Democrats Launch Speech 3/3/2007
Arthur Chesterfield Evans

Hi. I’m Dr Arthur Chesterfield Evans. I’ve been your Australian Democrat leader in the upper house for the last 8 years.

There has never been a more critical time for NSW. The health system is in crisis. Public education provision is highly challenged, public transport is woeful …. and water now has the two major parties backing different technologies to desalinate or recycle, when subsidies to individual households could really hold the answer.

The issues during this election are critical, yet we are being offered a woeful choice. A Labor party that is tired, bullying and hopelessly beholden to vested interests and a Liberal coalition that has been taken over by the religious right, with quite distorted priorities.

The bottom line is, while both parties might talk like they care, once they’re in power they’ll basically look after the big end of town. They have entirely forgotten that they are elected to represent the people against vested interests. They are now the instruments of vested interests, using their funds to convince the public that they are marginally better than the other major party. This leaves you and your family without effective representation.

But we have to do more than criticize the major parties.

Firstly what my record is, and why the Democrats are worth voting for

Secondly, What our policies are, and why the Democrats are worth voting for and

Thirdly, why the electoral system is a farce, and we are stuck with Liberal and Labor and they electoral gerrymander that gives them the only real chance of winning. I can’t fix that now, but people really do need to know about it.

To come back to the first point, what I have done, and so why you should vote for the Democrats.

Before coming into Parliament I was a medical doctor and I ran the smoking and health campaign. I used the tactics of BUGA UP, (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions) to draw attention to the outrageous practices of tobacco companies and their advertisers. Since being in Parliament I have set up inquiries to give groups a forum to air their grievances, get publicity and affect the monies that the government spends on that issue. The government never admits that inquiries make any difference. But if you look at the budget bottom lines of things that get media attention, you will see that it makes quite a lot of difference.

I can modestly claim that I set up most of the significant inquiries and that some the ones that I did not set up, I negotiated to happen.

I initiated the DoCS Inquiry, which got a new Minister and head of department and an extra billion dollars for kids at risk.

I started the Mental Health inquiry, resulting in an extra $360 million for mental health services in NSW, and prompting the Federal government to put psychologists on Medicare and also add $1.9 billion for the problem.

I negotiated the inquiries into health complaints that were generally known as the Campbelltown Inquiry, which got an extra $320 million of South Western Sydney Area Health Service.

I initiated inquiries into Redfern after the riot following the death of TJ Hickey, and at Macquarie Fields. These showed that disadvantage leads to social troubles, and I believe that services were better coordinated after the scrutiny process.

I started the Inquiry into public dental health, and while the government has done little about it, it is an issue and they are bleeding for their neglect of it, and they may yet come good to save themselves embarrassment before the election.

The Funeral Inquiry also flagged that something needs to be done, and those buying up the whole industry have backed off in the short term. The government is as usual too cowardly to set up a meaning full regulatory framework.

It is unusual for Independents or small parties to get bills through. I got 3- all unanimous in the end. One was the Open Government bill that put all government contracts on the web. This was managed by Clover Moore in the lower house. The second was the Settlement Bill which allowed the survival of a facility for Aboriginal kids in Redfern. Everyone supported this initiative. The third was a bill on what happened to wheat in storage if the owner of the silo went broke, and this was a bill I helped Peter Draper, the Tamworth Independent with. I have found the lower house Independents to be committed, caring and cooperative. They do the role of honest brokers in the lower house, that the Democrats do in the upper house, and I look forward to working with them, and hope that they achieve a balance of power situation.

The Democrats stand for a long-term view for NSW. There is little point of getting rid of debt if this is achieved by letting infrastructure run down and selling off assets. We need to plan, borrow and build for tomorrow. We need a public transport system that will unclog our roads, and clean our air. We have to be smarter. We have to cost our urban rail systems not only as rail lines, but also in terms of what we can save on roads. We have to count their benefit in terms of cleaner air, and better health, not just ticket revenue. We do not have to beg for private toll way builders to put up plans. We must not have the RTA as the only effective government planning act in town.

