Green candidate: 'Jobs and the environment go together'
By Jason Cheng
and Jeremy Smith
MELBOURNE — In the Victorian elections, Francesca Davidson, 22, is contesting the seat of Prahran as a Green Alliance candidate, also aligned with the Independent Action campaign. Davidson is an activist in the Environmental Youth Alliance and attended the Victorian Youth Unemployment Summit on June 25 where, according to the Herald-Sun, she "upstaged" Premier Joan Kirner.
Davidson's campaign is based on the four central principles of the Green Alliance: an ecologically sustainable economy, social and economic justice, grassroots democracy and disarmament and non-violence.
The Green Alliance, which holds the Victorian electoral registration for the name "The Greens", has offered to endorse any candidate standing on these four principles. The alliance supports a broad coalition of all strands of the Green movement.
"I think environmental problems require a political solution, which encompasses social and economic justice", Davidson told Green Left Weekly.
"Many opponents of Green politics, and even some greens, believe that employment creation and the interests of the environment are incompatible. I think jobs and the environment must go together."
The sorts of policies that would create ecologically sustainable jobs, Davidson says, include "a shorter working week with no loss in pay, extension of the public sector through a major increase in spending on public transport, stronger and more stringent anti-pollution and health and safety laws, and the redevelopment of poorly used commercial buildings as low-cost housing".
Davidson's campaign also stresses grassroots democracy: "This society needs a new type of democracy, based on active participation of all sectors, so that people feel empowered to take control of their lives.
"Moreover, we must practice what we preach. Democracy must apply to the environment movement also. We have to be open to each other's ideas and be willing to accept that a variety of different green points of view exist. In fact, we should see this as a strength, rather than a weakness."
To contact the Green campaign, phone (03) 329 7521 or write to Green Alliance c/- 7/869 Drummond St, Carlton North 3054.