We can make lutruwita (Tasmania) a better place

Please help me get elected to Tasmania’s State Parliament, as an Independent, at our next election. I believe, through this, we can do some very important things.

Before reading any of the following, there’s something I must ask. If you’re unwilling or unable to put your name to your donation, please DON’T DONATE. This is how seriously I view the issue of political donations. I’m a huge supporter of strong political donations laws and can’t accept anonymous donations, as grateful as I am. While I truly appreciate your silent support, I seriously prefer we stand side by side, openly fighting for what’s right. Together, we create a voice and change. I will re-donate any anonymous donations to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary’s Project RECAP, to establish full veterinary hospital facilities for our many injured and recued wild creatures – so you know it goes to a cause I believe does so much for the future wellbeing of Tasmania’s wildlife. Now…

I’m currently doing something with huge potential for good, but I can’t really do this without your strong support. For those of you who’ve crazy busy lives, or who live outside Tasmania, here’s the opportunity to be part of achieving an important thing. It’s all tied up with Tasmania’s next State election. To explain…

In 1998, Tasmania’s two major political parties passed legislation to reduce the size of the House of Assembly, from 35 to 25 seats. Basically, to make sure pesky little parties and Independents couldn’t upset the status quo. To codify a government system operating in the interests of cronyism and factions. It worked, for them, but it hasn’t worked for lutruwita/Tasmania – we’ve had twenty-five years of dysfunction, Premiers unable to establish workable Cabinets and Ministers wearing too many hats to have any real clue about their portfolios. A disaster for our island. Now, they’ve finally admitted it needs fixing.

Tasmania’s House of Assembly election must occur by the middle of 2025, but it is likely to be much sooner - probably around the beginning of 2024. The Lower House returning to 35 seats represents the biggest opportunity Tasmania’s ever had to create government for all Tasmanians – by reining in the current “for your mates” style of government based on cronyism and factionalism. We can do this. The next election offers us the best chance, in this island’s history, to change this system.

By electing Independents.

Enough progressive Independents will ensure the government can’t continue to avoid all those things successive Tasmanian governments have done their damnedest to not do – like strong political donations laws, transparency and accountability legislation and truth in political advertising laws, for starters.

So Parliament must do what its members are elected to do – work for all Tasmanians, rather than keeping donors, cronies and factions happy. If we seriously want to effectively address all that’s not working on this island, and it’s a long list, I believe we need to change this way of governing first.

I’m thoroughly enjoying my current work, have absolutely no desire for a political career, but I know I can do a couple of very important things, as one of these Independents.

For the past two decades, I’ve been a national LGBTIQA+ advocate and lobbyist, stand-up comic, briefly dead, a ghost tour guide, book in a Human Library and a Federal election candidate. For the past six years, I’ve also been writing – with some small successes – for television and the big screen. All of this has gifted me the experiences I need to be a very good Independent MP, so I’ve decided to put my plans and career on hold.

Not only can I manage a pile of different tasks while talking under wet concrete, but I also know the system very well. For the past two decades, I’ve walked the “Corridors of Power” - in Canberra and Hobart - as a very successful advocate and lobbyist. I was a founding member of Australian Marriage Equality, the organisation at the forefront of the national marriage equality campaign. And one of a very small lobby group, who spent six years achieving changes to passport regulations to enable trans and gender-diverse Australians to travel overseas more safely. In Tasmania, I’ve been a member of five government Departmental reference groups, including a whole-of-government advisory group; lobbied successfully for reforms to the Anti-Discrimination Act; and, over fifteen years, led a campaign which achieved the world’s most inclusive birth certificate legislation. I know how this system works.

Along with disrupting the way parliament currently does government, I’ve another important reason for standing. I’m transgender, and Australia has never got around to electing a trans parliamentarian; ever. It’d be wonderful to live in a world where my gender identity was irrelevant, but I don’t – and it isn’t. Sadly, we live in times where, around the world, legislatures are tabling hundreds of bills aimed at winding back - or removing entirely - the rights of trans and gender-diverse people to just get on with Life. My ego aside, me entering Parliament would not only be a massive message of inclusion to all trans and gender-diverse Australians, but to every Australian rainbow community. It’s way bigger than me.

And recent news in nipaluna/Hobart suggests electing a trans MP could become an even more important message. It seems a very vocal anti-trans Councillor - who’s previously made a point of never joining a political party - has just become a member of the Liberal Party’s Clark branch. I can’t imagine this isn’t connected to pre-selection plans; makes no sense, otherwise. It’s a different electorate, but my candidacy is a valuable counterpoint to this likely situation.

I might be the one putting my hand up for the task, but I can’t do this alone. It needs your support. We, together, create change. And I badly need your donations – twenty-plus years of advocacy has left me with no money spare for an election campaign. To do this campaign seriously, I need your donations.

I do have the support of the Local Network – a group I’ve previously described as “a bit like Climate 200, except more progressive and without the Holmes à Court millions.” Aligning myself with this group gives me the ballot-paper advantages political parties enjoy and a structure to build my campaign team around, but nobody’s telling me what my policies need to be. They checked me out, liked what they saw, and agreed to support me. What more could an Independent trans candidate ask for?

Money. I’m asking for your financial support. Election campaigns cost big time, to do properly. All funds received will be spent solely on actual campaign expenses, with any unspent funds donated to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary.

As mentioned above… yes, I’m the one putting my hand up, but we are the ones who can achieve some truly significant things here.