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And with Hepburn shire adding its name to a growing list of councils shooting to reduce their emissions to zero, every bit counts. To drink, he asks for green tea and I join him. He also insists that there is no connection between us or Labor and the Greens or GetUp. Of course, how many of these burgeoning groups end up mounting compelling campaigns and finding the kind of authentically local, centrist candidates that all agree will be the key to success remains to be seen. The VTO Facebook page Kelly started attracted a couple of thousand people. If we do manage to help three more communities and we get the existing independents back in, we wake up on the morning after the election to a potentially very different Australia. I found myself standing on the footpath with a glass of wine, Simon Holmes Court says. His mother, Janet, just found him there, wide-eyed and conscious, his right index finger blasted to the bone. He doesn't know me.[4]. Once again, the rallying cry is that the voting records on climate of moderate Liberals is no different from those of conservative Queenslander George Christensen or National Party leader Barnaby Joyce. Its my responsibility to do something., Murfitt says the group now has a candidate who will be announced next month, elected by popular vote from four contenders after their presentations at two Zoom town halls. Theres a global ranking of influencers on climate energy and Ive been at the top spot globally for half of the last two years. They didnt really have friends, my dad particularly. [3] Holmes Court stated "I got involved in Australia's first community-owned, wind farm in Hepburn. Hes smart and knows better. No connection at all, he says. Particularly given the roiling uncertainty of the last three years. Credlin thinks Im a stooge for GetUp. Josh can f--- off, Simon Holmes Court explodes in the most memorable moment of our 90-minute lunch in Melbournes Hawthorn, where he lives and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is fighting for his, and his governments, political life. On one side of that equation has been the international pressure the government faced to announce a 2050 net zero goal as the price of entry to the Glasgow climate summit that starts this weekend, mirrored locally by everyone from the Business Council of Australia to mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. One of those was how much time the son of Australias first billionaire, Robert Holmes Court, spent on his off-grid, 36-hectare farm at Daylesford, during the two years of Melbournes extended lockdowns. Weve also got people who used to work for the Liberals and Nationals. That was the way electricity was first introduced into much of the country, with smaller decentralised generators, owned by the local communities. Its not tax-deductible, its uncomfortable for a lot of people to have their name out there. Patrick Durkin is Melbourne bureau chief and BOSS deputy editor. But beyond the construction of the 4.1MW windfarm enough to power about 2,300 households Hepburn Wind pioneered the modern large-scale community-ownership model of renewable energy in Australia, which is now being replicated around the country. Even a previous Liberal leader [John Hewson].". Its what the third of four children to Australias first billionaire, Robert Holmes Court, and his former science teacher wife, Janet, had always done. The son of Australias first billionaire, the man who might help decide the next federal election, says having independents control power in the next Parliament is within reach. He founded Voices of Hume in February 2020, which pursued what has become the classic Voices Of formula of kitchen-table conversations with 10 facilitators doing meetings in Camden and in Goulburn and all around small towns in between. Simon has been a pioneering force in the Australian community power movement as the founding chair of Hepburn . The Morrison government has come under a lot of criticism because of its failure to have regard to the respect that is due to womenand obviously on climate, many believe their performance is very inadequate., Holmes Court is a case in point. Ive had panicked calls from Liberal insiders asking that we lay off them, he says. This isnt a new thing., Holmes Courts sense of environmental peril was sown only slightly later, visiting the massive karri and jarrah forests of Western Australias south-west. Theyd never been engaged, never joined or donated to a political movement. Post author By ; impossible burger font Post date July 1, 2022; southern california hunting dog training . After Alan Jones bullied Gladys Berejiklian to advertise a horse race on the Opera House and Scott Morrison called it Australias biggest billboard I did a cheeky tweet and said, If its the biggest billboard I would like to hire it to project #KidsoffNauru. Its people literally sending a message: If youre not prepared to endorse candidates with our values, or who can deliver on those values, well pick ones that are. I mean, its no accident that [independents like Haines and Steggall] are all progressive on climate change, social policy, and indeed are women. Connecting, networking, making things happen. Your question to Simon on the AZ election results and Simon's response provided some in-depth knowledge on AZ and GA results. As a kid, it really had a big impact on me, he says. You could hold your nose and vote Labor or hold your nose and vote Liberal and for a lot of people it is difficult to hold their nose and vote Green., A politician is a very particular skill set and it is not mine and the last thing the parliament needs is another white, middle-aged male, says Holmes Court. "[citation needed], He was accused by various members of the Liberal party of comparing John Howard to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, although the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said that they accepted that there were many uses for the term and were satisfied that Holmes Court was not referencing the Nazis.