I rise tonight to pay my respects to the people who took on the 2014 election campaign in
Western Australia in support of the Greens—took it on and won. Senator Milne was asked in
an interview last year what objectives the Greens were setting for the 2013 election.
She predicted we could win back every sitting Green MP, including Adam Bandt in Melbourne,
with a chance of gaining a new senator in other states, including Victoria. With the
welcome arrival of Senator Janet Rice a few weeks from now and a big swing to Adam in
Melbourne, it seemed that we had done it—except, as it turned out, in WA we were hanging on
by our fingernails and slipping bit by bit.
Without the urgent assistance of Brian Walters, Mark Cox and a small team of Greens volunteers
with legal experience to secure the recount, the story would have ended there. The disappearance
of a stack of votes towards the end of the recount, however, threw the whole process
into confusion. Our legal team of Ron, Francis and Mark got us through the High Court rollercoaster
with the only outcome that did not involve some form of disenfranchisement: a fresh election
for the Western Australian Senate.
While this was all unfolding, Australians were getting a sharp dose of political shock
treatment from the incoming government, an administration composed almost entirely of
reactionary middle-aged white men that immediately began taking leave of its election commitments
and its senses. Polls were turning sharply against the Liberals and the Nationals even
as the temperatures rose through the angry summer of 2013-14.
Unknown to most, small teams of volunteers were moving door to door through Perth's suburbs
in the heat of December and January, asking what people thought of the government's plans
to dismantle our clean energy laws. Ogy Simic's careful organising laid the template for what
was to come. As it became increasingly obvious that we were headed for a new election, the
party put its fortunes in the hands of one Jess McColl—I think, the single best decision
we made throughout the whole course of the campaign. Senator Rachel Siewert, my friend,
mentor and Western Australian Senate colleague drove a grounded collaboration that I now
really look forward to continuing.
Under Jess's extraordinary management, the team began to scale: first with one of the
most motivated and motivating people I have ever met—the formidable Tim Lo Surdo. Jess,
Ogy and Tim built the core of a strong, flexible organising model that was being stress-tested
under the pressures of an election campaign even as they were building it. The months
that followed tell the story. This small team inspired 35 neighbourhood organisers to get
out every few days and have face-to-face conversations, one door knocked at a time, street to street,
until there were 300 people on the streets and knocking on 28,000 doors. This was backed
by our home-grown research team, led by Chilla and Norm, to make sure our efforts were well
targeted and that no-one's time was wasted.
While this was happening, the genius technology team were busy—Ant and Grahame in particular,
building a sophisticated electorate mapping system and a full-featured call centre in
48 hours out of cast-offs and gaffer tape. This allowed a rapidly expanding team of 250
volunteers at two sites in WA to make 50,000 phone calls over the course of the campaign.
By election day we had 12 distributed call centres interstate with volunteers ringing
into WA to have simple conversations about the importance of every single vote.
The after-images of the campaign have now begun to run together: being roped up a 40-metre
Karri tree in Challar forest to spend brief moments on a platform in the canopy and, nearby,
the levelled stump of a tree at least 300 years old, felled and fed into a wood chipper
a few weeks earlier. I recall the management and staff of Solar Gain, who may lose their
jobs and their business if this government goes ahead and sabotages the renewable energy
target. Some of the strongest memories remind me of how many creative artists and musicians
came to our help—people like Richard and Prue and the folks at 303 for the crowd source
remix of Our Speech, or Looch and the screen-printing team who simply appeared and got to work.
This was by far the most fun you could have on a campaign. Eloise, Sam, Travis
and Leslie and all the bands who threw in their time and energy for the ScottStock benefit
at the Rosemount Hotel; Gillian Catlow and the performers who made the Concert for Common
Sense such a beautiful evening; and Anton and the Death Disco Crew with the improbable
and utterly mad Ludapalooza at Capital nightclub—with warm thanks to Emma Sulley for photography.
To John and Danni, for all your support and for everything you do, and to
Abbe May for opening the His Majesty's 2.0 event with such heart. The old story about
Perth's isolation provoking a vibrant and highly original music and arts scene—
it's all true.
To the home team, the people who put everything into this work: I cannot thank you enough.
