{"id":8149,"date":"2013-08-15T12:31:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T02:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=8149"},"modified":"2022-05-02T00:16:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T14:16:28","slug":"bennelong-why-would-anyone-put-the-greens-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/bennelong-why-would-anyone-put-the-greens-last\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greens’ face in Bennelong: @preciouspress interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eastwood-station\"

Lindsay Peters<\/p><\/div>\n

By Jack Sumner<\/a><\/p>\n

15 August 2013<\/p>\n

On August 13, Greens candidate Lindsay Peters handed out leaflets at Epping Station before putting in a full day\u2019s work at the software\u00a0company he co-founded in 1996. In his lounge room that evening, he spoke to me about his commitment to the Greens and the Bennelong campaign.<\/p>\n

Lindsay said his upbringing and Catholic education had given him a keen sense of social justice and a love\u00a0of nature. But it was the \u201cshocking behaviour\u201d of John Howard, then prime minister and the member for Bennelong, and the spineless acquiescence of Kim Beazley over the Tampa affair, that tipped him from being a default Labor voter to a Greens supporter. \u00a0He felt they were the only party\u00a0that had given genuine consideration to the plight of the asylum seekers who were rescued from a sinking boat and taken aboard the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa off northwestern Australia, only to be denied entry to Australia for processing.<\/p>\n

Since that 2001\u00a0epiphany he has become increasingly committed to the Greens’ principles of social and economic justice, the\u00a0environment, world peace, and grassroots democracy.<\/p>\n

Lindsay worked on the 2004 election campaign, in which Andrew Wilkie \u00a0stood for the Greens and won 16.37% of the vote – changing Bennelong from a safe Liberal to a marginal seat. He then stepped up to run as the Greens candidate in 2007 and 2010, winning 5.53% then 7.95% of the vote. He has also contested three NSW state elections.<\/p>\n

Wilkie showed what a good candidate fully devoted to electioneering could achieve. Lindsay acknowledges he cannot match that level of commitment because of his family and work responsibilities. He will attend all candidates\u2019 forums and other meetings but\u00a0won’t be able to take any other leave leading up to the September 7 election.<\/p>\n

Lindsay says his number one priority is to get the Greens’ Cate Faerhmann into the Senate, believing her\u00a0intellect, integrity and energy will make significant contribution.<\/p>\n

Secondly, he hopes Greens preferences will help win Bennelong for Jason\u00a0Yat-\u00adsen Li. \u00a0Though Labor in government has lost its way, forgoing principle in many policy areas for\u00a0short-\u00adterm electoral goals, he reasons that a significant Green vote preferencing Labor may encourage a rethink of these policy positions.<\/p>\n

With limited resources, the Greens’ campaign in Bennelong\u00a0campaign will \u00a0prioritise climate change, renewable energy, and asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

I suggested that voters who rated these issues highly would already be rusted onto the Greens, and an emphasis on school,\u00a0TAFE and university education might be more likely to win votes from the two\u00a0major parties. Lindsay said he would not ignore education and the Greens NSW education spokesman John Kaye MLC would advise and and support his campaign.<\/p>\n

Lindsay makes no apology for focusing on climate change and renewable energy as critical issues of our time. He questions both major parties\u2019 commitment to actively combating global\u00a0warming, and is worried that Labor may have merely ticked the climate change box as a job done. The coalition\u2019s stance was illustrated by the scant attention to climate change in Liberal incumbent John Alexander\u2019s\u00a0letterbox drops and mail-outs, he says.<\/p>\n

Voters should also know that, as with the Greens rejection of the\u00a0Malaysia and PNG solutions, the party would be uncompromising in its commitment to humane\u00a0processing and resettlement of asylum seekers, he says.<\/p>\n

Although the local media didn\u2019t give the Greens much oxygen, Lindsay says\u00a0local newspapers have regularly published\u00a0letters from Greens supporters.<\/p>\n

I had heard Cate Faehrmann recently claim that unlike the two major parties, the NSW Greens did not\u00a0accept corporate donations. Lindsay confirmed that was\u00a0the case for NSW, but that other states did accept\u00a0financial support from carefully vetted donors.<\/p>\n

Dr Lindsay Peters and his family have lived in Bennelong, in Sydney’s northern suburbs, for 25 years. \u00a0The businessman spends much of his limited spare\u00a0time working on behalf of the Greens and has stood in six elections with no chance of being\u00a0elected. \u00a0In our interview, he presented his\u00a0arguments persuasively and demonstrated a firm grasp of policy issues.<\/p>\n

I was left thinking -\u00ad why would anyone want to preference the Greens last?<\/p>\n

More Bennelong reports here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jack Sumner 15 August 2013 On August 13, Greens candidate Lindsay Peters handed out leaflets at Epping Station before putting in a full day\u2019s work at the software\u00a0company he co-founded in 1996. In his lounge room that evening, he spoke to me about his commitment to the Greens and the Bennelong campaign. Lindsay said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,785,3546,66,585,783],"tags":[1139,2601,2628,1138,168,662,2590,766,658,923,2627,787,269,958,2578,1089,459,903,2649],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Eastwood-station1.jpg?fit=600%2C358&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-27r","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56378,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions\/56378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}