[9]. Climate change. [5] Holmes Court responded by saying "I don't even understand his angle two of my family members were seriously ill, it was the most shit fucking time ever, so Josh can fuck off, excuse me. Simon began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the first dotcom wave, then spent more than a decade in precision farm water management. I invested a lot of time in Angus Taylor as well, says Holmes Court. He is an energy analyst, clean technology investor, climate philanthropist, director of the Smart Energy Council and the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network, senior advisor to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University, and writes regularly about the transformation of Australias energy sector. The official audio for 'Tbilisi Airport' by Simon Goff & Katie Melua. June 11, 2022 Posted by: georgia death race 2022 . That ended after Holmes Court wrote a column for The Guardian in early 2018, which included a line criticising Frydenberg for trying to keep NSWs Liddell power station open. Theres only been three times the minor party vote has gone over 25 per cent since federation, he says, referring to 1901, when the recently formed Labor Party won seats; the Lang Labor split during the Great Depression; and the events that led to Robert Menzies founding the Liberal Party in 1944. He began an arts/law degree at the University of Western Australia, where he was involved in student politics, but withdrew after a few years. After the bust, he returned to Australia, applying his software and product development skills to water issues at the eight NT cattle stations then owned by his family. Hes talented but no one can actually pin him down on what he believes.. Why is the narrative that the election was won and lost in Queensland? In March this year, he and another member launched the sharper Vote Angus Out (VAO) group, following the advice of Steggalls team that Vote Tony Outs T-shirt-led social media had been a major driver in Warringah. VTO founder, businessman and Global Surf Industries owner Mark Kelly, 57, had been a classic swinging voter, backing the Liberals at state level but unable to support Abbott, he says. Simon began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the first dotcom wave, then spent more than a decade in precision farm water management. Hepburn Wind, near Daylesford in Central Victoria. hobby caravan spares or repair; cincinnati cyclones roster; daniella karagach and pasha pashkov wedding. The original size was 13kWs or just under, says Lane. They both felt that if something was wrong you fixed it, and you dont complain, you just made it happen.. The group spearheading the Tink candidature, North Sydney Independents (NSI), for instance, was created by Kristen Lock, a former nurse, Young Liberal and staffer for former Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, whose disaffection with her former party was mounting in the lead-up to the last election. And as the family goes about lockdown, Holmes Court wide-eyed and fresh-faced, more like a grey-haired schoolkid than a 49-year-old tech entrepreneur explains how, and why, he has fashioned a whole new key to stick into the biggest power socket in Australia, federal politics. Freshly engaged, looking to make a difference, they tend to have reached a point in their lives and careers where they have options. Simon Holmes Courts parents, Robert and Janet. Speaking a week ahead of the PMs mid-October negotiations with the Nationals, Katie Allen, who holds Melbournes affluent, marginal Liberal seat of Higgins, was confident the announcement would underline to voters the importance of working within the tent to effect change, as she and other moderates have done. Holmes Court addressing the National Press Club earlier this year. Its very possible the independents will hold the balance of power. Simon Holmes Court Convenor at Climate 200. The trajectory twists through a series of how-to, technology-led apprenticeships, each leading logically to the next. This is a win-win for both the environment [and] the community.. Simon Holmes Court is founder of Climate 200, a group of more than 7,300 Australians working to help community-backed independent candidates contest Australian elections. Its a really fundamental human thing: the main parties represent stability and the status quo, and people are feeling so uncertain at the moment. His mother remembers him enthusing about a fantastic electrical socket that caught his three-year-old eye as they walked through Myer six months later. These days, Tink, 50, has her