WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.100 I'm Barbara Hardy, and I'm shouting into this, but I don't think I need to shout, do I? 2 00:00:05.220 --> 00:00:07.020 You can all hear me right up there. 3 00:00:08.260 --> 00:00:09.160 That's very good. 4 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:14.520 So we're very lucky today to have Amanda with us, Amanda McKenzie, 5 00:00:14.700 --> 00:00:21.580 who's going to talk to us about a lot of very interesting things 6 00:00:21.580 --> 00:00:23.980 that I'm really looking forward to hearing about. 7 00:00:24.060 --> 00:00:28.420 No doubt you are too, because you've been here for quite a while, waiting to come in. 8 00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:37.840 I come from Nature Foundation SA, where we have been working away for 30 years now 9 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.320 to try and improve the natural environment of South Australia. 10 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:46.600 And anyone can happily ask me afterwards a bit more about it if they'd like to. 11 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:54.920 But it's welcome to the Festival of Ideas, and I've been honoured this year by having it dedicated to me. 12 00:00:55.160 --> 00:00:57.640 So every time I sort of come in, I think, 13 00:00:58.560 --> 00:00:59.160 aren't I lucky? 14 00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:05.960 I'm lucky to be able to hear so many interesting people at such a wonderful Festival of Ideas. 15 00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:13.760 The housekeeping that I have to talk to you about is that please switch off your mobile phones, 16 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:16.920 or at least put them on silent during the presentation. 17 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:23.840 But you're very welcome to tweet at Adelaide Ideas Adelaide, 18 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:29.140 and our hashtag is hash AFOI, Adelaide Festival. 19 00:01:29.160 --> 00:01:56.680 And I'm going to begin writing 20 00:01:56.680 --> 00:02:04.380 Following a Bachelor of Laws and an Honours degree from Monash University, 21 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:08.460 after completing an Arts degree from Melbourne University, 22 00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:16.380 her Honours thesis with a high distinction was considered the integration of an Australian emissions trading scheme 23 00:02:16.380 --> 00:02:18.580 into the global carbon market. 24 00:02:19.720 --> 00:02:25.040 She's led three Australian youth delegations to the United Nations Climate Change Conference 25 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:31.940 and has participated as a young advisor to the Australian Government delegation in the year 2007. 26 00:02:33.100 --> 00:02:38.840 So I think we're very lucky to have Amanda here today and I'm looking forward to hearing from her. 27 00:02:38.980 --> 00:02:39.580 Thank you. 28 00:02:45.720 --> 00:02:50.660 Thanks Barbara for that introduction and thank you all very much for coming here this morning. 29 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:54.960 I wanted to tell you today a little bit about my story on climate change. 30 00:02:55.040 --> 00:02:59.540 And then reflect on the public engagement work that I've been doing over the last few years 31 00:02:59.540 --> 00:03:01.820 in the context of the current climate change debate 32 00:03:01.820 --> 00:03:06.240 and how we can think about it going forward into next year and the years coming after that. 33 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.480 So I'd like to start with this photo. 34 00:03:09.940 --> 00:03:12.080 This is me in the Styx Valley in Tasmania. 35 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:14.140 Has anyone been to the Styx Valley before? 36 00:03:14.820 --> 00:03:15.780 There's a couple of hands. 37 00:03:16.600 --> 00:03:17.900 It's a beautiful place. 38 00:03:18.100 --> 00:03:20.680 Some of these trees are over 75 metres tall. 39 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:23.300 You have to lean back to see the very top of them. 40 00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:25.020 They've been there for over 400 years. 41 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:28.100 Since before Europeans even knew Australia existed. 42 00:03:28.900 --> 00:03:33.560 I was there in 2006 and I brought with me a book, Tim Flannery's The Weathermakers, 43 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:35.640 that a friend had told me you have to read this book. 44 00:03:36.020 --> 00:03:38.740 And I was reading it while we were camping in the Styx Valley. 45 00:03:39.140 --> 00:03:43.040 And it was this amazing contradiction of this ancient wilderness 46 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:45.840 and then this comprehensive account of climate change 47 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:51.120 and how we could fundamentally alter our civilisation and our planet in just one generation. 48 00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:54.620 So I returned home to where I live in Melbourne. 49 00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:56.200 Thinking about climate change. 