The upcoming council elections in Merri-bek will involve the creation of single-member wards, including Bulleke-bek. 11 councillors will represent our local interests, and I'm throwing my hat in the ring to ensure that Merri-bek can double down on its status as a liveable sanctuary in Melbourne.
Ensuring wellbeing
Our neighbourhood is unfortunately following Western trends towards bullshit jobs and an addiction to the attention economy, which turns people into dumbed-down, depressed zombies. For decades, voters have taken turns voting for the same two uninspiring parties who have kicked big problems down the road: housing; the environment; mental health; domestic violence.
Wage growth has fallen behind inflation and with all the tax incentives to treat houses as investments, we end up seeing rookie landlords learning the ropes as they oversee a rental market where only 1.5% of offerings are vacant. Why is this still incentivised as the best way to "invest"? Whatever happened to our love for innovation in this country? Our investment in R&D has fallen below the OECD average to just 1.7%. With our reliance on digging things out of the ground and speculating on real estate, our economic complexity has fallen to 82nd in the world, between Sri Lanka and Kenya.
As AI takes off for American tech companies, our government yet again found itself years behind the curve, as Fusion explained in our submission to the senate inquiry.
People have every right to be fearful about AI taking their jobs − many of us are still financially dependent on jobs we don't even enjoy. Our dream is not coming true − as technology has continued to evolve, these innovations were meant to benefit us; to liberate us from manual tasks that will inevitably be viewed as clumsy, barbaric slavery in 100 years.
The obvious solution to this is Universal Basic Income − a fortnightly payment to all Australian residents. It still gets taxed back through the system, so there have been repeated experiments showing that it doesn't lead to runaway inflation. By giving a basic amount of spending power to all members of our society, our market sees a signal that everybody needs access to nutritious food and a roof over their head.
When people can afford the necessities of life, they can focus on bigger and better plans, making the most of their lives.
As a councillor, I will only have so much power to bring about Universal Basic Income, but let me make it clear that I'm a firm believer in its assumptions − that if we trust in people, if we give them an opportunity to make the most of their own lives, then they will.
As the future of work continuously changes, I want to ensure that Brunswick is making the most of the technology available to us, and that our citizens are also making the most of their new opportunities in life. We need to create a place where residents feel safe and supported by a government who has their best interests at heart.
Enabling our local businesses
Over the years, publications such as Time Out magazine have praised our area, and have named Brunswick East as the 6th coolest neighbourhood in the world. It's for reasons like this that I chose to move here after stints in Seattle and New York.
But let's not rest on our laurels − hospitality businesses are notoriously precarious, and we need to be doing all we can to keep Brunswick's culture thriving and growing.
Business booms when the area is safe and accessible − there has been a long-running campaign to make tram stops accessible along the state-run Sydney Road, and the same issue affects the council-run Lygon Street. Lygon Street is darker and more dangerous than Sydney Road, accounting for 20% of night-time traffic hospitalisations in Merri-bek. Cyclists in particular are vulnerable, and as a cyclist myself, I'm absolutely on board with making our roads safer.
I've never owned a car since moving out of my parents' house in 2013. I enjoy getting places quickly by bike, and I'm a big believer in public transport.
"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation" – Gustavo Petro, Mayor of Bogotá
But besides getting people to our businesses, government can also improve the way it interacts with businesses − whenever people talk about a place being "good for business", they think of easy processes, clear rules, quick approvals, transparency, and an absence of corruption (whatever happened with Labor's National Anti-Corruption Commission?)
We shouldn't be left wondering what council is doing, and we shouldn't have to call up and be passed around to 5 different people to get an answer on what council's policy is about some particular topic.
As a software engineer, I keep seeing so many squandered opportunities for governments to improve the way they operate. The same phenomenon played out in Taiwan, where the "gov-zero" (g0v) movement was spawned − civilians who were fed up with the suboptimal government websites ended up creating their own wiki clone, which ended up actually getting adopted by the governnment. It's a no-brainer move that sees better outcomes for civilians and for the government.
Similarly, the heavy digitisation of the Estonian government has created a situation where they're now rated as the best place in Europe to do business. Their happiness rankings are above Spain and Italy, and their citizens only pay a flat 20% income tax.
If we can move towards digital-first, open-source governance, then it will enable people to be more involved in the collaborative operation of society. We see the rising popularity of ideas like direct democracy − in this plan I'm envisioning, people would be actively involved in council decision processes, education campaigns and community initiatives. We need to lean into the strengths of our community to get the best results out of our government.
