Louise Tarrant
Louise Tarrant is currently on the Board of Greenpeace Australia Pacific and is the current chair of the Australia REMADE Secretariat.
Loss
For all the children’s birthday parties unattended. For all the soccer games postponed. For all the school strikers lost from the streets. For all the Uni students stuck at home. For all the young workers sacked. Concerts cancelled, dating interrupted, ‘hanging out’ suspended. There is an eerie sense of emptiness and loss. For our children, a precious year of their young lives, lost. Never to be got back. Never to be relived.
Delusion
Unprecedented everybody said. No one could have foreseen. And yet… The emergency chiefs warned us of the fires. The biologists warned us of pandemics. The unions warned us about bad jobs. The unemployed told us about low benefits. The scientists told us about synchronous failures.
Distraction
We funded kitchen renovations, unviable gas projects, and missile purchases. We ignored the care sectors, green initiatives, and community building. We talked deficits, insurance losses and infection statistics. If numbers matter so much what about the number one? That’s the year of our children’s lives lost in 2020.
Redemption
So have we learnt? Let’s hope – for our children’s sake. This is the year we sponsor a community conversation about the Australia we want. We take seriously the needs of our planet – to repair and re-synch. We put people at the heart and centre of who we are and what we do. ‘Public good first’ becomes the refrain. ‘Equal worth of all’ a live motivation. ‘Connection and care’ nudges out ‘markets and money’ as the central driver. If ‘people and planet’ were our starting point the details would follow. An Australia REMADE would be possible. And the lesson learnt? To rob precious time from the young is a crime too heinous to repeat. The future is not ours to squander.