Opportunities for a better, greener future
NSW Greens MP Abigail Boyd and Helena Norberg-Hodge from Local Futures present ideas for a post-COVID future, where quality of life for people and the planet takes centre-stage and all community members are active participants rather than passive consumers.
Abigail Boyd proposes a Universal Wellbeing Payment to eliminate poverty. Paired with a Jobs Guarantee, this gives us real choices. Whether you participate through community service, artistic endeavour, caring for country, learning and teaching, building, farming or entertainment or something else Abigail says you can always have enough to live a good life. Abigail’s UWP could open up opportunities for amazing new possibilities.
When COVID hit, government assistance increased almost immediately. Even the Liberals recognised that they could not leave the population at the mercy of the market. Now, assistance is being reduced and we are moving back towards a normal where being un/underemployed or on a pension can mean living in poverty. What if we didn’t go back there?
Helena Norberg-Hodge, author and founder of Local Futures, presents a vision of how we can truly “think globally, act locally”. With a perspective that comes from many decades of on-the-ground work in various countries, she points out how the worldwide movement for economic localisation is strengthening community cohesion and leading to greater human health and material wellbeing, all while reducing resource-use and reversing the devastation of the natural world. Helena is committed to generating widespread grassroots awareness of the need to reverse the deregulation of global trade and the need to shift taxes and subsidies to support “small-scale on a large scale”.
Presented by the Greens NSW Political Education Trust (GPET).
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