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What reactions have you been getting from politicians for ‘saying the truth’? I've been getting very favourable reactions from a number of Democrat politicians and a number of left-wing Labor people. I've been getting vehement reactions from, for example, the Member for Richmond, Charles Blunt, with whom I clashed when he spoke at a housing and welfare forum at Rockdale alongside (Social Security) Minister Howe and Democrats. They wouldn’t allow me on the platform as a Greencandidate but I managed to get aquestion up from the floor. Blunt launched a vehement attack on someone who was holding up signs from the Unemployed Peoples’ Union, going on a rabid, dolebashing blast... He’s in an electorate that’s got a high percentage of unemployed alternative people and I'd like you to say in NEXUS magazine that it’s pathetic that people in the alternative scene don't pull their finger out and do a big, brave act and REGISTER TO VOTE, because it’s so important. If I had 5,000 people in this state who are Green, who live in the forest and love the forests, live out of the city, who live in commu- nities, who just had the bloody guts to vote, then I would be in Canberra right now. It's no big deal, because Robert Wood of the NDP is actually in there with Green preferences, and that’s fantastic. But I was interested to see that in many of the ‘alternative’ areas, Richmond included, my vote wasn’t as high as in the inner suburban seats of Sydney. Do you put that down to a lack of people registering? Yes, I'd say so. Lack of registration and resistance by alternative people who have been fed many years of propaganda to ‘hide away, it doesn’t have anything to do with you’... .And disbelieve what any ‘politician’ tells them? Exactly, and ‘Don’t vote, itonly encourages them’. Well, ifyoudon't vote that does encourage them. If you don’t vote, they're able to survive. Charles Blunt of the National Party is attacking the Social Service sector of this society and is surviving in this area by a mere six to eight thousand votes. Now if the ‘alternative’ people in this particular electorate were to register, then he would be out in the next election. T’mnow running for the local council elections under Fast Bucks on the Radical Ratbags ticket which, hopefully, will see Bucksie get into power in the Byron Shire Council and really start kicking heads in there. We hope to get five, perhaps six Green Councillors in, including the President, and then we're dealing with a Green council - the implications could go far and wide through this society. Js the path of the Greens to work from the grass roots up? Definitely. The Federal Election was, in some ways, only a ‘whistle blast’ that started the race. In typical form, I went to bite off more than 1 could chew. But the real importance of the electoral process is in local councils and | just hope that my run in the Federal election signalled that ‘these things are possible, you can get elected’. Next year there will be Green candidates in the State election. 1 polled 32,000 votes in this last election and the Greens cover State elections perhaps even better than the NDP. Perhaps we could go into some sort of coalition, which 1 don't see as being a bad thing atall, If that’s the case, with the sort of votes we got we should be able to gel at least one person elected to the State Upper House. Each step along the way you're going to get more people who are going to vole for Greens, or NDP, or who have ‘radical’ voting patterns registered. So if we've a series of maybe three or four processes where this is repeated - jt has to be repeated because people are pretty thick and slow to act on this - then we'll get to a point where, by the time the next Federal election comes along, we will have extra people registered, we will be beuer known and people will be able to vote alternative candidates in. On first count in Byron Shire, Fast Bucks lost the election by two votes! -R.A.. ‘If you don’t vote that does