BREAZE

In the wake of Kevin Rudd's climate backflip, a wave of reaction erupted from the BREAZE membership, all in the direction of Catherine King's office - and it was not happy, Jan!

Dozens of members called her office and sent emails expressing dismay at the decision to delay a carbon price for another 3 years. Many also asked for a carbon levy to be introduced immediately to fill the gap left by the doomed CPRS.

So, fantastic effort BREAZErs! Its critical that our local representative knows that climate change remains a central issue for voters in her electorate. We met with Catherine King this week and she confirmed that this mission was well and truly achieved.

Some of these letters followed the request in the last BREAZE newsletter, some came from a calling campaign we ran where we called members and asked them to ring Catherine's office, some were inspired by a GetUp! campaign that ran at the same time and some people just did it because it was giving them pains in the tummy holding on to their ill-feeling.

If you would like to be part of this kind of campaign in the future, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it on 5329 1730 and we'll make sure you're part of the action next time around.

This call also echoed into the offices of ALP members across the country with GetUp! registering 2,200 calls. So we were definitely part of something much bigger than Ballarat.

You can see some excerpts from the letters below, headed off by Ballarat Grammar headmaster, Stephen Higgs, who wins the award for the biggest audience for his letter - the parents of his 1350 students. Great work Stephen!

So does that mean Rudd will do what we ask him now? I wish I could say yes. But the reality is that people who care about climate change, while they are working in groups like ours all over the country, still don't have the political clout to tell our politicians what to do. And as the last year has shown, until we get that clout we will keep getting served substandard political outcomes that ignore the calls of increasingly distressed scientists to act urgently on climate.

Which leads me on to....

Fancy a weekend at the beach?

Why not join a handful of BREAZErs and come to the Organising Community Change Weekend in Anglesea on Sat 29th - Sun 30th May?

Excerpts from some letters sent to Catherine King

Morality

I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister’s condemnation in November last year of those who sought to defer emissions trading: “What absolute political cowardice. What absolute failure of leadership. What absolute failure of logic. The inescapable logic of this approach is that if every nation makes the decision not to act until others have done so, then no nation will ever act.”

I also agree with the Prime Minister that this is the great moral issue of our time. Bishop Michael has underlined this himself with resolute personal action to raise the profile of the debate on climate change. And this has implications for our values education in schools. One of the biggest challenges we as educators face is to empower young people with the courage to do the right thing, even when others around them are doing wrong. And yet now on the national stage, the leaders of both major political parties say that we, as the world’s worst per capita carbon polluters, should do the right thing only if and when other nations resolve to do it first. Can we blame young people if at times some seem to have lost the moral compass?

Stephen Higgs, Headmaster of Ballarat Grammar

I have been very happy voting for you in past elections, but sadly this year, given recent decisions and in-action by the government, I will not be voting for you.

In particular,  I am saddened by the governments lack of action of Climate Change....   My utter disappointment is that the government who gave us ….hope has now seemingly given up.

Michael Poulton

Polls may suggest that the Climate-discussion is over because citizens say they don’t have confidence that the ETS is the issue of the day.  Be careful though that the true picture is perhaps that they have given up altogether on the two largest parties and have decided to simply wait until the chance to make their ‘groundwater’ statement by voting for the Greens to make their feelings heard and counted in a meaningful way.

Sonya Macdonald

Rather than procrastinating and putting decisions off or having complex legislation defeated in paliament, a simple carbon tax …. would be a "fair dinkum" way to have a go at doing something which is "do-able".

Please do something for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

I would be greatful if you could let me know what you will do for me as the Federal Member for Ballarat that would address my concern.

Rene de Jong

Fantastic effort to all those who contacted Catherine's office!