What a win!

Local climate action benefits the whole community

Kew Rec Centre

During this period it became more and more obvious that community members were increasingly frustrated with the lack of action on the Kew Rec Centre, still sitting static, stuck in dispute. Council refused to budge on the gas boiler situation, even though aquatic centres like Brimbank were saving ratepayers millions over a five year period. So local groups put together a petition, a flyer, took to the streets, and gathered nearly 1000 names.

Lighter Footprints Convenor Lynn Frankes said “Kew Rec Centre was a key issue in this election in a number of wards. When we were petitioning against gas in the Kew Rec Centre people were really disparaging about Council’s failure to get the centre back on track. Many were in disbelief that Council would be proceeding with plans to use gas boilers.”

The petition was taken to a Council meeting on the 26th August, with Ray Peck making the case for going electric on emissions and David Strang on cost.

Local Candidates 

We were pleased that two Lighter Footprints members nominated for for Council. Michael Nolan announced his candidacy for Bellevue Ward, resigning from the Lighter Footprints Committee, and Sophie Torney, a leader in Electrify Boroondara, but also from our Forests working group, who nominated for Studley Ward.

This election was hard fought across all wards. We saw unprecedented levels of door knocking, Facebook advertising and placard distribution by Council candidates. We heard a story of one volunteer door knocking for two days every week for six months, and another story of a candidate knocking on every door in their ward. We were happy to meet with any candidates to discuss our concerns and are in the process of seeking meetings with the newly elected representatives.

Key issues emerged, ranging from spending up big on demolishing and rebuilding Kew Library when some sports grounds don’t even have public toilets, to wanting support for EVs and green spaces, to the idea of going local and making neighbourhood shopping strips really attractive while dropping transport emissions and building a better sense of community.  Looking back, the feeling is one of authenticity and shoe leather prevailing over swish, centralised graphics and gorgeous instagram cafe closeups.

Scorecards

Months of work went into the climate scorecards. As Sarah Hegarty says “these scorecards are an important tool for letting the public know where their candidates stand on climate action, and voters often tell us how useful the scorecards are.” Lighter Footprints worked with other local climate groups including ACF Boroondara under the banner of the Kooyong Climate Change Alliance (KCCA) who have developed and run scorecard campaigns over three levels of government, at times working in conjunction with Victorian local climate group peak bodies.

Candidate Survey

This time the scorecards were based on a survey, asking candidates directly about their views on climate action. Sarah said that “a team of three KCCA leaders worked to develop the survey questions, making sure they addressed all the most relevant topics without the survey becoming too long and difficult. The draft survey questions then went through an extensive process of internal and external peer review, to arrive at a final questionnaire everyone was happy with. This was sent to all Council candidates as soon as possible, and followed up with reminder emails and phone calls. We wanted to hear from everyone, regardless of their political persuasion!”

“It’s vital to make sure that the information on the scorecards is fair, accurate, and unbiased – and that it captures the most important and relevant aspects of candidates’ climate policies.”

Sarah Hegarty, Lighter Footprints Committee

Eventually, 21 of the 38 total candidates responded. “Our scoring team swung into action to tally up the scores, and to assess responding candidates as “good”, “fair” or “poor” in each survey section”, Sarah said, noting that the Scorecard Committee worked hard to cross-check candidate responses against candidates’ published views and policy positions.

Scoring Councillors

Meanwhile, a separate team worked to assess the voting records of sitting councillors, to find out how they had voted on climate issues. After checking over 900 total motions, the list was narrowed down to four key motions which “form the cornerstones of Council’s climate response” Sarah said.

These were:

• the endorsement of the draft Climate Action Plan
• the declaration of a climate emergency
• the adoption of the Climate Action Plan Implementation Plan
• the motion to support the Electrify Boroondara Alliance

Each sitting Councillor’s climate voting record was rated as “good”, “fair” or “poor” over these key motions. Ray Peck said that the process of analysing Council minutes over the past four years to determine how individual Councillors had voted on key climate/environment motions “opened my eyes to the huge amount of work that Councillors are expected to undertake.”

Promoting the Boroondara Candidates Forum

Campaign fence signs linked to the campaign issues page which also publicised the online Boroondara Candidates Forum. Sarah Hegarty spent a lot of Saturdays “handing out flyers in shopping strips, putting up posters in shop windows, and pounding the pavement to put leaflets in letterboxes.” as well as contributing to Eastsider News (page 4). “Everyone recognises that our Councils deliver a range of essential, social, and community services. However, not everyone realises that local governments also have agreed and legislated responsibilities to act on the defining challenge of our time: climate change. Under Section 9(2)(c) of the Local Government Act 2020, Councils must promote the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the municipal district, including mitigation and planning for climate change risks.”

Volunteers talked to people and handed out flyers for the Forum where attendees could ask questions “on any subject you like”. Committee member Ken Parker said “We packaged and delivered bundles of flyers to letterboxes advertising the Boroondara Candidates Forum to encourage people to attend and hear directly from the candidates, particularly their responding to our key climate action topics, and to ask their own questions. We also handed out the flyers outside the Camberwell Woolworths store and the nearby shopping centre walkway, and engaged with those interested about the importance of considering the candidates position on climate and other issues before voting.” 

Scorecards: design, printing, bundling and letter dropping

Scorecards have to be readable at a glance so we are very grateful to Sarah Brennan for her designs, not just for the scorecard, but also for campaign publicity.

“Many months worth of effort goes into making sure the information on these scorecards is robust, reliable, and thorough – but their easy-to-read design is the final piece of the puzzle”, said Sarah Hegarty. “The simple design of the scorecard means that voters can compare the climate attitudes of their local candidates in a single glance. This makes them a valuable tool for the many members of our community who care about the climate, and want their vote to reflect these values.”

“We packaged and delivered bundles of scorecards to letterboxes so that people would know how the candidates in their ward stand on key climate and environmental issues.”

Ken Parker, Lighter Footprints Committee

Myf Parker was one of a group of volunteers who met on a Sunday afternoon to bundle “the scorecards into appropriate numbers for distribution”, adding a walking map. “This was followed by many happy hours walking the streets and popping the scorecards into letter boxes.”  Sarah Hegarty said “With almost 80,000 scorecards to distribute, this was a mammoth effort – but our amazing local volunteers pulled it off in a matter of days.” Lynn Frankes remarked “I think it’s pretty amazing that we managed to letterbox just about the whole electorate in a week. We have a keen team of letterboxers for climate in Boroondara.”

Online Candidates Forum

“I love that people put their hands up for these roles, given that most had never done anything like it before.”

Lynn Frankes, Lighter Footprints Convenor

The final results

Even though the first preference results indicated a big change, it wasn’t really until Friday 8th when the results were posted at 2pm, that we knew just how much had been achieved by the Candidates, their volunteers and the Vote Climate campaign.

The volunteers are delighted with the results. “We are happy to have a strongly climate friendly Council for Boroondara”, said Myf Parker. Sarah Hegarty said “It’s wonderful to see that so many climate-friendly candidates have resonated with Boroondara voters. We wish the new Council all the best, and can’t wait to see what the next four years bring!”

“Congratulations to the new Boroondara Councillors elected in November 2024. It was a privilege to participate in the Lighter Footprints campaign to find out what candidates thought about climate change and the local environment.”

Ray Peck, Lighter Footprints Committee

Lynn Frankes said “I’m proud of the work Lighter Footprints and the Kooyong Climate Change Alliance did in the lead up to this Council election. We gave our community the information they needed to vote for a climate active Council and they did. We can confidently say we played a part in the election of our new majority climate friendly Council. We look forward to seeing what this Council can achieve.”