Now what?

So what does it all this hung parliament stuff mean for those of us who care about the environment? As John Hepburn at Crikey points out, this was the second climate change election (after the 2007 effort) even though neither of the major parties wanted to address it. But the people wanted it on the agenda, and voted as if it had been.

As I said yesterday, I think politicians don’t listen to us, and the media doesn’t do a good job of informing us. They seemed genuinely surprised by the election result. Now is the time to start telling them what went wrong, while they’re paying attention!

Problem: politicians not listening to us. We’ve given them a slap on the wrist, but we need to think like The Supernanny. It’s not enough to just say ‘unacceptable’ and send them to the naughty chair – we have to tell them what the correct behaviour is for future situations and reward them when they get it right.

A lot of greenies don’t like to get involved in politics, as if we think it’s too grubby. And it is certainly easier to ‘think global and act local’. We can grow our own vegies and switch our own lightbulbs and know exactly what result we’ll get on our own schedules.

Politics is messier and takes longer to change. But if we’re willing to boycott corporations and go on tree-planting days and stop buying overpackaged products, why can’t we make an effort to talk to our politicians as well?

They’re not mind-readers. We have to tell them what we want. We can do that by calling them or writing letters. We can also invite them to look at our community projects, and make sure we turn up to any public meetings they hold. They’re not good listeners, but I think we have to be the grown-ups in this situation and make the effort to break through. Find out who your federal MP is, and your Senators, and let them know what you think.

Problem: people not being aware of the issues. Most of the people who read this blog are very well informed. But a lot of Australians only get their political news from a 5 minute snippet on the telly, or from the mainstream newspapers mixed with stories about drink-driving sports stars or whatever. There’s a lot of bias there against greenies, and not much fact-checking either, so it’s not surprising people aren’t informed about environmental issues.

We’ve got less control there. But during the election campaign I saw something interesting. The media was focusing on ridiculous things like budgie-smugglers and free tomato sauce for meat pies. But there was a backlash from the bloggers and Twitterers, noting how abysmal this coverage was when serious issues were going unreported. And the journos who are on Twitter complained and made excuses, and then over the next few weeks they lifted their game a bit, asking policy questions and bringing up some contradictions between new statements and older ones. They still weren’t fact-checking numbers, but it was a start.

It shows that they do care what people think of them. I think that as with politicians, we have to start talking back to the media. We need to keep reminding them that we’re watching and assessing their performance, and that we’ll call them up or write in if we think they’re getting it wrong.

Talking to politicians and the media is quite possibly the least fun part of being a greenie. But it’s a necessary part, and if we don’t want to go through an equally ridiculous election again in a few years time, we need to get stuck into it.

While I was writing this, I got an email from the ACF – they seem to be thinking along the same lines as I am. They’ve asked people to call their local talkback radio or write to their local newspaper to say that lots of people want the new minority government (whoever they turn out to be) to take action on climate change. I wrote in to my paper, saying I wanted a carbon price from the new government. It’s not much, but it’s a start!