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'A lifetime of disasters': Young protester interrupts PM's major announcement (www.sbs.com.au)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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"You're condemning young people like me to a life of climate disasters — of course we have poor mental health issues!" cried protester Alexa Stuart, a 21-year-old from climate action group Rising Tide mid-way through Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's press conference today.

"When will you listen to young people?"

Albanese was announcing a $1 billion dollar increase to mental health access and support, including $500 million for Youth Specialist Care Centres. The funding announcement follows Opposition leader Peter Dutton's own pledge of $400 million towards mental health during his budget reply speech.

"Mr Albanese, you say you care about young people — and yet since getting elected your government has approved 33 new coal and gas projects!" Stuart yelled as she was hauled away by security.

The Australia Institute's Coal Mine Tracker says the federal government has approved 10 new coal mines since it was elected in May 2022 and there are another 22 proposals for new or expanded coal mines awaiting approval.

Two-thirds of young Australians believe climate concerns are having a negative impact on youth mental health, while over three in four young people are concerned about climate change, according to a survey conducted by YouGov sampling 1,000 Australian citizens aged 16-25 in 2023.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Just because one party is bad doesn’t mean we should settle for the slightly better one who are still actively burning our future, that’s an absurd argument on the face of it.

THIS IS WHAT YOUR VOTE IS FOR.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I do vote?

Doesn't change the fact that voting generally does fuck all in terms of meaningful change, especially as we watch both of these major parties destroy the ability for smaller parties and independents to challenge them.

And so we are essentially left with a choice between being killed, and being killed but they smile while they do it. You change the options you can vote for by protesting, this is an exceptionally important part of modern democracy and it cannot be ignored.

Edit: The word "essentially" here is important. I know minority governments exist, and I would like to see one. It doesn't change the fact that two major parties absolutely dominate the system and wield the vast majority of power.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

ok no.

That is not how voting works in Australia. At all. Preferential voting means you can directly put smaller parties and independents in the house and in the senate, meaning they then have very real power in the Australian government regardless of who is actually PM.

You know how there's always those articles about the party in power having to negotiate with members to get things happening? Yeah, that's because of our voting system that put those members from small parties and independents into the seats of power when people want them there. You're reading a script that applies more aptly to the US than anything else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Oh I'm aware, I said as much in another comment. Sorry, I've mislead you on what I meant.

My problem with voting is that the entire system of government in this country does not do anything to meaningfully address the problems of entire swathes of the population, and voting does very very little to address that.

It appears to work, if you're sufficiently privileged to not be among those persecuted, oppressed, raped and murdered by those in power. There are individual issues that are sufficiently mainstream so as to be addressible in this way, and climate change is one of them, but even still we needed to have made major change a long time ago; the past 20 years has already proven it wasn't able to tackle climate change adequately.

I also never said we weren't using a preferential system. Idk if you follow any of the media analysis but the fact that all anyone cares about is the two party preferred vote should tell you enough about how much of a monopoly they have on power. Yes a minority government would be great, as I said earlier that's what everyone in climate activism is working for now. The point is that not doing the activism and relying exclusively on voting is insufficient.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

that's not accurate to the Australian voting system at all, are you sure you're in the right instance?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes. I am.

The system is preferential, but the outcome of many an election is indistinguishable from a two party system. The system is not good enough, just because it's able to work sometimes isn't enough, especially when it "working" still results in an awful lot of unnaceptable shit happening.

I also never said anything to the contrary anyway? Voting hasn't gotten shit done, that's an observable fact. I've watched my future evaporate because we've left all of this up to a system that refuses to do the things it should. Even when things are done, all it takes is for the next election to undo it.

My definition of meaningful action might be different to yours, I mean radical long term change that involves upending the entire landscape and actually supporting the workers and victims of the fossil fuel industry.