50 00:03:56.440 --> 00:03:59.320 Thinking about all of the things that I'd read. 51 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:03.500 Thinking about the ways in which the earth could change. 52 00:04:03.660 --> 00:04:05.780 Whether it was mighty rivers drying up. 53 00:04:05.900 --> 00:04:07.880 Whether it was forests being damaged. 54 00:04:08.260 --> 00:04:10.680 And whether it was food becoming more scarce 55 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:14.940 and extreme weather becoming more frequent and more forceful. 56 00:04:15.160 --> 00:04:17.320 And I thought, you know, I have to do something. 57 00:04:17.420 --> 00:04:18.160 But what can I do? 58 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:21.080 And what it struck me was this sense of injustice. 59 00:04:21.300 --> 00:04:24.180 That the people that would suffer the most from climate change 60 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:25.020 would be the people that would suffer the most from climate change. 61 00:04:25.020 --> 00:04:27.000 And those that had contributed the least to the problems. 62 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:29.060 So those who are the youngest. 63 00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:30.840 Those who have not yet been born. 64 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:32.200 Those who are the poorest. 65 00:04:32.340 --> 00:04:35.060 And of course all of the other creatures that inhabit this earth with us. 66 00:04:36.020 --> 00:04:38.860 And so when I returned to Melbourne thinking about this, 67 00:04:39.400 --> 00:04:40.520 firstly I did nothing. 68 00:04:40.740 --> 00:04:42.140 I spent six months doing nothing. 69 00:04:42.780 --> 00:04:43.920 Worrying about climate change. 70 00:04:44.100 --> 00:04:45.560 Sometimes I'd wake up in the night thinking, 71 00:04:45.740 --> 00:04:47.700 oh no, what do I do? 72 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:48.880 I've got to be doing something. 73 00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:50.420 Feeling really guilty about it. 74 00:04:50.460 --> 00:04:52.420 But not having any sense of what it was I should do. 75 00:04:53.080 --> 00:04:54.760 I then went along to hear a presentation. 76 00:04:54.780 --> 00:04:55.000 And I thought, well, I've got to do something. 77 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:56.520 And I asked the question by a woman called Helen Caldicott, 78 00:04:56.640 --> 00:04:58.480 who had recently written a book on climate change. 79 00:04:58.780 --> 00:05:00.700 And after the presentation, I said to her, 80 00:05:02.140 --> 00:05:04.040 Helen, what should I do on climate change? 81 00:05:04.640 --> 00:05:07.260 And she said, well, Amanda, you know what? 82 00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:10.080 Governments and business aren't going to lead on this problem. 83 00:05:10.440 --> 00:05:12.040 They're not going to sort it out for us. 84 00:05:12.540 --> 00:05:14.440 Essentially, you need a public movement. 85 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.060 A movement of the many, rather than a powerful few, 86 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:18.480 if you want to change this. 87 00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:21.500 So you need to go out and start a youth movement on climate change. 88 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:24.440 Well, I thought this was probably the most unhelpful advice 89 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:28.240 I'd ever got. I thought, well, what do I know about public movements? I'm just a university 90 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:32.640 student. I don't know how to engage anyone. I don't even know how to engage myself on 91 00:05:32.640 --> 00:05:38.700 this. But I got in the car that night with my sister and said to her, told her what Helen 92 00:05:38.700 --> 00:05:43.760 had told me. And she said, well, why don't we just give it a go, starting out maybe giving 93 00:05:43.760 --> 00:05:48.400 presentations on climate change. So we started giving presentations in universities and schools 94 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:54.420 on climate change. This is way back in 2006 before Al Gore's movie had come out. And after 95 00:05:54.420 --> 00:06:00.080 we'd done these presentations to about 1,000 people, we got a call from Sydney from another 96 00:06:00.080 --> 00:06:04.540 group of young people that were doing a similar thing. They said, well, why don't we see if 97 00:06:04.540 --> 00:06:09.560 we can do something together? And the idea was that young people could provide some inspiration 98 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:14.020 and drive on this issue. And that if we brought youth organisations together from around the 99 00:06:14.020 --> 00:06:18.380 country, we could create a much larger constituency with which to create a more inclusive and 100 00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:19.920 inclusive environment, a more inclusive environment for young people. And that's what we did. 101 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:20.880 idea was that we could create a youth organisation that would be a voice for young people on 102 00:06:20.880 --> 00:06:26.700 climate change. And we created the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. And the mission of 103 00:06:26.700 --> 