Hey everyone, Giordano here to share a quick word after this historic election
and answer a couple of questions before we take a short
but much needed family break and get ready to launch into Season 3 of the Honest Government Ads.
Firstly, what an amazing election. This one will go down in history as a turning
point in the story of this nation, and in the history of global climate action.
So, please take a moment to appreciate how we, Australian voters, despite being bludgeoned
24/7 by NewsCorp bullshit, managed to kick out one of the worst governments on climate
in the industrialised world, and bring Australia back into the climate fight on the global stage.
Is this the end of Australia’s fight for climate action? Certainly not. But we do need to pause to
celebrate the victories along the way and this election was a big one for climate.
Australia elected not just a couple of Not-Shit climate candidates, but a stack of them:
5 new independents and 2 new Greens MPs in the House of Reps
(possibly three, once the final votes have been counted). And to make it even better,
Not-Shit climate MPs now also hold the balance of power in the Senate.
Which means Australia is now a different country politically - not just with a
decent guy as Prime Minister and a more trustworthy leadership - but
also a strong pro-climate voice in both houses of Parliament.
Many people deserve credit for this result. It was thanks to the Independents movement started
by Cathy McGowan and the people of Indi which inspired the successful campaigns in Warringah,
Kooyong, Goldstein, Mackellar and others - a movement led by women.
It was thanks to people like Simon Holmes a Court who created a platform that allowed
the rest of us to support those Independents, giving them a fighting chance against a Liberal
Party machine funded by fossil-fuel donors and backed by corporate media.
It was thanks to indy-media and citizen journalists on YouTube and Twitter
who formed a 5th estate by countering and debunking the corporate mainstream media’s spin.
But above all, it was thanks to all the Australian voters who decided to finally use
our preferential voting system to its full extent, making their vote count on climate
by giving their first preference to Not-Shit candidates instead of the major parties.
I think this is where The Juice Media contributed the most towards this
election outcome, by helping a lot of voters to understand how preferential voting works.
Actually, I don’t think - I know.
We’ve had hundreds of comments from people thanking us for helping them
understand how our voting system works with our Honest Government Ad about preferential
voting - which has now had over 5 million views across our pages - making it by
far the most viewed piece of content about how preferential voting works.
Thank you for leaving us these comments and letting us know how much our work
helped you make your voice heard on climate in this election.
Thank you for taking the time to understand how our voting system works.
It’s an awesome voting system if we know how
to use it; and one that hopefully our mates in the US and UK will also adopt.
And this is just the beginning. Now that so many people get it, Australian elections will
never be the same. The bullshit argument that you’re risking or wasting your vote
if you don’t vote 1 for a major party will no longer fly, now that people have experienced
how it actually works. And that knowledge will be passed on to the next generation of voters.
And that means unless the major parties lift their game on climate, we can expect even more
Not-Shit MPs to win seats at the 2025 election. Which is a good coz Australia will then move away
from the simplistic, outdated and corruptible two-party system, and towards a multi-party
parliamentary democracy - which is what is common in many progressive European nations today.
And what makes me MOST happy is that some day way down the track,
we’ll all look back and recognise that this transition started off with this election.
How good is making history happen?
So now what? Will we keep making Honest Government Ads now that the
shit government we’ve had for the past decade has been finally kicked out?
I’ve seen this question a lot in the comments and the answer is,
yes of course. There’s a lot of shitfuckery in the world and we’ve been getting hundreds of
requests to make Honest Government Ads for the UK, Canada, India, Brazil, Philippines,
and many more. So hopefully we’ll be able to lend other countries a hand in Season 3.
Will we make ads about our new Labor Government?
That depends entirely on how this new government acts. But probably, yes:
coz Labor is still very much funded and captured by fossil-fuel interests
and has a Shit-Lite climate target which puts us on track for 2C warming by end of century.
Better than the 3C warming we’d get under the LNP’s climate policies, but still catastrophic.
And then there’s the question of HOW will Labor achieve that target? Will
it be through phasing out coal and gas and transitioning to renewables, or will it be
by expanding fossil fuel projects and trying to greenwash them with dodgy carbon credits etc?
So in short, if Labor gets the message from this election and acts in line with the science,
we’ll turn our attention elsewhere. But if they take the piss,
we’ll be there ready to continue making honest government ads about them too.
Before we go I just want to say a couple of quick things:
Firstly, I want to acknowledge the sad news that Rex Patrick was not returned to the Senate.
Rex did so much to raise awareness of corruption, Timor-Leste and the
prosecution of whistleblowers like Witness K, human rights for refugees, and he fought
this government’s secrecy with tireless FOI requests. Thank you for your service, Rex.
I also want to acknowledge all the Not-Shit candidates who didn’t win
their seat this election. Thank you for running, for putting yourself out there,
for putting your life on hold, and for all the cost that comes with that.
Thank you to all the volunteers, organisers, journalists, researchers, scientists,
activists, podcasters, writers, communicators, mums, dads,
grandparents, and young people (especially those who voted for the first time).
Thank you to all those who sadly are no longer with us and did not live to
see this election’s outcome after working so hard towards it during their lifetime.
I am so inspired by this collective effort which has brought so many of us together to
fight for a common cause at this election - climate action, integrity in government,
justice. It’s remarkable how this collective effort happened organically,
out of a common sense of urgency and a shared consiousness of how crucial this
time of history that we live in is. If we can keep this collective alive, we will be the generation
that turns the page on climate shitfuckery. We might not live to see the end of it,
but we will have laid the foundation for our children and their children to do so.
Speaking of children, I am now going to sign off and focus on our kids Luca and
Juno — who have been patiently waiting for dad to stop working on “the election” for,
well… most of their lives. We are going to take a little break and spend some family
time together before we get back to work on Season 3 of the Honest Government Ads.
Until then, take care. Thank you for watching and sharing our videos and podcasts.
Thank you to our team here at the Juice Media - our brilliant actors,
and the whole team behind the scenes who support me and help me write and create the
Honest Government Ads. And a special thank you to Lucy in particular, not just for lending her voice
to the videos, but for all the hard work she does behind the scenes for this project and our family.
And of course to our Patrons - the backbone of the Juice Media - who have made all our
work possible. Thank you. If you’re not already a Patron and want to support our work in Season 3,
please join us at patreon.com/thejuicemedia.
Take care - and don’t forget to take time to celebrate this victory.
Because we have a lot more work to do before our time’s up.
Authorised
by the Government for Blah blah blah
Authorised by Poo-poo Poo-poohs
[Raspberries]
Stralien Government