We have another candidate!

Free Public Transport Advocate Adam Butler in the race for Reid, NSW

I don’t know who said that but I think it sums up many things. “Be the change you want to see” is what Ghandi said. But you can’t do that unless you choose to do it. It’s the same with your choices on election day. If you want to see genuine progress in our community then you need to start making choices that allows genuine progress.

As I see it, the two old political parties have had ample opportunity to move our community toward genuine progress (decades in fact). They have failed. Both the Howard era and now the Rudd era have been a step backwards from genuine progress. By genuine progress I mean improvements in an individual’s health, education and safety. But genuine progress also means including our natural environment. For you see, we live in a society not an economy yet so many of the decisions made in Canberra are made based on financial implications rather than societal ramifications.

Under Howard our homes got bigger (we have the largest homes in the world) and our waistlines got bigger (we are one of the fattest nations in the world). Yet as a society we aren’t any happier. The change to the Rudd government in 2007 was met with great anticipation. The greatest moral and economical challenge of our time (climate change) has now become not so important. In an essay for The Monthly entitled “Faith in Politics”, Kevin Rudd said this about refugees, “The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst.” Soon after he said “I make absolutely no apology whatsoever for taking a tough line on asylum seekers.” Aren’t we fed up with this kind of hypocrisy?

The Australia Government continues to spend billions of dollars on the “war on terror” when that money should be used on education, health and public transport. Massive defence spending does not contribute to genuine progress but investing in our people certainly does.

I ask you, what shall it be? More of last century’s thinking by the old parties or a new tact by a young and enthusiastic party wanting a positive and genuinely prosperous future.

When you are standing in that polling booth you will be faced with a choice. It is only when you exercise your right to choose that you can also exercise your right to change. AdamButler