00:06:31.300 the organisation is to create a generation-wide movement to solve the climate crisis. So in 104 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:36.280 engaging youth organisations, we brought together medical students, architecture students, brought 105 00:06:36.280 --> 00:06:41.260 together youth organisations working on poverty alleviation and indigenous issues. All of 106 00:06:41.260 --> 00:06:45.040 these groups could agree that while they had diverse mandates, they had a core constituency 107 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:48.380 of young people that would be impacted by climate change. And therefore, they were able 108 00:06:48.380 --> 00:06:53.160 to do something about it. So this mission, mobilising our generation to solve the climate 109 00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:58.620 crisis, what we think that's all about is creating a public social movement to create 110 00:06:58.620 --> 00:07:04.000 the impetus for large-scale political change. So I suppose there's two aspects. One is creating 111 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.520 political change, and the other is creating longer-term cultural shifts in the community, 112 00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:14.620 which both push for that change and also accept and adapt to that change. Because as I said, 113 00:07:14.700 --> 00:07:18.100 the thing is governments aren't going to change unless the public pushes them to do so. 114 00:07:18.380 --> 00:07:23.200 And if we look at history, we'll find that social movements have been the things that 115 00:07:23.200 --> 00:07:30.800 have driven large-scale change in human history. In 2050, I'll be in my 60s. I'll be, I and 116 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:35.200 the rest of Generation Y will be a similar age to the decision-makers today that are 117 00:07:35.200 --> 00:07:40.100 making the decisions on climate change. And as a young person, I have a simple request. 118 00:07:40.640 --> 00:07:45.000 And the AYCC, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and all of its members have a simple 119 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:48.360 request. Essentially, to leave the planet, to leave the planet, to leave the planet, to 120 00:07:48.380 --> 00:07:53.640 leave the planet, to leave the planet. And this is a simple request. And it's a simple 121 00:07:53.640 --> 00:07:57.560 premise. And it's a premise of stewardship that has existed throughout the ages. But 122 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:01.780 it's actually a radical proposition when it then leads into what sort of policy shift 123 00:08:01.780 --> 00:08:06.960 we need in our community. If we want our children and our children's children to enjoy the beautiful 124 00:08:06.960 --> 00:08:13.020 Australia that we have, the prosperity and the peace and the beautiful places that we 125 00:08:13.020 --> 00:08:17.780 sometimes even take for granted, we have to significantly shift the way we do business. 126 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:23.320 So I think that request that I've mentioned resonates with Australians and resonates 127 00:08:23.320 --> 00:08:27.000 with generations of Australians that have tried to provide that better future for their 128 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:31.840 children, whether it's in education or whether it's in health. But climate change is one 129 00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:37.020 of those issues that just affects almost everything. So our mission's about inspiring our generation, 130 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:42.320 but also young people inspiring older generations and a community coming together to create 131 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:48.160 positive change. So to give you a sense of the AYCC, the sort of top-line statistics 132 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:52.840 that we've got, we've got a lot of statistics. In a short time, in five years now, we've 133 00:08:52.840 --> 00:09:00.040 grown to be 70,000 young people strong. We have 35 youth arms all over the country. There's 134 00:09:00.040 --> 00:09:07.100 an amazing youth hub in South Australia. And we have regular volunteers of 300 around the 135 00:09:07.100 --> 00:09:13.440 country that do about $2.7 million of volunteer hours per year for us, as well as thousands 136 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:18.100 of other volunteers around the country that participate. And we have a very much an online 137 00:09:18.160 --> 00:09:24.060 and offline integration. But online, we've engaged about 75,000 young people, and offline 138 00:09:24.060 --> 00:09:29.480 about 35,000 people over that period. And I wanted to tell you a little bit about why 139 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:33.260 it is that there's been this sort of rapid engagement in the organisation and what sort 140 00:09:33.260 --> 00:09:42.880 of activities we've done to engage young people. So the first one is PowerShift 2009. So the 141 00:09:42.880 --> 00:09:46.980 idea was when we got to the end of 2008, we'd been going for two years and we'd grown to 142 00:09:46.980 --> 00:09:47.780 5,000 members. 