own campaign T-shirt in a colour theyve dubbed Tink Pink in North Sydney and a neat narrative arc that encompasses her first name (Tinks father, a great guy but not much on orthography, used Meadow Lea as the basis for the spelling on her birth certificate) and links her all the way back to the man they call the father of the independents, Ted Mack, who represented North Sydney at both state and federal level in the 1980s and 90s. Through a mutual friend, Kelly ended up spending New Years Eve with Steggall and her husband, Tim, both of whom peppered him with questions. People are organising, getting together and having dozens of meetings in a month that could never have happened without a party structure.. It went totally viral with 10,000 or 13,000 likes. He doesnt know me.. She says that will be enough to power about eight to 12 houses not a huge amount, but its an easy win. That minor-party vote is an indicator of a desire for change; the pressure that causes the tectonic plates to shift. And theyre stuck, and theyve been stuck for eight years., Nor does he need wholesale revolution. Holmes Court, 49, also says he was thrown out of a meet the candidate event at the Geebung Polo Club with Frydenberg before the 2019 election. In the world of a decade ago, they might have been the next generation of Liberal, Labor or Greens candidates. And he rejects a report by Peta Credlin on Sky News that said GetUp are behind the Climate200 fund. Their model this way of owning your own energy generator locally emerged in the late 70s, so they have been doing it for decades. . Throughout, Holmes Court has kept largely to himself, certainly compared to his headline-grabbing elder brother Peter, the former theatre impresario and South Sydney Rabbitohs co-owner. Again, that disaffection didnt quite carry him to the other side. I just remember the environmental devastation, puddles of algae and no regrowth, and the feeling of being cheated; that we were being lied to.. Australia is doing a shit job on emissions reduction and our leaders are lying about it. Hepburn Wind began construction in 2010 and started selling power in 2011. I thought wed have about 50 people, because Id had about 50 phone calls from all over Australia and it was a short time-frame, she says. Voices Of, Voices For and non-aligned groups. For a number of years, people havent had to rely on each other, because the system was basically working. "[13], In May 2022 Leader of TNL Party, Victor Kline, accused Holmes Court of bullying him into dropping out as a federal candidate for the seat of North Sydney. From left: Paul, Simon, Cathy, Janet and Peter. At the University of Western Australia, he neglected an old-school law degree for student politics via the French-founded International Association of Students in Economics and Commerce (AIESEC), which he describes as a bit like a model UN that introduced students to fundraising, running events and plenaries and constitutions and stuff and for which he spent a year introducing networking technology, such as email. He is the son of Australia's first billionaire Robert Holmes Court, and convenor of Climate 200. But back in Hepburn shire, not satisfied with the windfarm, the residents are expanding the renewables in their area. Or setting up a primitive internet communication system in our basement when he was 10 or 11; Robert and I always thought hed be an engineer.. Simon Holmes Court was the founding chairman of Hepburn Wind. I went along to a public meeting and accidentally came out as the chairman. What the voting data is saying is when one-quarter of voters arent voting for the majors, the political system itself adjusts.. By a picturesque lake in Daylesford, where locals go to swim and cool off, is an antique hydro generator, which used to power a few homes around the lake, and the lakes lights. Simon owns a farm half way between Daylesford and Leonards Hill, the location of the two turbines erected in . His father, Robert Holmes Court, who died at 53 in 1990 from a heart attack, became Australias first billionaire as a corporate raider across mining, media, real estate, and famously tried to buy BHP. Im not actually concerned. A digital marketer with his own company, hed done pro bono work for the Australian Conservation Foundation and others, but never been particularly political. But he says it was a community wind farm in Hepburn, near his farm in Daylesford, 15 years ago, that proved very significant for me. Its because the traditional base has been abandoned. He then began working for the family-owned Heytesbury Pty. We thought, Shit, weve really tapped a nerve here., Indi MP Helen Haines (left) is congratulated by her predecessor, Cathy McGowan.