Shane Rattenbury announces 2024 ACT Greens candidates

There will be nine lead candidates for the party in next year's election.

Transcript

00:00 And we are putting forward 10 lead candidates this election compared to six last election.

00:06 This is because we've seen through this term with six MLAs the ACT Greens can make a significant

00:11 difference for our community.

00:13 Our community knows that having Greens in the Assembly makes a concrete difference.

00:17 The policies we took to the last election have become part of the government's agenda

00:21 this term.

00:22 We've had three Greens ministers in cabinet rolling out that platform and our three crossbench

00:28 members actively pursuing other policy issues from the crossbench.

00:31 I know the community has really seen that impact.

00:33 They've seen the difference the pressure can make of having six Greens there working across

00:39 a whole range of issues.

00:42 Clearly there's a long way to go until next year's election and today is not about launching

00:45 policies but it is clear from talking to our own members, talking to a range of community

00:50 stakeholders and the many conversations that we have with the public that there are big

00:55 issues out there that our community is concerned about.

00:59 Climate change continues of course to be a fundamental driver for our political party.

01:03 Canberra's made enormous progress with the presence of the Greens in the Assembly.

01:05 We are now recognised as a world leading jurisdiction on climate action and all of our candidates

01:11 are committed to pursuing that agenda.

01:12 But we also know there are other important issues out there.

01:16 Housing continues to be a big pressure point in the ACT.

01:19 We have been working on a number of policies.

01:20 We've made some statements this year.

01:21 We've made progress in this Assembly but we know there's much more to do.

01:25 And similarly the cost of living increases are really heightening the inequality crisis

01:30 we see growing in Australia and in this city.

01:34 We know that government has a really clear role to play to step in to address inequality.

01:40 It's not saying you can leave to the market.

01:41 The market's got us to where we are and we know there needs to be a deliberate role from

01:45 government to address the growing inequality in our community.

01:49 That's saying that all of these candidates are passionately committed to.

01:53 They want to force the pace of change.

01:56 They want to see the pace of progress speed up because these are big challenges, big questions

02:01 that require bold and decisive action and that's something that our party is really

02:05 committed to.

02:06 And you'll see as we announce our policies over the coming 10 or 11 months up to the

02:10 election a clear understanding of the scale of the issues that we face and the need for

02:15 decisive and bold policies that tackle these.

02:18 Not tinkering around the edges, not sort of trying to adjust and gradually sort things

02:23 out but to really take steps forward and tackle inequality, tackle climate change, get the

02:28 scale of housing that we need built in our city.

02:31 Thank you.

02:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]