143 00:09:48.160 --> 00:09:52.220 But we decided to be really influential and impactful on the national stage. We would 144 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:56.440 need to rapidly grow to be one of the biggest youth organisations in the country. So our 145 00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:02.100 objective was to grow by tenfold. We didn't know how to do that. But we decided that the 146 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:06.140 first step, given we didn't have a lot of money or a lot of influence, was to get a 147 00:10:06.140 --> 00:10:09.740 whole lot of young people together that could do the work for us. Because essentially that's 148 00:10:09.740 --> 00:10:13.320 what social movements are all about. They're about a person getting out there and getting 149 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:16.360 their friends involved, getting their friends involved and getting their friends involved. 150 00:10:16.680 --> 00:10:18.140 So the first step was to get young people involved. And we did that. We did that in the 151 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:18.400 first year. 152 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:21.360 The second step was about bringing a group of people together that were already engaged. 153 00:10:21.660 --> 00:10:25.180 So this was PowerShift. It was bringing 1,500 young people together from all around the 154 00:10:25.180 --> 00:10:30.720 country that cared about the issue. And we motivated and inspired them by providing inspirational 155 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:35.760 and interesting speakers like Tim Flannery or Al Gore. We then trained young people to 156 00:10:35.760 --> 00:10:41.760 organise. So essentially it's some of those skills that you might think are obvious but 157 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:45.020 aren't necessarily things that are trained in our community. So something like how do 158 00:10:45.020 --> 00:10:48.140 you bring together a group? How do you facilitate a meeting? How do you get people involved? 159 00:10:48.160 --> 00:10:51.380 How do you create a project? Those are the sort of things that young people are trained 160 00:10:51.380 --> 00:10:56.260 in. And then everyone was connected with like-minded people. That's one of the most important things 161 00:10:56.260 --> 00:11:01.000 about a social movement is creating that social fabric that surrounds and supports an individual 162 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:05.900 to help them take action over time. The fourth thing was about creating a collective experience. 163 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:11.660 So this is a photo of one of the trainings. And then the next photo is of the collective 164 00:11:11.660 --> 00:11:16.420 experience. So this is a mass dance on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. You might 165 00:11:16.420 --> 00:11:17.820 think, well, that's a bit silly. 166 00:11:17.820 --> 00:11:22.060 Why are you dancing about climate change? This is a terrible problem. But essentially 167 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:26.700 what our premise is, is that this is a positive opportunity. This is an opportunity for us 168 00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:31.280 to think about how we create a better society and a better community. And so we were saying, 169 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:35.360 we're going to dance not just because we want to avoid the problem, but because we're willing 170 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:39.580 to do the work for the new green economy and we're willing to say we'll create a positive 171 00:11:39.580 --> 00:11:45.120 community in doing so. And that collective experience and collective moment was something 172 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.800 that then we could share with the world, both through the National Youth Forum and through 173 00:11:47.800 --> 00:11:53.060 the international media coverage that we received, but also through YouTube. So that went out 174 00:11:53.060 --> 00:11:58.180 to about 200,000 people pretty quickly on YouTube and allowed copycat dances to happen 175 00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:02.160 in Copenhagen and Malaysia, London and other places around the world. 176 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:07.880 So that experience of 1,000 people coming together was a very concrete and solidifying 177 00:12:07.880 --> 00:12:12.960 experience for the people that attended and helped them to look at the next steps, which 178 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.900 was all about how do you create a meaningful engagement for those 1,500 young people that 179 00:12:16.900 --> 00:12:17.780 allow us to grow. And so that's what we did. And then we also created a group of people, 180 00:12:17.800 --> 00:12:27.900 which was called Youth Decide, a national youth vote on climate change. So the idea 181 00:12:27.900 --> 00:12:32.320 was that you could vote online for the type of world that you would like to inherit, and 182 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:35.900 there were three different options for those worlds. But then on the ground engagement 183 00:12:35.900 --> 00:12:40.080 was about the young people that had come to PowerShift creating an event in their community, 184 