Australia just had a change in leadership. Why? Aussie voters made the call for urgent climate action. After bushfires and floods, and then more floods and a distinct lack of climate action from Scott Morrison and the Liberal party, Aussies decided enough was enough. The result: the Greens and ‘teal’ independent candidates, most of whom’s main campaign was climate action won a large number of seats and the Labour party is now in government. Australia now has a much friendlier climate parliament with new prime minister Anthony Albanese stating on day one that he intends to tackle climate change. If you’re a listener here’s a great podcast that celebrates this climate victory with heaps of info on how Aussies raised their voice this election.
With local elections this October in NZ and national elections not that far away how might this influence NZ’s elections? It may be that voters here will be more encouraged to vote for smaller parties, or independent candidates (one in three in Australia did not vote for a major party). The teal independents ran on three main values: climate change, gender equity and political integrity. Could it be that our politics simplify and boil down to just a few important points (climate change hopefully being one of them?). It could (and should be) that climate change is a decisive factor in our upcoming elections.
Check out this article from the Spinoff to read more about how the Australian elections might compare to the NZ ones.
Now let’s hope the new Australian government lives up to it’s election promises.
Just for fun watch and laugh at this video to see how poorly Australia has been running it’s carbon credits + offsets. Things can only get better.
Also did you know POW has an Australian chapter? Check them out here.