Race for Richmond: The Greens’ push for minority gov’t with Mandy Nolan

Reporter Mia Armitage spoke with The Greens federal candidate for the seat of Richmond, Mandy Nolan, on day three of pre-polling at the Richmond Room pre-poll booth in Ballina. To follow is an edited transcript.

Mia’s interviews with the incumbent, Labor’s Justine Elliot, and The Nationals’ candidate Kimberly Hone are also available.

All three candidates have confirmed they’ll be at tonight’s free Richmond: Meet the Candidates forum in the Byron Theatre, brought to you by Echo Publications and Bay FM Community Radio.

Hugs in Byron, a state MP in Ballina and more interest in Tweed, says Nolan

It’s Thursday, which is day three of pre-polling, what’s the momentum been like for you, Mandy Nolan?

It’s actually been really good, we’re sort of noticing more and more people taking our flyers and having conversations around what we would say really matters at this election, which is, of course, housing, climate, the things that really impact people.

The Climate Council came out recently, I think it was last week, putting Richmond as the most climate risk area in all of Australia. I think it’s something like 31,000 homes that are at risk of not being able to be insured, or being unaffordable to insure, so those conversations are front of mind.

We’ve had heaps of volunteers out on our booths and what I really love is, it’s a positive atmosphere, people are lining up in the sun, it’s got a nice feeling on the booths of enjoying our fabulous democratic process of voting for our leadership in this country.

So we’ve been having that conversation around what matters.

What’s the response been like from people, in particular in the Tweed and in Ballina? I know that those are the two most challenging areas for The Greens, you’ve got strong support traditionally in the Byron area.

Yeah, look, Byron, I get a lot of hugs at the Byron booth, which is really lovely. so yeah, it’s very strong there.

But here in Ballina, we’ve had Tamara Smith as our state Green MP for three terms now and she’s increased her vote, so you’d be amazed who votes Green here in Ballina.

I guess the footprint of who votes Green has really changed over time, because they’ve seen what we do at local government level, at state level, and they’re looking towards Federal Parliament and expecting more on housing and climate there as well.

So it’s good here in Ballina and then up in Tweed…. and often in Tweed, it’s an older demographic, generally, that votes first at pre-poll and while many of those would be voting sometimes more conservatively, I did pre-poll last time and I would say I am speaking to a lot more people up there this time than I was last time and giving out the how-to-vote.

So it it feels really good. I mean, it’s really hard to tell when you’re out there pre-polling because at the end of the day, what matters is what happens when people go inside and actually cast their vote.

The Greens’ pitch: nothing changes if nothing changes

That’s right and I’ll just jump in, Mandy Nolan, so you got very close last time in 2022 on first preferences to overtaking Labor’s incumbent, Justine Elliot. What’s your pitch to voters who maybe have been putting Labor number one and Greens number two?

Our pitch is that nothing changes if nothing changes. One of the seats that could change everything for this country is here in Richmond. We only need a 1.8% swing to put The Greens in not only here in Richmond but possibly put The Greens in balance of power with Labor. That means we keep Dutton out. There’s no way we would ever form government with Dutton but we work with Labor and we push them to act.

We push them to act on ending native forest logging, getting dental and mental into Medicare, and on truly addressing our housing crisis. So that’s the pitch.

We’ve always been a little bit of a.region that’s a little bit ahead, where we’re out-of-the-box thinkers, where we care about the environment, we care about what happens to people. We don’t want to see people living in tents in our community. So, in our community, we have the chance to change that.

I would say of your vote, you’ve had the same incumbent for 20 years, and in that time we have the most unaffordable housing in the country and we’ve become the most climate-impacted region, while Labor continues to approve new coal and gas projects.

Vote Green in Richmond and we can make a change.

What about those conservative voters that you mentioned earlier? You’ve still actually got quite a tough battle. Traditionally, they’ve won nearly 50% sometimes on first preferences in the Richmond seat.

I would say the same message because those things matter when it comes to looking at not being able to insure your home, we need a party that isn’t putting fuel on the fire when it comes to the climate by opening and approving new coal and gas mines.

So it’s really thinking also about the future, like, what kind of future are we offering for the next generation? I really hope those conservative voters don’t just think about themselves but we do have great policies for them as well, like raising the rate of income support for pensioners and people on income support across the board.

But it’s also about thinking about your children and your grandchildren. Will they ever be able to live here? Not right now, we have such unaffordable housing. So think about what comes next. Think about what this planet is going to be like if we don’t stop approving new coal and gas. We’ve got to stop a system where fossil fuel companies pay for the lobbyists that push politicians to make the policy that allows them to create this horrendous situation that we find ourselves in, in our region, where one minute we’re drowning, the next minute we’re burning, the next minute we’re being blown around with that completely out-of-the-box cyclone that’s hit us, and we’re the ones that can’t afford our insurance. We didn’t do this. So that’s what I’d say to conservative voters.

But it’s also good to remember this is a three party preferred race here. We need to come first here, in The Greens, with Labor preferences. We just need to come second, basically. That is possible because with a preferential voting system, that progressive vote will push us through here in Richmond.

Aiming for a minority government

So Justine Elliot said to me, I think it was last week, that a vote for The Greens, or any other candidate besides her in that number one position, will put Peter Dutton in power as the Prime Minister of Australia. What do you say to that?

That’s ludicrous and very misleading. It’s not true. We would never, ever work with Dutton. If you vote for The Greens here and if I don’t get through, the worst thing that will happen is my vote will go to Justine Elliot. So just saying that alone is ludicrous and doesn’t make make sense.

You know that their vote is strong across the country. You know The Greens are able to work with them. We’re looking towards minority.

There is no risk of that happening in this seat. A vote for The Greens is a vote for The Greens, or it’ll go to Justine if I don’t get through.

That’s just a fear tactic that’s actually used and I think people need to know their vote is powerful and our preferential voting system means that you can use your vote in a powerful way.

We’ve had 7,500 conversations plus around this community, it’s the Labor voters who are the most disappointed. They wanted to see Labor act. They didn’t want to see Labor colluding with the coalition for more environmental damage, for not passing our stronger environmental laws. They want to see Labor moving towards the values that they’re nostalgic for and the only way you’re going to get that is in a minority government with The Greens and Labor.

Listen back to the full interview via Bay FM’s Community Newsroom, aired Friday 25^thApril. Mia Armitage reports for both Echo Publications and Bay FM Community Radio, the latter with thanks to the Community Broadcasting Foundation.