Trish, Sarah, Chantal and Ray, backed by our office interns and by wonderful volunteers—Amy
and Troy, Molly and Ruth, Sebastian and Guy in particular—for keeping everything moving in
the thick of the campaign. We were entirely fortunate to welcome talented visitors from
interstate—Sean, Brad, Rosanne, Anna, Holly and Paris—each bringing a specific talent
or a specific skill, or even a specific whisky.
We took a strong and diverse line-up of Senate candidates into this campaign. To Christine,
Ian, Sarah, Jordon and Judith: one day, I hope, you will get to speak your own minds
in this chamber.
Somehow we managed to be everywhere. The office crew, Rowena and David, Jenny, Jay and Jean,
went above and beyond. Robin managed to get us a presence at practically every community
event in the state, and Ozzy was there long after everyone else had packed and left to
run the scrutineering effort.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Patrick, Tim and Ryan and the team spent hundreds of
hours marshalling booth volunteers, so that when Giz and the crew at the warehouse took
delivery of tens of thousands of how-to-vote cards, we could land the best-coordinated
election day presence we have ever seen.
Thank you to my dear family: to Graham and Jude, for the long hours in the warehouse
and creativity behind the scenes, and to Glen, for bringing Riley to enjoy his first ever
democracy sausage on 5 April.
We owe a debt to you, Noel Nannup, for your words and inspiration as we launched the next
phase of the WA 2.0 project in front of 900 people at His Majesty's Theatre: this is why
I do this work. Thank you to Rose for bringing it all together, and for the care taken by
our policy team, led by Chantal Caruso and Clare Ozich, to inform our ideas with evidence
and creativity, and to groups like Sustainable Energy Now, who inform again this work with
a deep reservoir of evidence and industry experience. Sarah, backed up by our media
team, including Redman, Sarah and others, then took this work and got it on TV and in
the paper, lifting our profile even further.
A number of my party room colleagues made it out west: Richard, Pete, Larissa and Penny.
To Adam and the Melbourne crew: thank you for advice and inspiration. I cannot overemphasise
how much heart it gave to people in WA to know that the whole country was looking out
for them.
Finally, thank you to Senator Milne and your team, including those who made it out west
to lend a hand directly—Emma, Erin, Peter and Wendy. Senator Christine Milne celebrates
25 years in politics today. We simply could not have done this without your advice and
inspiration—Christine, this one is for you.
We recorded the strongest result we have ever achieved in Western Australia: 15.6 per cent.
That is nearly 200,000 people who have trusted us with their vote, many of them for the first
time. For every two Liberal voters in Western Australia, there is a now a Green voter. In
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's seat of Curtin, the Greens outpolled Labor and now make up
just under a quarter of the vote. In South Fremantle, we are half the vote, and in Subiaco
North, 40 per cent. We are fully a third of the vote in Scarborough Central, Darlington
and Melville booths. And this not a simple inner-city phenomenon. Our vote doubled in
Beldon and Nollamara, and some of our best results were recorded in Broome, on 27 per
cent; Margaret River, on 36 per cent; and Denmark, on 33 per cent. This is at least
in part due to those people who spent every spare minute over those final weeks to walk
the streets and connect to their communities. They have started something that goes on well
beyond this campaign.
So, to you, tonight, I get to say thank you—in particular, to those young people who have
trusted us with your first vote: that really matters to us. And to older voters or those
with other political affiliations who shook off your dismay at the degraded state of politics
and pitched in to help get us there: thank you. I am proud of this result. I am proud
of the people who delivered it, and I am daunted at how far we yet have to travel.
I also would like to thank and acknowledge those other candidates, their staff and their
families, whose lives were also put on hold through this entire process, and to also acknowledge
my colleague Louise Pratt, who is here tonight, who deserved at least another six years in
this place.
I got a text message from Jess Beckerling at Challar Forest last week. Those campaigners
have prevailed. With the first heavy rains of the season in the south-west, there will
be no further destruction of that precious place. Challar stands, at least for now.
This is the beginning. Now we build a movement to send Mr Abbott into the history books as
a failed one-term Prime Minister. If the Western Australian election of 2014 showed anything,
it is that people do not just want a different government; they want a different kind of
government. And it is up to us to deliver that together. I thank the chamber.