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:44.540 whether it was a human sign, whether it was another dance, whether it was an event in 185 00:12:44.540 --> 00:12:47.780 their school library. You could do anything you liked, provided that you were a part of 186 00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:51.820 the group. And then you could vote online for the type of future that you wanted to 187 00:12:51.820 --> 00:12:56.360 inherit. So that sort of decentralised engagement was again going back to we don't have the 188 00:12:56.360 --> 00:12:59.900 money, all we have is the people. So we need the people to be able to have the tools to 189 00:12:59.900 --> 00:13:04.400 get out there and engage more and more and more people. So the decentralised model worked 190 00:13:04.400 --> 00:13:09.720 really well. And in six weeks, those 1,500 young people that came to PowerShift held 191 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:14.860 300 events around the country. So from Dubbo to Lismore to down in Victoria to Ballarat 192 00:13:14.860 --> 00:13:17.780 or Melbourne, over to Perth and of course here in South Australia. And so that's what we 193 00:13:17.780 --> 00:13:28.320 did. And then we mobilised 20,000 young people simultaneously offline and then another 40,000 194 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:35.580 young people online voting in this national event. So those are my steps of engagement 195 00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:41.540 that I talked about through PowerShift. So this is an event in Federation Square in Melbourne, 196 00:13:41.780 --> 00:13:47.140 a human sign at a school, a flash dance in Federation Square as well. 197 00:13:47.780 --> 00:13:51.900 And then we held one national event which was a big concert in Federation Square for 198 00:13:51.900 --> 00:13:56.440 5,000 young people that had come from all over Australia. And so through both of these 199 00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:01.280 projects, through the capacity for young people to get out there and have the framework in 200 00:14:01.280 --> 00:14:06.560 which to mobilise their peers, we did grow by over 50,000 members and now as I mentioned 201 00:14:06.560 --> 00:14:12.120 we're up to 70,000 members from all over Australia. And that platform, having that many voices 202 00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:16.400 behind you, then suddenly opens doors in Canberra that otherwise would have been closed to us. 203 00:14:16.620 --> 00:14:17.760 So whether it was the 204 00:14:17.780 --> 00:14:21.880 door to Penny Wong's office who was a climate minister at the time or Kevin Rudd or whether 205 00:14:21.880 --> 00:14:27.920 it was business leaders that also create the agenda or media leaders. And also it allowed 206 00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:32.280 us to take delegations to the United Nations Conference in Copenhagen and have an impact 207 00:14:32.280 --> 00:14:37.720 there as well. So the objective was to grow but to think about how the audience, the young 208 00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:42.420 people that we were trying to involve wanted to be engaged in the way that we were building 209 00:14:42.420 --> 00:14:47.000 our movement. So I wanted to just stop there and then illustrate 210 00:14:47.820 --> 00:14:52.400 so if that's how we grew the movement then how do we engage politically to create change? 211 00:14:52.760 --> 00:14:57.400 And we've done a range of different advocacy campaigns but I think the next one is one 212 00:14:57.400 --> 00:15:04.200 that tends to resonate and happened just last year. So take your minds back to the federal 213 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:08.140 election last year and if you can remember it was a pretty negative campaign overall. 214 00:15:09.820 --> 00:15:11.860 Potentially you could call it vacuous in my view. 215 00:15:12.760 --> 00:15:16.920 Essentially the debate on climate change around the election after the first couple of weeks had really gone 216 00:15:16.920 --> 00:15:21.780 silent. Neither of the major political parties wanted to talk about it. And we kept putting 217 00:15:21.780 --> 00:15:25.940 out press releases and doing stunts and ideas about young people and climate change and 218 00:15:26.680 --> 00:15:30.120 continually we'd hear from the media, young people aren't interesting for us in this debate 219 00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:34.020 and climate change isn't interesting for us in this debate. So we were a bit stumped. 220 00:15:34.060 --> 00:15:39.720 Like what do we talk about? That's kind of all of our issues. So we thought well if the 221 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:44.020 media's not going to come to us we're going to have to take our ideas and our concepts 222 00:15:44.020 --> 00:15:46.840 to the media. So of course the only option was to 223 00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:52.160 hire every elephant suit in Australia of which there are eight. You'd think there would be 224 00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:57.680 more perhaps. And we created this concept called the climate elephant. So the idea was 225 00:15:58.280 --> 00:16:01.660 that the climate elephant would chase Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard wherever they went 226 00:16:01.660 --> 00:16:07.560 in the country and would literally be the elephant in the room. So we and now with the 227 00:16:07.560 --> 00:16:12.620 sort of tools that we have available to us, Sky News and Twitter, we were able to know 228 00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:16.220 just pretty accurately where either leader was at any particular time. 229 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:21.480 And we had our volunteers on stand by ready to be mobilised at any point in time and get 230 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.140 into the elephant suit, race after one of the leaders and appear in the press conference. 