While the main focus may be on Liberal v Labor, we approached the minor party candidates for Eden-Monaro in the upcoming federal election to ask what they felt were the key issues in the Bega Valley and how they proposed to address them. Below are their responses, in ballot paper order.
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Daniel Grosmaire, Independent
I believe in quality of life first. That together we can bring positive change and equality.
With an ageing population in a rural location, Bega faces the challenge of retaining young people in order to keep the community thriving. As a result we need to establish age services that value our older residents and maintain their important contribution in society. Community nursing with a continuity of care model can provide high quality aged care and maintain a strong community.
For Bega to keep young people we must provide them with hope for the future, local quality of life, employment options and connectivity to the outside world (NBN).
We need to change our economic system and the way we do things. For example, the Automated Payment Transaction Tax can replace all other taxes. Large corporations pay their fair share and a much wider taxation base is created. As a result disposable income of individuals and small business is drastically increased, which leads to higher consumption, production, that in turn creates more jobs.
As an independent, I work for my constituents not for a party or leader. With ‘business as usual’ for major parties you cannot expect democratic and economic change, but rather following the path towards the current US struggle. I will work with constituents to develop the community we want. This is not about me, it is about us.
Ursula Bennet, Christian Democrats
The issues facing the Bega Valley and other rural and regional areas are, I believe, symptomatic of a more deep-seated problem that can’t be fixed by simply allocating more money.
What if the solution for our ever-rising need for more hospital beds, mental health agencies, women's refuges and foster care providers is not more money and innovative programs, but simply the return of personal attitudes of treating others like we would like to be treated?
The way to provide our children with better educational outcomes, and therefore with broader and more satisfying vocational prospects, is not to provide more computers, but to return the function of the curriculum to the spreading of knowledge, stimulation of critical thinking faculties, fostering true creative imagination.
I support the concepts recently explained by historian Peter Lacey regarding the benefits of a national service scheme, which, apart from a military option would include environmental work, overseas aid and volunteering in aged care and disability sectors. This would provide our young people with valuable experience, skills and confidence while boosting our sadly diminishing volunteer numbers.
As consumers we must do our part in buying higher-quality Australian product until the demand encourages investors to bring manufacturing plants back to Australia. That means spending less money at large department stores which sell cheap overseas goods.
I want to give people the opportunity to vote for the unchanging Christian conservative values including, and especially, that of traditional marriage, which not only made Australia a stable, peaceful, prosperous and free nation for all.
Don Friend, Veterans Party
Jobs, protection of prime agricultural land and mobile phone coverage.
As a member of Parliament on the cross bench, exert positive influence on whoever forms government to develop tourism, now that Canberra is soon to have an international airport. Exert influence to increase number of mobile phone towers in region. Oppose coal seam gas exploration on prime agricultural land.
Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.
Eden-Monaro has been voting for major parties over and over for the last 40-odd years. It is now time for a different result.
Ray Buckley, Independent
Having lived in the Bega Valley for the best part of the last 14 years, one thing the area is very strong in is community spirit and pride.
However, in all communities there are areas that need attention such as homelessness, youth unemployment and then community needs such as bike paths, libraries, pools and respite centres to name just a few.
For the homeless, programs such as Street to Home, which successfully runs in Canberra, as well as night patrols, which also run successfully in the ACT, are two programs I would be seeking funding for as well as more low costing housing solutions.
The creation of jobs for the youth would be a part of my plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions within Eden-Monaro. The current fire strategy is drying out the forested areas and polluting our atmosphere. When CO2 goes into the atmosphere it mixes with rain droplets in the clouds and falls as carbonic acid. This is what is acidifying the oceans and waterways and leading to the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.
Erecting fence lines (jobs) and running stock on the fringes of the bush is the best way to reduce hazards.
Tamara Ryan, Greens
The biggest issues facing people in the Bega Valley are inequality of wealth and living standards, unemployment and underemployment, and climate change.
As climate scientist Will Steffen spoke about in Tathra, climate change is something we’re all starting to feel but which will magnify exponentially. East coast lows will hit the Bega Valley more intensely. The predicted 90cm rise in sea level will flood much of the coast. Heat waves will becomes normalised, and droughts intensified.
Our costed policies to reach 90% renewable energy by 2030 are in the interests of our climate, but also long term employment. We’ll stop new coal mines that Labor and Liberals have agreed to, and invest in wind and solar in the Bega Valley. We’ll end native logging, and create jobs through ecotourism projects like the Bundian Way, and plantation forests.
We’ll reform taxation by ending negative gearing, corporate tax avoidance, and regulating taxable deductions of high earners. That excess revenue will be used fully fund Gonksi, stand against the cuts to TAFE from both old parties, and fight uni deregulation. We'll extend Medicare to include dental, unfreeze the Medicare rebate, reverse cuts to aged care, and fight for legalisation of abortion in NSW.
Greens are introducing legislation to protect penalty rates, supporting fibre to home NBN, and tackling homelessness by eliminating negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts to rich investors.
I’m sick of being told we can’t afford to invest in climate action, education, health and equal living standards. Greens say we can’t afford not to.
Frankie Seymour, Animal Justice Party
Key issues relating to animals in the Bega Valley are protecting dairy cattle from climate destabilisation (ever-worsening droughts, fires, floods, etc); protecting wild animals in national parks, state forests and farmlands from logging, hunting/culling, road deaths, habitat loss and climate destabilisation; and protecting marine animals from the desertification of the oceans by overfishing, pollution and climate destabilisation.
All these issues can be addressed by providing economic incentives, amending legislation and fostering information exchange with local communities.
Many other animal cruelties are taking place across Australia – battery cages, puppy farms, wildlife massacres, to name a few. Top of the list is the export of Australian cattle and sheep to the unconscionable treatment that we know awaits them in countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Middle East.
The only question people need to ask themselves in relation to all these questions is: What kind of people are we?
Only two parties standing in Eden-Monaro, the AJP and the Greens, are absolutely committed to shutting down the export of live farm animals to any country that has weaker animal protection laws than our own.
The AJP is the only party that offers voters a chance to vote against all forms of cruelty to animals. Every cruelty we as a nation permit and condone undermines our own human wellbeing. AJP policies show how, by ending every form of animal cruelty through just and painless democratic processes, Australia can become a happier, kinder, healthier and wealthier society.
Andrew Thaler, Independent
The Bega Valley has a long history of small, interconnected villages and towns, and is now seeing increasing population trends. I believe traditional business activities must adapt to a changing social scene and community expectations, with a high focus on all types of sustainability.
Dairy industries subject to price fluctuations increasingly rely on local cheese production, while forestry industries using old-growth timber are losing market share as consumer attitudes change. I reject industrial fishing proposals, as they are not sustainable.
Bega Valley, along with many other districts across Eden-Monaro, faces the relentless onslaught of weeds, reducing productive capacity and increasing on-farm costs. I will pursue this.
Our future energy needs must change, and I say energy, not electricity. There is a huge difference. Our society has commercially successful tools to build renewable electricity yet we are absolutely under-prepared to address renewable energy. We can build large scale solar-generation systems for electricity as a first step to a more sustainable energy-based future, however we will need to do a lot more. Renewable energy and renewable electricity production increases on-farm and community incomes.
Our businesses do not need hand-outs or more bureaucracy burdens, they need to be allowed to get on with what they are good at doing. Communities do not need to rely on governments for solutions. The solutions are available within the community. In government I would encourage their development, uptake and use.