There's more that can be done to support businesses, besides improving council processes:
- Revise the approvals process so businesses can put plants outside their stores more easily. They help protect pedestrians from dangerous drivers and they help keep the streets cool.
- Stop wasting money on a never-ending battle to cover ugly tags with mismatched paint.
- Provide art lessons to aspiring street artists so they can continue creating vibrant streets.
Imagine getting to the point where we're closing streets because they're just too popular with pedestrians and cyclists. When we hear people complaining about losing a parking spot, let's really think long-term.
Voting Fusion Will Make You Smarter
Upon visiting the library, you see that there is no shortage of people working on their laptops. While WeWork was around, it similarly proved popular, but wasn't viable as a profit-driven endeavour. There are situations around us where something is more of a common good for society than a narrow money-making opportunity, and it's this sort of thing that governments really need to spur on.
If the council could fund co-working spaces with purified air, it would be an environment where Brunswick residents can get their work done in a space that has been shown to strengthen their thinking ability. Maybe this wouldn't go astray in the council chambers either.
Brunswick is full of artists, innovators, and open-minded go-getters. Let's lean into our strengths and enable these people to get their ideas off the ground. Besides coworking spaces for laptop work, we should also be encouraging maker spaces and art lessons for our local street artists. Melbourne City Council was previously afflicted by ugly tagging, but lifted its game by offering help to the aspiring artists.
We want to ensure that Brunswick is a place where the best people can get their best work done.
We can enable people to socialise with like-minded creators and maintain a community here. It's a no-brainer move when you consider the mental health crisis, the loneliness epidemic and the domestic violence situations that occur if people stay stuck in their expensive apartments all day.
Protecting our environment
The worsening climate crisis is causing anxiety for our young people and even worse outcomes for our animals. During Labor's term in federal parliament, they've continued approving new oil & methane projects; and our environment minister Tanya Plibersek approved the destruction of the last remaining habitat for the Gouldian Finch.
No more Gouldian Finches, thanks to Tanya Plibersek
In taking climate action, it's too late to plant trees or to switch to paper straws. We need to put all options on the table, and work at every level of government to stem the extinction of species, the disastrous storms and the fatal heat waves. Queenslanders are going to be furious when they're no longer able to get home insurance, like what's already happening in California.
Speaking of planting trees, our local council has foreign jacarandas on their list of trees that they're actively spreading around Merri-bek. Our council changed the name of our council; they've paid an Aboriginal group to name the new $8.3m Yubup Park, yet at the same time, they're replacing our native flora and they're still permitting cats to roam around at night and kill our native wildlife.
We have a beautiful environment around us in Brunswick, and in anyone's idea of paradise, it probably includes clean flowing water and peaceful animals. Protecting this environment is part of doubling down on Brunswick's strengths − it enables peace of mind, creativity, and an abundance of new ideas.
There are plenty of ways that the council can get involved in protecting our environment:
- Property developers could be required to build swales outside buildings, reducing the storm surges and reflected heat, compared to typical concrete drains.
A swale for managing stormwater. Image source - Council development could use green steel and green concrete.
- The council can further enable cycling as a safe and convenient mode of transport.
- As cars continue to decline in popularity, we could replace car parks with trees and swales. This would help mitigate heat waves and flash flooding, and would provide further support for our native wildlife.
- Communal composting could be supported, in a similar way to what New York offers.
- We could support the conversion of petrol engines to biodiesel, ammonia, methanol, or whatever proves most viable. We cannot wait for electric cars to become dominant, and we should be leaning towards better public transport anyway.
- We can ban anti-bird measures such as spikes and plastic owls.
- We can introduce a cat curfew like Yarra Council already has. Domestic cats kill 25 mammals per year in Australia, plus birds.
- Ensure that council infrastructure is accessible to animals, not just humans.
- Ensure that fencing doesn't completely obstruct the passage of our native wildlife.
Dreaming Bigger
We've been squandering our chances with parties who lost their way decades ago, squabbling about who's getting a piece of a small pie. I'm pleading with you, it doesn't have to be like this. Let's grow the pie. Let's double down on what we do best here, let's take Brunswick to the next level.
Our lives can be pretty good in Melbourne, but we can dream so much bigger 🌈
