Jess Moore, well-known community activist and part-time worker, will contest the seat of Cunningham on New South Wales’ south coast in the coming federal elections.
Moore, a member of Socialist Alliance, is a leading climate and renewable energy campaigner in Wollongong. She is active in the struggle for marriage equality and helped found the Illawarra Aboriginal Rights Group, set up in response to the racist Northern Territory intervention.
Moore was president of the Wollongong Undergraduate Students' Association in 2006 and is the national co-ordinator of Resistance, a socialist youth organisation. She introduces her election campaign below.
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We can't wait for the world to change, we need to make it happen ourselves. I'm standing as a Socialist Alliance candidate to put forward a real political alternative, one that puts the interests of ordinary people before the profits of the big corporations.
Climate change is the greatest threat to ever face humanity. The science tells us we have about a decade to shift away from carbon-intensive practices if we are to avoid catastrophic runaway climate change.
Australia faces a choice: continue with business as usual or make the changes needed for a safe climate future. But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Labor government seem to think they can negotiate with the laws of physics and chemistry.
They are totally tied to the interests of big polluters and refuse to take urgent action.
Some politicians and corporate lobby groups even talk about climate change as though it were something to choose whether to believe in or not.
But like the Earth being round, climate change is scientific fact. Are we going to solve the climate crisis or aren’t we?
The technology exists to move Australia to 100% renewable energy within 10 years. We need leaders with the courage and political will to make the changes the planet needs. We can't let current government inaction destroy our future.
Society's wealth should be used to ensure real rights for all, not just the rich. Health, education and welfare are human rights. We need to pay pensioners, students and the unemployed a livable wage; increase funding to our public schools, hospitals and higher education providers; and stop the sell-off of our public assets.
We badly need to reverse the ongoing privatisation of health, education and essential services. I stand for fully funded, free and universal, public health and education systems.
Through this election, the human impact of the racist Northern Territory intervention must be brought to light. Out of sight cannot be out of mind. Aboriginal people are living in Third World conditions in wealthy Australia. We must put an end to this.
We must also reject the racist demonisation of asylum seekers. We should welcome refugees with open arms, not turn back their boats or lock them up in detention.
All people have the right to seek asylum and to live their lives free from war and crushing poverty.
It's outrageous that the marriage act still discriminates against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people. It classes their relationships as different and unnatural. This is blatant discrimination. The queer community deserve for full equality.
I'm sick of politicians who tell us what we want to hear, but betray every promise. Labor and Liberal are both pro-capitalist parties, incapable of satisfying our basic needs. To do that, they would need to break their ties with big business in this country; something that has never and will never happen.
The Socialist Alliance, on the other hand, is completely independent from the capitalists; based among workers, students, migrant communities, pensioners and the unemployed.
If elected, I will accept only a workers' average wage, and donate the remainder of my parliamentary salary to campaigns for social and environmental justice.
We need to build an Australia, and a world, that puts human need ahead of corporate greed. Ordinary people have the power to make change if we act together, to build radical movements for justice, equality, participatory democracy and sustainability.
The world can't wait!