Don’t waste this opportunity
By Callen Sorensen Karklis
Dear Mr Albanese and Mr Bandt,
Ten years and Australia has survived a wasted decade of the LNP years, with next to no action on climate or innovation.
You finally have – perhaps a once in a generation chance – to act on issues like climate change, the environment, housing, improving health care and giving our First Nation people a voice! Please do not waste this opportunity.
To not have the chance to compromise, negotiate, or communicate in a healthy dialogue when working out these issues opens the possibility of another decade wasted in the political wilderness. Dutton is not suitable to be our nation’s leader, that is clear, with how he boycotted the Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.
For those of us who are Indigenous we have seen the pros and cons of mining on our ancestral homeland on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) and seen the impacts of generational traumas of actions made by conservative governments on my peoples. I plead for you to work together as one for the best interests of the nation. Most Australians, especially First Australians, cannot afford backwards Tory mindset when we should be moving ahead!
Australia needs total autonomy for First Nations people! We also need to respect the wellbeing of this ancient continent and my ancestors by respecting the Earth for future generations after us. If we don’t, there is no future! Or one of more suffering and pain for untold amounts of people.
PLEASE LEGISLATE FOR A STONGER SAFEGUARD MECHANISM! SAVE RAMSAR WETLANDS! Stop Overdevelopment at Toondah’s Ramsar wetlands! And for better housing and a voice!
Australia cannot afford to be the only developed nation globally without a substantial climate action policy on emissions trading! Without cooperation, all these great initiatives will be under threat by an overzealous fanatic faction which have hijacked the Coalition in recent years.
For the good of the country please work together! Not against one another!
Australia cannot afford another wasted decade!
Callen Sorensen Karklis, Bachelor of Government and International Relations.
Callen is a Quandamooka Nunukul Aboriginal person from North Stradbroke Island. He has been the Secretary of the Qld Fabians in 2018, and the Assistant Secretary 2018 – 2019, 2016, and was more recently the Policy and Publications Officer 2020 – 2021. Callen previously was in Labor branch executives in the Oodgeroo (Cleveland areas), SEC and the Bowman FEC. He has also worked for Cr Peter Cumming, worked in market research, trade unions, media advertising, and worked in retail. He also ran for Redland City Council in 2020 on protecting the Toondah Ramsar wetlands. Callen is active in Redlands 2030, Labor LEAN, the Redlands Museum, and his local sports club at Victoria Pt Sharks Club. Callen also has a Diploma of Business and attained his tertiary education from Griffith University. He was a co-host from time to time on Workers Power 4ZZZ (FM 102.1) on Tuesday morning’s program Workers Power. He is currently a public servant for the Qld Government.
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6 comments
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Phil Pryor
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wam
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margcal
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B Sullivan
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Callen Sorensen Karklis
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GL
Return to home pageDon’t waste this opportunity, as we have all said a hundred or more times…but how can we offer balance and justice without intelligent planning and general co-operation? IF we could put in place policies and plans where no-one suffered, with equal balance in loss or gain, with a sense of equality and teamwork and community, well, it would all be easy, addressing social justice, taxation, climate change, education needs and funding, a huge slate of dreams.., I’m off to doze happily again for a while…but, unless some leadership in this world can achieve that level of “harmony and drive and will”, to do better, now, little will happen at all.
A good read, Callen,
The voice should be kept simple. The referendum is to add the fact that there were people in Australia before cook and the voice is to give pollies Aboriginal input BEFORE the pollies make decisions affecting them.
The ‘no’ barnaby was up in darwin stirring the CLP anti the voice with disingenuous bullshit.
Torpid, Tanya, needs to get stronger in her portfolio.
Thirteen years of greenhouse gas inaction when the ‘labor doesn’t go far enough’ bobby and the ‘denier’ rabbott formed a coalition to kill the plan of wong and the copperman. Ten years since the bandit blackmail created ‘juliar’.
The loonies have come full circle with bandit giving us another ‘labor doesn’t go far enough’ speil.
The LNP have legitimate hopes that albo will be a one termer.
I’ll just say, and leave it at that …. Labor lost a golden opportunity for generational change after Bill Shorten’s defeat in 2019.
Wam,
Labor under Rudd had no intention of acting to address climate change. He conned voters into electing his government and then treated their environmental concerns with contempt. Just like you do with your constant ‘loony’ references. Rudd made no effort whatsoever to negotiate with the Greens and presented a green-wash scam of a policy that was an insult to our intelligence, hoping to win support from the coalition instead. He failed in his effort to dupe us because he couldn’t come up with a policy weak enough to satisfy Turnbull. In any case, Greens support wasn’t enough to pass the bill. The Greens didn’t reject it because it wasn’t perfect, they rejected it because it was utterly inadequate and revealed Rudd’s hypocrisy on Climate Change. Rudd’s insincerity became obvious to all when he used the ascension of feather-brained Tony Abbott to leadership of the Liberal Party as an excuse to drop climate change right off the political agenda. As if Abbott was too formidable an opponent to stand up to. When Gillard took over and reluctantly brought in the carbon tax at the Greens’ insistence, Rudd collaborated with the media to undermine her, and when he regained the party leadership he immediately announced the scrapping of the carbon tax. Such was his commitment to action on climate change. The simple fact that you and the Greens-blaming media persist in ignoring is that Labor sees environmental issues as a serious threat to construction, forestry, mining, and energy. That is to say a threat to jobs for the mega union that Labor created to serve as its financial support base. Just look at Labor’s record of dragging its feet on environmental issues. It isn’t just appalling, it is disgusting. Labor’s reluctance to do anything for the environment despite popular support for greater action is the reason why they are now a minority party with barely a third of the electorate voting for them. The blame for inaction on climate change for the last 13 years falls entirely on Labor, the Coalition and the media with their concerted efforts to discredit the validity of what you dismiss as loony environmental concerns right up until the overwhelming devastation of fire and floods caused by that deliberate inaction made it impossible to ignore those concerns any more.
B Sullivan; loony references to Rudd? I don’t recall making any references to Rudd in the letter? I think its safe to say both Rudd and Brown could have and should have done things differently in 2009! For the record I’m not Greensblaming, my question is a fair question to both the ALP and Greens. I’ve worked with people in both the Greens and ALP in the labour movement. There’s good and bad in both parties. I think Labor, Greens, and the Coalition could have done things better from 2009 – until today for the environment!
Gasp! Shock! Horror! How…how dare Labor use the same tactics we used against them on many occasions when we were in charge. The gall of them.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/sussan-ley-claims-labor-using-the-voice-to-wedge-the-opposition-20230223-p5cn4h.html