231 00:16:27.060 --> 00:16:33.940 So this, this photograph is right after one of Julia's press, Julia Gillard's press conferences 232 00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:38.340 where she was presenting to the national media. So if you can imagine that you're the national 233 00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:43.680 press and I'm Julia Gillard and behind me is a big glass wall looking out over a green 234 00:16:43.680 --> 00:16:46.820 vista. And I'm making some sort of a policy announcement. So we had our volunteers on 235 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:49.840 and then over there in the corner outside the window 236 00:16:49.840 --> 00:16:51.580 is this elephant jumping around saying, 237 00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:54.580 Julia, you can't ignore me, climate change is too important 238 00:16:54.580 --> 00:16:57.340 and the national media goes from looking at the Prime Minister 239 00:16:57.340 --> 00:16:59.460 to looking at the climate elephant 240 00:16:59.460 --> 00:17:02.000 and that night the story in the national media 241 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:03.380 wasn't that policy announcement, 242 00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:06.660 it was the climate elephant arrives at Julia's press conference 243 00:17:06.660 --> 00:17:08.420 and has something to say about climate change 244 00:17:08.420 --> 00:17:10.580 and received a pat afterwards. 245 00:17:12.140 --> 00:17:14.100 This is a spot the elephant slide. 246 00:17:15.520 --> 00:17:18.680 So there's Tony Abbott and there's the elephant 247 00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:22.740 and so the idea was that wherever the elephant was, 248 00:17:22.940 --> 00:17:24.440 he'd be prompting journalists to ask, 249 00:17:24.560 --> 00:17:27.360 well, Tony, the elephant is here in the room again, 250 00:17:27.580 --> 00:17:29.300 what's your policy on climate change? 251 00:17:29.740 --> 00:17:31.540 And getting those questions asked 252 00:17:31.540 --> 00:17:33.280 where otherwise they wouldn't have been asked. 253 00:17:34.620 --> 00:17:39.100 So the elephant made lots of friends along the way 254 00:17:40.460 --> 00:17:42.880 and he made friends with journalists as well 255 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:44.080 so there was a lot of media coverage 256 00:17:44.100 --> 00:17:45.700 over the couple of days. 257 00:17:45.880 --> 00:17:47.260 Gives you sort of a rough sense 258 00:17:47.260 --> 00:17:49.940 but he was called by the Financial Review 259 00:17:49.940 --> 00:17:52.480 as one of the minor celebrities of the campaign trail. 260 00:17:54.060 --> 00:17:57.080 And on election eve, the Prime Minister tweeted us 261 00:17:57.080 --> 00:17:59.200 and says, if I win the election, 262 00:18:00.140 --> 00:18:02.460 you have a standing invitation to come and meet with me 263 00:18:02.460 --> 00:18:03.760 for a chat and a cuddle. 264 00:18:04.440 --> 00:18:05.940 She did, of course, win the election 265 00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:08.340 and so we left a month or so grace 266 00:18:08.340 --> 00:18:10.200 and then we sat a call in the office 267 00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:12.100 trying to organise when that meeting would be. 268 00:18:12.300 --> 00:18:13.260 And this, I think, 269 00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:14.080 example really is that we had a meeting with the Prime Minister 270 00:18:14.080 --> 00:18:16.680 and she really illustrates the power of the youth community 271 00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:18.980 but particularly a technologically advanced community 272 00:18:18.980 --> 00:18:20.920 to have an impact in democracy 273 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:25.300 because we'd followed up with her office consistently 274 00:18:25.300 --> 00:18:27.280 and we'd just sort of been brushed off. 275 00:18:27.600 --> 00:18:30.100 And so we thought, well, we really want this meeting 276 00:18:30.100 --> 00:18:32.180 so let's send out an email to part of our database. 277 00:18:32.360 --> 00:18:35.080 Our database of about 60,000 people at the time. 278 00:18:35.100 --> 00:18:36.460 Let's just send it to 10,000 people 279 00:18:36.460 --> 00:18:39.120 and ask them to tweet on Julia Gillard's page. 280 00:18:39.580 --> 00:18:44.060 So within an hour, 700 people had tweeted on Julia Gillard's page. 281 00:18:44.060 --> 00:18:45.620 Julia Gillard's Facebook, Twitter page saying, 282 00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:48.220 Julia, when are you going to meet with the climate elephant? 