Have you ever considered running for Parliament?

If so, and you haven’t, what’s stopped you?

I ask because it would be great to see more diversity in Parliament.

So, another question, how could we reform our political system to make it attractive and accessible to a greater diversity of people?

I like the idea of multi-member electorates. And greater community input into policy through deliberative democracy processes.

It’s so easy to think of our system as immutable, but we totally could change it. It really feels as though it’s past time we did.

Ok. I’m not ignoring you and all of your excellent insights. I just need to go to sleep. It’s almost 9:30pm guys!

Okay, so if the barriers went so absurd, what would be your policy agenda? (I know it’s early on a Sat morning, you can get back to this later...)

I’d push for a massive expansion of the social safety net. Housing, UBI, dental care in Medicare... Start the process of good faith treaty-making with Indigenous communities. Stop treating health & social problem as criminal issues.

Invest in transitioning workers out of fossil fuel industries. Invest in renewables and decarbonising the economy.

I also think we need to completely rethink our education system - the one-size-fits-all model imposed from above, the casualisation... It could be far more inclusive - of culture, of neurodiversity, of diverse sexuality and gender identification.

Oh, and reforming IR to dramatically reduce insecure work. Casualisation should be the exception not the norm.