What I’ve learnt chatting to people at their doors

A few weeks ago I knocked on a stranger’s door in Wallsend.

The woman who answered had lived in that house for over 50 years. When she moved there from Stockton in the 1970s it was public housing. As we spoke, she told me about her granddaughter, who has a newborn baby and is struggling to afford a house in our broken housing market.

But that wasn’t what upset her most. What upsets her is how often she sees people like her granddaughter struggling. How she sees so many people sleeping rough on the streets of Newcastle. And that our government is doing so little to help.

She told me that she always voted Labor. But recently, like me, she’s been feeling so disappointed in the party she once believed in.

It’s conversations like these that make me desperate for change. When I see how many people are doing it tough, I’m angry that our government isn’t doing more. And that’s why I’ve been volunteering with the Greens.

Since the Greens started knocking on doors in Newcastle last month, I’ve had over a hundred conversations with my fellow Novocastrians. And again and again, I hear the same thing: that people are struggling and they feel abandoned by our government who only serve themselves.

I have heard so many stories of people’s lives getting harder: rent keeps rising, it’s hard to afford the groceries every week, people have been avoiding going to the doctors because it’s so expensive, they can’t keep up with rising electricity bills...

The major parties think they can keep putting profits before people, that they can keep taking Newcastle for granted. People don’t want Peter Dutton’s Liberals, but they also don’t feel like Labor is standing up for them anymore. They’re looking for a progressive alternative they can believe in. And here in Newcastle, that’s the Greens and our candidate, Charlotte McCabe.

Charlotte is a primary school teacher and a local councillor. She’s not a career politician. She’s someone who gets what it means to struggle, to fight for what’s right, to stand up for our community. Like me she’s been spending her weekends talking to her neighbours, asking them what they care about this election. She’s the kind of leader we need.

The last federal election showed us what’s possible. In Brisbane, the Greens took on the major parties and their corporate donors — and won. It was a people-powered movement, built on thousands of conversations just like the ones I’ve been having in Newcastle.

And I reckon that there’s a similar story waiting to be told here in Newcastle.

This election, we have the chance to send a message to Labor and the Liberals that Newcastle won’t be taken for granted any longer. That we deserve better than politicians who talk big but side with the billionaires when it counts. That we won’t settle for less than real action on housing, on the cost of living, on climate.

The problems we face aren’t inevitable. They are the result of political choices, of governments putting corporate interests ahead of people. It doesn’t have to be this way. Australia is a wealthy country; we can afford to ensure that everyone has a secure home, that wages keep up with the cost of living, that our healthcare and education systems work for all of us, not just those who can afford to pay extra. But it takes political courage, and that’s something Labor and the Liberals have proven time and again they don’t have.

That courage comes from movements like ours. From people willing to stand up and demand something better. It comes from workers striking for fair pay, renters pushing back against unfair landlords, communities coming together to fight for our environment and our future. And it comes from campaigns like this one, built on thousands of real conversations with people who know, deep down, that things need to change.

That’s why I’ll be knocking on as many doors as I can between now and election day. Because this fight isn’t just about an election. It’s about something bigger than ourselves. It’s about building a movement for a fairer, more just Newcastle.

This is why I’m in this fight. It’s why I know that, together, we are unstoppable.