283 00:18:48.540 --> 00:18:51.480 And of course, the national media follows Julia Gillard on Twitter 284 00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:55.680 and they're seeing this deluge of climate elephant-related tweets on her page. 285 00:18:55.900 --> 00:18:57.540 And so they start calling us saying, 286 00:18:59.080 --> 00:19:00.480 what's this climate elephant's demands? 287 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:02.200 What's the climate elephant going to say? 288 00:19:02.300 --> 00:19:03.360 Where is the climate elephant? 289 00:19:03.880 --> 00:19:05.940 And of course, they're calling Julia Gillard's office 290 00:19:05.940 --> 00:19:07.760 asking when are you going to meet with the climate elephant? 291 00:19:08.080 --> 00:19:10.940 So another hour goes by and we get a call from the Prime Minister's office 292 00:19:10.940 --> 00:19:13.800 saying, let's set in stone when that meeting's going to be. 293 00:19:14.420 --> 00:19:17.200 So you just think, how many times in human history 294 00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:20.940 have 700 young people, roughly half of voting age, 295 00:19:21.060 --> 00:19:22.420 half of non-voting age, 296 00:19:22.580 --> 00:19:24.180 been able to have a public conversation 297 00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:25.640 with the sitting Prime Minister of the day 298 00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:28.500 and within two hours got an outcome that they were looking for? 299 00:19:29.420 --> 00:19:31.260 I don't think it's ever happened before. 300 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:34.320 And it just shows you the capacity of this sort of technology. 301 00:19:36.620 --> 00:19:40.600 So this is when Gillard agreed to meet the climate elephant. 302 00:19:41.340 --> 00:19:43.380 But Van Jones describes, 303 00:19:44.060 --> 00:19:46.540 young people today as being technological superpowers. 304 00:19:46.660 --> 00:19:47.520 And really all of us are. 305 00:19:47.620 --> 00:19:50.500 If we have an iPhone or an iPad, 306 00:19:50.780 --> 00:19:52.620 we have more technology in our back pocket 307 00:19:52.620 --> 00:19:55.000 than the US had when they sent a man to the moon. 308 00:19:55.380 --> 00:19:58.800 And you think, let's imagine if we could use that technology 309 00:19:58.800 --> 00:20:01.620 not just as toys for social engagement, 310 00:20:01.820 --> 00:20:03.100 but for social change. 311 00:20:03.520 --> 00:20:06.440 There's a huge amount of capacity there that hasn't yet been realised 312 00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:09.340 and will certainly be played out in the coming years. 313 00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:13.140 So I wanted to then, 314 00:20:14.060 --> 00:20:14.740 take us to, 315 00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:17.860 talking a little bit about 316 00:20:19.180 --> 00:20:21.880 the debate on climate change that exists at the moment. 317 00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:23.300 I'm just going to flip over that one. 318 00:20:24.780 --> 00:20:27.820 So I think the current debate you could safely characterise 319 00:20:27.820 --> 00:20:29.160 is about these sort of things. 320 00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:31.520 I think it's a very, very negative space 321 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:34.780 and it exists predominantly as a first premise on trust. 322 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:38.220 So there's been a debate around the science of climate change 323 00:20:38.220 --> 00:20:39.780 and whether the science can be trusted. 324 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.080 But then there's a debate, a political debate, 325 00:20:42.300 --> 00:20:43.700 about which side of politics, 326 00:20:43.700 --> 00:20:45.100 can be trusted on climate change. 327 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:46.440 And indeed, if anyone can be trusted. 328 00:20:46.760 --> 00:20:48.080 And over the last few years, 329 00:20:48.100 --> 00:20:50.600 it's been increasingly and increasingly politicised 330 00:20:50.600 --> 00:20:52.000 and the major parties are divided. 331 00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:54.880 It's interesting because there is this characterisation 332 00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:56.820 of so much division between the major parties. 333 00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:58.500 But actually, they agree on a lot. 334 00:20:58.840 --> 00:21:02.220 Both major parties agree that the climate is changing 335 00:21:02.220 --> 00:21:03.560 and we need to do something about it. 336 00:21:03.860 --> 00:21:05.420 We do hear rumblings, of course. 337 00:21:05.820 --> 00:21:09.240 But in their policy, that's what both parties say. 338 00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:11.520 Secondly, they've both made the same commitment 339 00:21:11.520 --> 00:21:13.380 to reduce emissions by 5%. 340 00:21:13.700 --> 00:21:16.360 So the real debate is over what policy mechanism 341 00:21:16.360 --> 00:21:20.300 we use to address the problem and reduce emissions to 5%. 342 00:21:20.300 --> 00:21:22.100 And within that policy parameter, 343 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:25.160 both parties claim to want a market mechanism to do so. 344 00:21:25.300 --> 00:21:27.620 And then there's a debate around which sort of market mechanism. 