My speech at the North Melbourne Senate Candidate meeting

The meet the senate candidate event at North Melbourne today (Sunday 10/5) followed a different format to the previous two.

This time, we were given a hypothetical scenario where, as Senator for Victoria, there were three options to attend events, then a recall to the Senate.

The options we were presented with were:

1. Addressing the first action of the Swan Hill Climate Action Group
2. The Melbourne Writers Festival, discussing the Parallel Importing legislation removal
3. The inaugural conference of Democracy Watch in Sydney, discussing election campaign funding and transparency
4. Voting in the Senate on a the acquisition of 5 extra jets, following a special extra sitting day to discuss this issue.

I chose option 2 due to the large audience of around 500 people, and the opportunity to reach an audience that shares our values but due to their age and background are statistically less likely to vote for us.

The speech I wrote - as the "Greens Senator for Victoria" at this hypothetical future meeting, is below.

Melbourne writers festival speech.

Dear ladies, gentlemen, children and members of the panel,

It an honour and a privilege to attend this event in the company of Australia’s leading writers, editors and publishers and so many interested members of the public.

You are testament to Australia’s great strengths in the Arts, which is a vibrant and vital part of both our economy and our society.

In my capacity as Greens Spokesperson for the Arts I am here to tell you that we Greens oppose the dismantling of Parallel Importing legislation which has been proposed by the Productivity Commission.

Once again, the Productivity Commission, a Government Agency, and both the Labor Government and the Coalition opposition, are supporting changes which will be bad for employment, bad for the Arts and bad for our society.

Once again, we see both Labor and Liberal parties looking after the big end of town.

Once again, we see them worshipping at the altar of unfair “free trade” and pushing you, Australia’s writers, editors and publishers into an abyss of uncertainty.

There is however some hope that we can avoid this looming catastrophe. We Greens in both the House of Representatives (such as the Member for Higgins present here today) and the Senate will not support this legislation.

I will also put the case for supporting your cause to the Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett, and the Government.

We recently succeeded in ensuring grants to the College of Performing Arts were retained after Peter Garrett announced they would be terminated. We, and loud and vocal calls from within the Australian Community, succeeded in getting Peter Garrett to change his mind.

It is vitally important that everybody here also takes action on this too. Contact your local member and tell them that you are opposed to the removal of Parallel Import Legislation. Tell them that you think a vibrant writing and publishing scene in Australia is more important to you than the profits of multinational companies.

Tell them that the removal of similar legislation that supported Australia’s music industry in the 90s has had serious and long lasting negative impacts on that sector.

And tell your friends to contact their local MP and Minister Garrett too.

In closing, we Greens put people ahead of profits and we put creativity ahead of multinational interests. We appreciate and admire your collective work which makes Australia a clever, informed and lucky country.