The plight of at risk islanders raised at Gilmore candidates forum

The human face of the climate emergency many feel as election day approaches was a feature of the Gilmore Meet the Candidates Forum held in Batemans Bay this week.

Organised by four local environment groups under the banner of Climate Action Gilmore, six of the seven Gilmore candidates were invited. Independent Grant Schultz was an apology due to a previous commitment, Liberal Warren Mundine didn’t respond, Serah Kolukulapally from the Christian Democratic Party couldn’t be reached.

The four candidates who did take part waved their party colours proudly, but one question, in particular, called for more, the sort of kink into character so valuable when deciding where a number 1 and number 7 might land on a ballot paper.

Mossy Point’s Linda Chapman, a member of 350.org took the audience mic to ask, “What would you [the candidates] say to those Torres Strait Islanders who are losing their home [to sea level rise]? And will likely become climate refugees.”

“Those people are bringing a climate change complaint against the Australian Federal Government, they are taking this complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee.”

First to respond was Milton Leslight, candidate for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

“To blame our country as a result of it [sea level rise] is poor form,” Mr Leslight said.

“They may be homeless and that is a tragedy but we have a lot of people here in our country that are homeless too – people that don’t have a roof over their head.

“Should we not start at home and think of Australians first?” he said.

At which point a number of voices in the audience shouted – “They [Torres Strait Islanders] are Australian!”

The Nationals, Katrina Hodgkinson was next to speak.

“This is the first time this has been raised with me, thank you for the question,” Ms Hodgkinson said.

“Back in 2004, I travelled to the Cook Islands. It is a real issue, a real problem.

“We have got to play our part, absolutely.

“It’s a very real reminder that there are people out there living with this threat every day.”

Fiona Phillips, longtime Labor candidate was next.

“We need to be doing our part to resettle genuine refugees, we [Labor] have agreed to progressively increase our annual intake of humanitarian refugees to 27,000 people.”

The Greens, Carmel McCallum, said “no matter how rich you are or how much tax you don’t pay” you are not immune to the impacts of climate change.

“It’s human-induced climate change that is causing these people to lose their homes. We have to stop mining coal.”

“We have to change the way we run Australia and the whole world.

“We already have climate refugees.”

Ms Chapman’s question at Batemans Bay on Tuesday night coincided with a visit to the Pacific Islands by the UN Secretary-General.

In a speech to the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji the same day, António Guterres said, “You need to develop adaptation, requires stronger international support.”

“Global emissions are reaching record levels and show no sign of peaking.

“The last four years were the hottest on record.

“The loss of ice in Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating, meaning that sea levels will rise a full meter by 2100 if nothing is done to avoid it,” Mr Guterres said.

While the sentiments expressed by the Gilmore candidates in relation to Torres Strait Islanders were of interest and valuable to the audience, all gathered were more interested in hearing of the action each party was or wasn’t going to take on climate change.

With that in mind, the event organisers produced a report card based on the policies of each party to help guide concerned voters.

“All candidates agreed that climate change was a serious problem, but only the Greens and Labor have real policies for action,” said Allan Rees, Chair of 350 Eurobodalla.

“It was not surprising that Liberal candidate Warren Mundine did not show up as carbon emissions have risen through the whole six years of Liberal/National government.

“Nationals candidate Katrina Hodkinson claimed that Australia’s emissions were falling, but the Commonwealth Department of the Environment and Energy shows a rise of 0.9% in the year to September 2018.

“The Department also said that trajectory will only achieve a reduction of 7% emissions to 2030, not the 26% claimed by the present Coalition government.”

For his comments, Milton Leslight and the United Australia Party ranked last on the Climate Action Gilmore scorecard, “no targets for emissions reductions, pro-coal, against renewables.”

#Ian Campbell acted as an independent facilitator for the meeting.