BJR enters the Australian political fray

Three years ago, I ran a small campaign to raise funding for Climate 200, and organisation that helps elect community independents into office in Australia. This time, I’m all in, and making our upcoming federal election my focus I’m:

1. Fundraising for Climate 200 and the independents’ movement
2. Putting my body on the line (or more accurately, putting lines on my body — see ‘Bring on the Tattoo’ below) to raise money for independent candidates.
3. Writing stuff like this blog, because more people should know about it.
4. Doing whatever else I can do to help Climate 200 and independent candidates

…because there’s nothing more important that I could be doing right now. I’ve never been a political insider, and have always held so much skepticism towards politicians and the political process. But the independents are the first group of politicians who I personally support with my reputation and all the funding I can muster.

Not an Aussie election expert?

Since at least one person who reads my blogs resides outside of Australia, I’ve added a quick primer for ‘Mericans. Skip to the appendix of this blog (just scroll to the bottom) and then come back here….

Why Independents are Needed

Serious change is needed in Australia and the major parties just aren’t delivering it.

Much like in the United States, major parties largely serve themselves and are motivated more to stay in power than to actually accomplish anything. There are serious, long term issues around climate change (the government previous to 2022 were climate deniers and promoted fossil fuel expansion), around integrity in government, and women’s safety and respect (1 in 4 women have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15). And communities are under economic stress, and major parties are only paying attention to marginal seats.

Communities need people to represent them, not their party.

When I lived in the East in Sydney (“Wentworth”), I would bet that my local MP (“Dave”, a Liberal) actually agreed with a lot of my beliefs, but then he had to vote party line, so he voted against his own beliefs and the beliefs of his community, and voted for the agenda of his party. So, his community voted him out of office, and put in Allegra Spender, an independent, centrist, rational candidate, who only was beholden to the voters and not part of an organisation that forced her to follow along. Had “Dave” voted according to his community’s wishes, his party would have run someone else at the next election. ‘Mericans, does this sound familiar with all the ass/ring-kissing going on in the Republican Party?

The Climate is even more at risk, and now so is our wallets

Last election, I backed Climate 200 because of the need of immediate attention and action around decarbonising our planet.

And in the last month, we’ve seen how fast a fossil-fuel funded government can turn a country from investing in renewables and electrification to “Drill, Baby, Drill” in my own birth state of Alaska. The Peter-Dutton led Liberal party has proposed a cap on renewables. 🤯https://reneweconomy.com.au/biggest-losers-from-coalitions-nuclear-plan-will-be-australias-4-million-solar-households-industry-says/

It would be like putting minimums on people under the poverty line — i.e. “let’s make sure at least 20% of our country is poor” or “let’s make sure we cap the amount of people graduating from high school.” It’s entirely done to serve the interests of the coal and gas lobby, and nothing more. It will keep energy prices high in Australia, instead of letting solar and batteries drive the cost of energy lower and lower.

Groups like “A Better Australia,” “Australians for Prosperity,” and “Advance Australia” have sprung up attacking the independents. They aren’t funded by people in the communities or by individuals. They are funded by the coal lobby, by the Liberal party, and by organisations who stand to profit from Australians paying more for energy than they should.

Community-led, Centrist Independents simply create a better government

I’ve seen what independents can do in government. They’ve begun the work to clean up politics, establishing the long needed National Anti-Corruption Commission and strong penalties for misconduct. They’ve strengthened our emissions laws, adding a net-zero roadmap by 2050, and forcing polluters to cut emissions 5% every year.

Here’s a great independent candidate, Sophie Scamps, in the MacKellar electorate, won in the last election and running another great campaign. We need more Sophies in government.

Because they are afraid, we now have collusion by Power Hungry Goat-@#$%ers (a technical term for the major parties)

Last week in Australia, the two major parties colluded to rush through legislation that is incredibly anti-democratic. This supposed “election reform will”:

• limit the power of communities to fund independent candidates (and the ability for charities to speak their mind)
• increase the amount of tax dollars going to incumbents
• keep the major parties’ sources of funding flowing to their Scrooge-McDuck-sized coffers.