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen. Isamu Sawa. This time around, the gatekeeper is the party machine. He loved working, and he worked seven days a week. His AIESEC experience led to networking the Asian offices of the then family-owned company John Holland, before completing an artificial intelligence and cognitive science degree at Americas Ivy League Dartmouth College. Fairfax Photo Library. I was 35 and had never done any advocacy before.. Working through the parties was never going to work for someone like me, McGowan says. Our conversation turns to the publics scepticism about Holmes Courts motives: who he is and why he is doing this? Their focus? So the game was to get to actually work through getting elected so that I could do what I needed to. When Trump got elected four years ago, I decided it was time to pull my finger out and start to apply my skills to make change, he says. The Opera House said, Absolutely no way, so I had this money on trust that was not mine. I was swamped by people ringing me and saying, I liked your book, but how do we do it? she says. My daughter said, Wow, thats a lot of money, are you sure this will work? he says, out walking the dog in the dark after a virtual, mid-October celebration of surpassing 2000 donors. Meanwhile, in September, North Sydneys Tink was announced as the first of the upcoming elections independent candidates, followed by reports that Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, a Liberal, will likely face a well-funded independent in the neighbouring blue-ribbon seat of Bradfield. Part of the sale was a commitment, not to work in the space [for seven years]. In title and substance, C200 was Holmes Courts reply, even the font and colour of its initial logo a riff on Kooyong 200s. Holmes Court is outlining the steps that have led him to where he now sits, in a polo shirt (Liberal-blue) and baseball cap, in a makeshift study in the off-the-grid farm where he and his wife of 24 years, Katrina, and their four children, aged 15 to 21, have spent much of Melbournes world-beating lockdown. One of the things that made him confident that the project was a good investment, he says, was the level of community support it received, and the passion of the people running it. Less than 24 hours later I got an email from Kooyong 200 saying my membership had been rejected and two years of membership fees and a donation had been returned to my credit card, he says. So far, C200 has matched $100,000 in local donations in North Sydney, where former charities CEO Kylea Tink last month announced she will take on Liberal moderate incumbent Trent Zimmerman; $60,000 in Wentworth (Sharma) and $51,000 in Mackellar (held by Liberal Jason Falinski), both Sydney seats for which candidates are expected to be announced soon. But it was when independent Kerryn Phelps was advocating the Medevac bill, that he became connected. [10], Holmes Court has been described by Warren Mundine as the "Clive Palmer but on the left" and that he is "just one of those filthy-rich spoiled brats who think they influence elections by spending millions and millions of dollars.[11], There was speculation in the News Corp press that Holmes Court and his family could make a profit out of a "potential boom in clean energy. It was not a pleasant time at all. You dont send John Howard somewhere you dont need him. Not that it ever drove her all the way to apostasy. Holmes a Court describes Observant as his ''day job'', although getting the wind farm up and running has consumed much of his energy in the past couple of years. And in the case of the former Liberal supporters among them, hell-bent on unseating a party many say left them before they left it. Simon began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the first dotcom wave, then spent more than a decade in precision farm water management. Their target? It will come down to people deciding whether rhetoric can be trusted over action., Kylea Tink will stand in North Sydney against Trent Zimmerman for whom she voted in 2019.Credit:James Brickwood, Holmes Court insists the reaction to the independents push is already telling. Im hyperaware of the privilege Ive been given, he says. Follow the topics, people and companies that matter to you. We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present, and emerging. The hostess said, You have to leave now. I said, Can I finish my drink? She said, No, the Treasurer says you have to leave now.[4], Frydenberg criticised Holmes Court for spending much of the COVID-19 Melbourne lockdowns at his farm in Daylesford with his family. Twitter played an important role in Holmes Courts political awakening too. Its a circuit-breaker out of where we are right now, with an incredibly high rate of return.. Please provide further information to join the APP Society: This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Simon Holmes a Court. Id messaged the Treasurers office earlier to let them know about my lunch date and on my way to the restaurant, Frydenberg called and bent my ear for 15 minutes, suggesting a few tough questions he would ask Holmes Court. publics scepticism about Holmes Courts motives: as he did at the National Press Club earlier this year. Holmes Court says despite the perception to the contrary, he doesnt feel he has landed too far from the tree. Essentially what youve got is traditional small-l liberals, who feel the partys leadership and its policies no longer represent their values, says former PM Malcolm. hunt saboteur killed; wbca carnival 2022 schedule He writes on news, business and leadership. Louis Trerise, He also says the movement would not have existed without the pandemic, lockdowns, and Zoom. I just called him out on his bullshit. Simon Holmes Court began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the first dotcom wave, then spent more than a decade in precision farm water management.
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