Political Will vs Political Won’t
Who we are and what we want.
We are normal people who have had enough. In our ranks are whistleblowers, ex-NT Government workers and current NT public servants. So far.
The time for whingeing and stating the obvious online is over. We must act, otherwise nothing will change and we’ll keep being served up the same crappy political fare over and over again.
Our vision is to create a new political party, founded on shared moral and ethical values, to take on and defeat both current main parties in the Northern Territory.
This new party will be called:
Change For Better.
We will finally offer Territorians a working and sustainable alternative to the corrupt Clown Show we have at the moment and have had for years.
This party (or coalition, more on that later) will field a candidate in every electorate at the next NT election in August 2028. We aim to win them all.
The ALP and the CLP have had a stranglehold on the NT political landscape for many many years. Due to this, the corruption of political life has increased greatly. In fact it is so bad now that people have just given up. With no viable alternatives, they feel helpless and impotent.
And that’s exactly what the ALP and CLP want you to feel because without a real political competitor they know that you will either disengage from the process – leaving the diehard supporters to put them back into power – or flip flop between the 2 of them every 4 years, meaning that one of them is guaranteed to take the reigns of power again.
In our opinion, and as we have all witnessed especially during the last decade, the ALP is really no different to the CLP. They both appear to have encouraged and rewarded the following:
nepotism, corruption, blatant rorting, fraud, bullying, racist police, favours for mates, secret contracts, financial mismanagement, broken relationships with our First Nations people, legislative decay, judicial misconduct, cover ups, environmental vandalism, declining health outcomes, incompetence, societal breakdown, out of control crime and domestic violence epidemics, substandard housing, secret lobbying power, dark money and dysfunctional government across all sectors.
We believe this is not accidental, the system is the way it is because that’s the way they want it to be. It suits their agenda, it suits their mates who make money from it being a mess and they can simply blame the previous party for the most damaged bits.
We aim to repair this completely broken system by building from the base upwards, by appointing people who can showcase honesty, integrity and moral behaviour in their politics. People with strength and passion for righting all of these wrongs we see. Who aim to strengthen and support our institutions so that they can do their job properly of keeping government accountable by enforcing laws and policies or changing them to better ones if need be.
We will encourage and engage with ethical individuals and local groups in order to provide and field candidates who, when voted into Parliament, will not conduct themselves for their own benefit first, as the ALP and CLP appear to do.
If they revert to behaving like the candidates of the 2 main parties, they will be released from ours. We have strict guidelines for expected behaviour that we will enforce to keep our party and its ambassadors/candidates transparent and accountable to those who put them into power: The Tax Paying Public (along with the huge salary and benefits package that same Public pays for).
Party first, coalition second.
We firmly believe that only a new political party can become strong enough and powerful enough to challenge the current big 2.
Independent candidates are too easily isolated and marginalised. It’s the same for the Greens. The big 2 love the status quo because it means there is always one or the other in power every 4 years.
Therefore, there is a desperate and pressing need for a new vision, a new politics, here in the NT. We have 3 and a half years from today to bring this new vision to fruition.
However, as we are an open minded group, there is a second road that might be beneficial to explore. That is, a coalition of similarly minded candidates and ideas for Change all under the one umbrella.
From the common ground of shared values and outcomes for Territorians we would be prepared to open discussions with Independents and Greens candidates to see how we could combine votes to maintain our individual political positions while at the same time defeating the 2 main parties.
We would call this coalition: CFBIG.
A quick glance at the 2024 NT Election results is telling:
There were 20 Independents and 11 Greens standing in total – only 4 out of those 31 were elected, the rest of the seats went to the 2 big parties!
There were 8 electorates where a Green AND an Independent stood and ultimately they mostly split the vote to their own detriment.
There were 17 electorates where either an Independent or a Green or a combination stood.
Now imagine a new way to approach this. We believe that Change For Better could incorporate those Independent views and candidates as well as the Greens (either as new Party members/candidates or as a collaboration).
We also believe that with proper engagement and education of our policy direction and values in public life we could easily begin to encourage membership of the two main parties to leave them behind and join us.
To join us for a real and lasting Change, For Better politicians, For Better governance, For Better outcomes, For Better financial management, For Better work environments, For Better standard of living for every single Territorian, For Better policing, For Better Education, For Better decision making throughout NT Government, For Better justice and For waaaaaay Better expectations.
Political Will vs Political Won’t.
The people in power can change whatever they want, whoever they want, whenever they want, without too much trouble or resistance, especially when you have a legislative majority such as the CLP does at the moment.
The best example of this is the current ICAC disaster. It is this bad because both main parties want it to be.
Its present incarnation, including employing NT Government appointees, family members and mates, is purposefully starved of the money it needs to be truly effective. Plagued by scandal after scandal, infused with ineptitude and almost tragicomical levels of incompetence.
The result of this mayhem is the protection of the guilty in Government and beyond and more millions of dollars flushed down the toilet.
Why isn’t it Better? Why doesn’t it work properly? Because the people with the power to change it don’t want it to.
This is the textbook definition of: Political Won’t.
Then there’s the latest massive fraud of the Indigenous Employment Provision Scheme (IEPS).
On their watch, this was ignored by ALP, we say on purpose: Another example of Political Won’t.
It should be the No.1 priority of the Territory Government and their army of lawyers to get all that money back and to aggressively prosecute the thieves.
Think of all the positive contributions to our society that $60 million (which we were deliberately defrauded of) could fund.
So why is ICAC going after the lowest hanging fruit public servants who throw a few sickies and change their FOIL arrangements at no financial gain to themselves and not chasing down the government employees and contractors involved in the massive corruption of this scheme? More Political Won’t.
Next steps:
We have, and we’re sure you have it too, the Political Will to eradicate all of those sickening derelictions of duty we mentioned before (nepotism etc) and put revised or new legislation and proper enforcement vehicles in place to make sure they never return to the NT.
We want Better collaboration to solve local problems, including through participatory budgeting to empower those communities.
We want Justice Reinvestment schemes to be the norm, not something no one has heard of.
We want to completely open up Government decision making accountability through new legislation, if necessary, so the NT citizenry is fully informed, not kept in the dark (think of the recent “half-arsed” lobbyist register – it took that long to create because the powerful and their rich friends didn’t want one; when finally forced to create one they dished up this Political Won’t shit sandwich for us).
We want to build an authentic, prominent and permanent Change For Better from the ground up but we need your help.
Remember: we have the system we have because it is the one we are willing to tolerate.
There are a variety of political systems around the world that work for their citizens. If we want a different one that works better for us here in the NT then we have to fight for it. We have to actively force that Change, For Better representation. They don’t want to give up the one that suits them obviously.
It’s a fightback For Better.
First off, to register our new political party we need 200 paid members. We’re offering them for $1 each per annum until the next election in 2028 for the first 200 people to email us with their details.
All others get it for $20 per annum until the next election in 2028.