Unethical. Shameful. At best, negligent. Unless independents get into the balance of power in Australia in this election, there may not be independents in federal politics in Australia in the future. It happened in Victoria, and now they’re trying it at the Federal level.

The major parties are afraid of us, because independents can vote their conscience and represent their community, and that’s what the community actually wants! This pure form of democracy threatens the schemes of how major parties have controlled power for decades and decades.

Bring On The Tattoo!

My partner Kimberly and I have put together a matching pool for donations to Climate 200. If you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident, you can donate today!

In the past, I have died my hair and been dressed up in all manner of outfits (see below) to raise money for charity. My friend Josh said I needed something new this time.

So, I am willing to get tattooed to raise the stakes. Kimberly is not yet convinced this is a good idea. So hurry and donate before she attempts to veto this!

If there are over $50,000 of donations to the matching pool then, on my left shoulder, I will tattoo the name of the Australian electorate (i.e. voting district to our Yank readership) where 1) a Climate 200 backed candidate wins and 2) they have the highest increase from the pre-election to actual first ballots. (I will use the poll by YouGov last week as the baseline).

For my 2016 Ironman fundraiser for Room to Read, I held a lottery to pick my hair colour and my friend Jill won, and picked “Smurf Blue.” I had smurf hair for a long time.

My first Room to Read fundraiser featured a lottery to “pick what I wear to work one day.” Having just been to Cambodia, the winner picked “Traditional Cambodian Women’s Wear”. This is called Cultural Inappropriation.

When Verity Cooper from the Sturt electorate (Adelaide, South Australia) wins and they have the biggest poll-to-ballot swing, then I will be constantly asked, “Who is Stuart and why did they misspell his name on your arm?”

Donate! (Hint: This is the call to action)

So, if you’re an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and you’d like to see Bryan get some electoral ink and support the independents’ movement, donate today:
https://www.climate200.com.au/campaign/join-bryan-and-kim

I’ve always loved this quote, and first heard it from an amazing Texan named Ted. It turns out that Mother Teresa is the original person behind the quote. But I really like Ted.

Appendix: Australian Elections Background

For my Yank mates (Aussies, feel free to skip)

• Australian Federal elections must happen approximately every three years, and the specific date is requested by the current government in power. Our next election will happen either in April or May of 2025. The date has not yet been requested, but must be soon.
• We elect a representative for the 150-member House of Representatives in each federal election, and about half of the 76 member Senate. I live in Yamba, in the “Page” electorate, and so our electorate will elect one member of the House of Representatives, similar to the USA.
• A majority of the House of Representatives is required to form government, which often comes as an assembly of multiple parties. The two major parties in Australia are 1) the Labor party (which shits me because unlike every other word in Oz, it’s Labor not Labour) and 2) The Coalition, composed of the Liberal Party and the National Party. Labor = left, Liberal = right, National = conservative right. We have a ton of other parties like the Greens, One Nation (our own right wing anti-immigration party), and lots of other ones like “Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers,” which wins the award for transparent party naming.

A recent photo of “Question Time” in the Australian House of Parliament. Who let Pauline in?

• Forming government means that at least 76 MPs (Member of Parliament = representatives) agree to come together to form government. If one party can do this without anyone else, it’s a “majority government.” Otherwise, it’s a “minority government” and needs other parties to join in to form government. This minority government approach is pretty common in Europe, but less so in Australia, where we have been dominated by the two-party system, but no where near as much as in the United States.
• The new government (MPs) then elects the Prime Minister from the MPs, though it’s known well in advance because they’ve been either the leader of the existing government or the leader of the “Opposition” (so much for bi-partisan collaboration — it’s in the friggin title to oppose the other side!)
• Here’s the current makeup of the Australian parliament (House)

The set of seats that I supported in the last (2022) election are the last row in the table — the Independents.

• Our voting is ranked-preferential voting. We do not choose one candidate, we rank all candidates from top to bottom. This approach guarantees that the elected official was preferred by the majority of the population. So all the issues with Ross Perot or Ralph Nader or my beloved Libertarians messing up elections because they take 2–5% from a major candidate, they don’t happen in Australia, because their votes get re-distributed to the voter’s second choice, and so on.