Pieces of the Same Solution – Dr Millie Rooney and Lily Spencer in Australian Quartlery
We’ve come through a transformative election, into a new dawn of possibility. Australia’s Parliament not only has a new government and Prime Minister, but an unusual crossbench configuration eager to fight for climate, integrity and democracy. To make it happen, record numbers of people volunteered like never before, ran for office like never before, and shifted their voting habits like never before.
For the first time in a long time, it feels like our nation isn’t trying to stop the future. We have, in our leadership, new imagination, will and capacity to rise to meet the big challenges and embrace the big opportunities.
Certainly, the past few years of fires, plagues (human, mouse) and floods have rearranged the very furniture of our lives – our everyday ways of being, working, travelling, connecting and caring have been disrupted and transformed.
Too many of us have lost our homes and incomes. Too many of us have felt the personal costs of privatisation and years of underinvestment in health and aged care. And though mercifully few by global comparisons, too many are still dying and leaving behind grieving loved ones.
Yet through the portal of flames, floods, smoke and masks we’ve also seen glimpses of what is possible – what we can accomplish as a nation, especially when we choose to work together, listen to the experts and put people first. We’ve re-learned the value of public healthcare, public trust and public media. We’ve seen the very real ability of government to lift people out of poverty with the stroke of a pen (hello JobKeeper and doubling of JobSeeker).
For the first time in decades, Australians have seen that our leaders can actually choose what to prioritise. That ‘Economy First’ is indeed a choice, not a natural law.