345 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:31.960 So in terms of the amount of division that we hear in the media, 346 00:21:32.080 --> 00:21:34.480 it's not actually illustrated by the policy dynamic 347 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:36.780 that exists between the two major parties. 348 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:40.720 But similarly to other issues where there is... 349 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:42.460 ..it's characterised by a partisan debate, 350 00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:43.500 it's not actually... 351 00:21:43.500 --> 00:21:43.680 ..that enhances... 352 00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:45.080 ..that inherently moves through the community. 353 00:21:45.360 --> 00:21:48.460 And it's difficult when there's a complex issue like this of policy 354 00:21:48.460 --> 00:21:53.260 that no one person can probably appreciate all of the aspects of. 355 00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:56.480 And of the average citizen looking at such a complex debate, 356 00:21:56.800 --> 00:21:58.360 when there's bipartisan agreement, 357 00:21:58.580 --> 00:22:00.500 you're much more likely to go along and say, 358 00:22:00.600 --> 00:22:03.740 well, yeah, if both sides agree, it's probably right, let's go ahead. 359 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:06.620 But when there's division, you often get the community saying, 360 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:08.440 well, actually, I'm now a bit uncertain 361 00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:11.080 and I don't really know what the best outcome is. 362 00:22:12.340 --> 00:22:13.660 So climate change should be a part of the debate. 363 00:22:13.660 --> 00:22:16.160 It shouldn't be a progressive issue or a conservative issue. 364 00:22:16.340 --> 00:22:19.600 It should be an issue for all of us together to work out how to solve. 365 00:22:19.980 --> 00:22:23.340 So it's been a shame, I think, that it's been politicised in that way 366 00:22:23.340 --> 00:22:25.120 and it certainly doesn't have to be. 367 00:22:25.320 --> 00:22:28.220 But particularly, there's this characterisation, 368 00:22:28.300 --> 00:22:29.520 particularly of the extreme right, 369 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:32.480 which says that climate change doesn't fit with my ideology 370 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:34.300 and therefore it can't be true. 371 00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:37.680 And we see this coming through the media consistently 372 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:39.580 and it's, I think, a big problem 373 00:22:39.580 --> 00:22:42.680 because it's not in any way based on fact. 374 00:22:42.760 --> 00:22:43.640 It's based on ideology. 375 00:22:43.660 --> 00:22:44.200 It's based on ideology and belief 376 00:22:44.200 --> 00:22:46.460 rather than being based on science. 377 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:49.640 So going back to the issue of trust, 378 00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:54.160 I think that climate change has now even been further politicised 379 00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:56.000 by being caught up in what it means, 380 00:22:56.080 --> 00:22:57.860 whether the government is a success 381 00:22:57.860 --> 00:22:59.220 or whether the government's a failure, 382 00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:01.680 because it's one of the few issues 383 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:04.220 that the government is ultimately being judged on. 384 00:23:04.500 --> 00:23:06.880 So whether the carbon price goes through 385 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:09.780 is one of the issues the government will be judged on, 386 00:23:09.860 --> 00:23:13.520 but the carbon price is also caught up in being conflated 387 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:14.720 with the science of climate change. 388 00:23:15.020 --> 00:23:17.460 So if you don't trust where the policy is going, 389 00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:19.420 that means that it often leads to people 390 00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:21.600 not then trusting the science as much. 391 00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:23.500 And if the politicians disagree, 392 00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:25.880 well, then, is this really an issue for us anyway? 393 00:23:26.260 --> 00:23:28.420 So the trust issue, I think, is very important. 394 00:23:28.600 --> 00:23:30.160 And the politicised nature of the debate 395 00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:32.100 means people get frightened to speak out. 396 00:23:32.280 --> 00:23:34.760 You don't want to talk about it as much at a dinner party 397 00:23:34.760 --> 00:23:38.100 if it's something that you might have a strong disagreement on. 398 00:23:38.300 --> 00:23:40.540 When in contrast to the things that I've spoken about earlier, 399 00:23:40.600 --> 00:23:42.420 this could be a wonderful opportunity for Australia 400 00:23:42.420 --> 00:23:43.500 and could be an opportunity... 401 00:23:43.520 --> 00:23:45.480