Sunday Is For Campaigning
Sunday was another strong campaigning day. We had candidate workshops at the Greens office and our public education forum later in the day also attracted a big crowd.
I had to leave the candidates workshop early. Lesa, our campaign coordinator, told me that all up we had just over 30 in attendance including 19 candidates from across the state. Their enthusiasm and focus on the campaign provided quite a buzz to the day's events. We touched on critical issues of climate change, refugees, the mining tax and a number of local issues. It was an opportunity for campaign teams to polish up on their social networking, media work and public speaking with our campaign staff holding a range of skill sharing sessions. In the early evening we moved onto the Mori Gallery for our forum – Tip the Balance for Public Education. Many delegates from the NSW Teachers Federation Conference dropped in for a drink and to check out what the Greens are up to. John Kaye, the Greens NSW education spokesperson introduced the event, and then I had the opportunity to speak on one of my favourite topics – public education. It was widely agreed that this is a critical election for public education as both the Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott are pushing the same destructive plan to reframe the debate to make out that public and private schools should be treated the same. Thanks to everyone who joined us and added their name to our growing list of volunteers to assist with the election campaign. Thanks to Lynn Joslynn, Kilty O'Gorman, Col Charlton, Malcolm Crook for all their work in making this event such a success. And particular thanks to Steve Mori - having his gallery for Greens events is such a boon.