We must think smaller. At present the government wants the Private Sector to build a desalination plant. The Opposition wants a private company to filter sewage so we can drink it. Neither major party has talked about subsidies at a realistic level to the little people to put in rainwater tanks and reuse their greywater. Neither of them have talked about toughening up the pollution licences, so what that sewage can be more easily used. They are thinking in terms of corporate interests, not the public interest.

Global warming is upon us. The euphemism for this is ‘Climate Change’. Oil is running out. We must plan for this. We need public transport, and we must use less energy. Yet the government is still building freeways, dragging its feet for the developers and not even mandating energy-efficient new buildings. The government has a plan for new coal-fired generators because the load of air conditioners gives blackouts in the daytime, and the substations cannot cope. The Democrats want a 100,000 roofs plan. Solar energy would be bought at a price that makes it economic for people to put solar generators on their roofs. Electricity supply would be more secure. Fewer transmission lines and substations, and when the load is at it peak, so is the generation. The Democrats want to work smarter and work with the people.

Even at a service delivery level, big institutional thinking dominates the old parties. In hospitals it is always how many extra beds there are. The question that needs to be asked is ‘How do we support people in the community’, and only when this is happening well should we see how many beds we need to institutionalize people. The Democrats want to see ‘Graded Community support’ as the founding principle for the delivery of services. We want to help carers and work with NGO, (Non-Government Organisations) to deliver better services.

In the mental health inquiry that I established, NSW was spending less than one tenth of what Victoria was spending per head on community-based mental health Non-Government Organisations. This government is not able to think past institutions to genuine partnerships with community-based groups that do it better and cheaper.

In law and order, the old parties compete to put people in gaol longer. There is no proof that longer sentences reduce crime. What is needed is better childcare and preschool, to socialize kids and make them able to cope. What is needed is good reading programmes so all kids can be part of what is happening at schools. Kids who are left out at school act out, and become unemployable later. Education is not an expense, it is an investment. And if you think education is expensive, work out the real cost of ignorance. The Democrats want universal child care at an affordable price, and schools that ensure that all kids graduate able to take a worthwhile part in society. We want research that looks at society honestly and finds out what needs are and what prejudices. Then we want programmes that address the problems. If there are prejudices, let us see what their origins are, and address them, not just rename the Multicultural department something else.

The old parties have become the same. They act for vested interests. The huge monies that they receive in donations, and their abuse of taxpayers’ funds in government advertising and use of the public service has given them a huge advantage and robbed NSW of real democracy. They have forgotten that ‘democracy’ means control by the people, and that they are elected to act for the people against vested interests that act against the public interest. Yet they are funded by developers and sell off public land as if they owned it, rather than holding it in trust for future generations. They are unwilling to plan and build what we need, but instead go to the private sector, and ask them to plan the city. Not surprisingly, as with the cross-city tunnel, the whole priorities are distorted to make profits for the developers, and the people rebelled.

The electoral system allowed Labor to get 43% of the primary vote, 61% of the seats and 100% of the power. The non-major parties get 24% of the vote and 6% of the lower house seats, so the media simply roll alternative voices into the major party vote and refer to the ‘two party preferred’. The deals are made in the Minister’s officers and the Parliament has become a sham.

The major parties have become self-indulged little cliques, where a club of elite dictates to the members, who put their hands up on command. Factional backroom deals determine who gets in. Good members are shafted.

We cannot fix the electoral system right now, but your only chance to have unbiased information coming out of the NSW parliament are through independent voices such as the Democrats. And there is no independent voice that has been working as consistently hard and as long as I have.

Don Chipp, the founder of the Democrats had a saying. “Keep the bastards honest”. There has never been a time when keeping them honest was as important as it is today.

It’s your state. It’s your election. The future is in the balance for you and your kids. You have an important choice to make.

On the 24th March, when you vote for the upper house, Vote 1 Arthur Chesterfield Evans - Australian Democrats and help keep a window open so that we can all make sure the government is doing what needs to be done.

The Democrats are for Democracy. The Democrats are for the people against vested interests. The Democrats are for honesty. The Democrats are for Accountability, and for new ideas. The Democrats are beholden to no one, and accountable to the people. Don’t waste your vote on a major party. Give yourself a chance. Vote Democrat.