Senator David Pocock was already booked for the National Press Club when Helen Haines was attacked outside her office, but this shocking event put a sombre spotlight on his speech, which focused on the role and responsibility of independents in the Australian parliament.
Pocock described Dr Helen Haines as ‘the best of us’ and a beacon of integrity. ‘You make our politics in this country better. That someone would deliberately hurt you, I find unfathomable.
‘We must meet this attack on you by doubling down on the values that you represent, that you champion so hard in our parliament every day: democracy, transparency, accountability, care and kindness.’
It was Haines and her predecessor Cathy McGowan who pioneered the community independents movement that made it possible for people like David Pocock and the teals to be elected, transforming seats that were once held by moribund representatives of the big parties into hotbeds of democratic participation.
‘I came here today wanting to deliver a simple message to the many people around our country feeling like politics, as usual, has failed them,’ the ACT senator and former Wallaby said.
‘Politics should be a contest of ideas, not just who can whip up the most hate or spread the most disinformation… I believe we have a great democracy, one that’s worth defending, a democracy that can better serve us today.’
Pocock’s recipe
Calling for evidence-based solutions, rather than hollow slogans, David Pocock renewed his call for a 25 per cent gas export tax, which he said could raise $17 billion a year to pay for decent social support, reduce the growing gap between rich and poor and properly fund nature conservation.
On the issue of lobbying by corporate interests, he said ministerial diaries should be published, with stronger regulation of lobbyists and an end to the culture of ‘cash for access’.
Pocock called for Australian biodiversity to be taken seriously, with dying rivers to be protected and the best First Nations knowledge and modern science to be harnessed to drive real environmental outcomes.
As he put it, ‘We are part of nature, and if she goes down, we’re going down too.’
On technology, he proposed a 5 per cent data centre levy (which would raise $500 million), raised concerns about protecting Australian creators’ copyright to avoid making the country a data laundering hotspot, and called for a ‘deeply patriotic’ government procurement policy to better support Australian businesses.
Pocock said social media companies’ algorithms needed to be opened to research, with bots to be removed. ‘We have to make social media work for us,’ he said.
Stop the revolving door
Noting that an extraordinary 80 per cent of lobbyists in parliament were not on the official register, he said the major parties had resisted proper reform of this corrupt system at every turn, going on to explain the real world results, with families destroyed by predatory gambling interests, single mothers and children struggling with extreme poverty, and thousands of older Australians dying on aged care wait lists, even as multinational companies removed resources from the country without being properly taxed; in fact being subsidised to do so in many cases, to the tune of billions of dollars.
‘Lobbyists have extraordinary access to decision makers and an outsize influence over policies that impact all of us,’ he said. ‘We need to hold ourselves as politicians to a higher standard.’
Although David Pocock hasn’t joined the formal alliance between the teals Allegra Spender and Zali Steggal, and noted the challenges of political compromise, Pocock closed with a pitch for voters to support their local community independents in order to secure control of minority government from 2028.
‘We can move beyond the major party system,’ he said. ‘We want politicians who are really in touch with their communities and the challenges facing Australians. We want people who have the courage and a commitment to the long-term solutions needed to solve them, people just like Dr Helen Haines.
‘I believe a model of smaller community interest parties and independents working together in an alliance can succeed here and build the future that we want,’ he said. ‘It could actually give us the courage to stand up to big countries and companies and demand a fair deal.
‘We have an incredible opportunity to help shape the next chapter of our country, and it’s time we took it.’
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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