[Peakoil] Majority Opinion (78% favour renewables)

Thu Jan 19 12:25:25 EST 2006

Leigh has a good strategy, of wins come from obscure places, and the more
candidates we educate the more likely we will get a good policy response.
Moss Cass, the environment minister under Whitlam gave an example of obscure
wins, when he told a public meeting I was at, that one of the key reasons
the environment legislation he was pushing got up was because the defence
ministers daughter was a strong environmentalist and personally was able to
influence her dad.

I also agree with Sandy, in that mass opinion is important for the ultimate
success of a campaign. 

A campaign like peal oil, unlike say the forest debate, there is an
immediate impact that effects all Australia's with the price of oil already
going up, in which case if we can get a simple message to a significant
number of Australians (what this is I don't know but it may even be well
below the majority, given a lot of those swinging aspirational mortgage
voters will be hit hard by the rise in oil prices) before governments start
tacking it seriously.

The challenge here is to get meaningful implementation of policies that will
alleviate the suffering to our society and our economy before the oil peak
hits really hard and to make sure these solutions are environmentally
friendly and dovetail in with climate change solutions.

My philosophy of campaign which was the corner stone of our 66% successful
Otway forest campaign (final finish of logging in 2008 we are still
campaigning to bring this fwd) was to do "total campaigning", which simply
means hit them from every angle possible, resources permitting.

On the ground this was resulted in these sort of activities; lobbying,
stalls, protests, marches, banner drops, media stunts, lock ons, setting up
Pty Ltd tour company, joing local business groups and getting on their
executive, setting up green branches and running environmental candidates,
consumer boycott campaign, school talks, tours, getting the students
involved, public meetings, donors, transition plans, research, members,
sponsors, fundraising, gigs, and so on and so.. all done by a core of no
more than 10 usually 6 or less and a broader active support group of another
5-30. With campaigning there are a lot of options, we dealt with this by
supporting anything anyone wanted to actual DO, so long as it was non
violent and forwarded the campaign no matter how much or how little. 

I just wanted to make sure people understood if looking for election type
tactics, the majority does not always mean victory.

Adrian Whitehead

-----Original Message-----
From: peakoil-bounces+adrian=ecoaction.net.au at act-peakoil.org
[mailto:peakoil-bounces+adrian=ecoaction.net.au at act-peakoil.org] On Behalf
Of leigh.kite at medicareaustralia.gov.au
Sent: Thursday, 19 January 2006 9:10 AM
To: David Jorm
Cc: peakoil at act-peakoil.org
Subject: Re: [Peakoil] Majority Opinion (78% favour renewables)

The only way to solve the problem is to educate all election candidates, so
every seat ends up with someone sitting in it who understands the full
magnitude of the problem and is somewhat inspired by the fact that they can
use their power to make a real difference.

Cheers,

Leigh

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|         |           18/01/2006 10:39 PM                       |
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Agreed; good example is the majority of Australians never supported the war
in Iraq. A federal election occured not long after this highly unpopular
event - what happened? Imcumbent won, by focusing on the swinging voters and
what would sway them, namely tax cuts, baby bonuses, interest rates, etc.
People with strong party alliances aren't going to switch teams because of
policy changes, so it becomes those who will who must be targeted.

On 1/18/06, Adrian Whitehead <ccserac.project1 at ecoaction.net.au > wrote:
Majority Opinion is not really that important.

An astute political player what is important is the opinion of the swinger
voters in marginal seats these are the people that need to be won over.

Sadly rusted on voters don't matter, and safe seats don't matter.

Howard has been a master at this game, and governments who do it well can
keep them selves in power or win elections, i.e. Richardson with the
Franklin.

Poor players will often confuse their goal and make a mess of their own
politics, such as Biesly in 2001 election on refugees.

Adrian

From: peakoil-bounces+adrian=ecoaction.net.au at act-peakoil.org [mailto:
peakoil-bounces+adrian=ecoaction.net.au at act-peakoil.org] On Behalf Of
Antony Barry
Sent: Wednesday, 18 January 2006 11:10 AM
To: Keith Thomas
Cc: ACT Peak Oil discussion
Subject: Re: [Peakoil] 78% favour renewables (in UK)

On 17 Jan 2006, at 9:27 PM, Keith Thomas wrote:

      It would be nice to think that democracy in mass society would come
      up with the best solution. That works OK for traditional politics,
      but not for peak oil and climate change. It matters not a whit what
      the majority - or even ALL - the people say or favour.

Politically it DOES matter what a large majority thinks. A government which
ignores strong public opinion risks being kicked out and it's actions
negated. Governments can lead but it's risky. The present Commonwealth
Government has taken a risk with Iraq, Telstra and industrial relations
presumably because it thought the majority opinion was wrong and people
would come round to their way of thinking.

We want the government to take action to steer us away from the disaster
which peak oil will bring. To do so we need to bring more people to the view
that this is a problem which must be faced urgently.

Decisions such as the Gungahlin Drive Extension might not have been made if
the likely future of fuel supplies was considered.

At least Canberra planning now looks to be trying to keep development closer
and cutting back on continual sprawl.

Tony

phone : 02 6241 7659 | mailto:me at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
mobile: 04 1242 0397 | http://tony-barry.emu.id.au

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