things happening around the country at a the community grassroots
level that its important to work and nurture these rather than expanding
a whole lot of energy pushing ideas and policy from a party political
level.

Surely most would agree that voting Green and a Labor victory is our
best option with whats realistically available.Our work within our
bioregions would become a lot easier with this scenario than the
conservatives we now have. Sure, there are issues we have with some
Greens policy but they command more than 10% of the national vote at the
moment and to attempt to split that would only harm environmental
thinking toward issues in general, with the media having a field day
highlighting how divisive we all are.

If permies want to get active at a political level then I'd suggest the
best place to start is at your local council level where at least you
'may' effect some change at a local level.

Permaculture has trouble operating at a unified bioregional level in its
home country and to suddenly jump to the national level with no form of
structure in place is very risky stuff. A hell of a lot of energy needs
to go into managing a successful election campaign and maybe the time is
not yet right.

kind regards
John Champagne
Mumbulla Bioregion
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