After taking part in our Meet Your Member campaign, Brisbane volunteer Gene Raciti received an invitation with a difference. Here is his story.
If you are someone reading this who cares about climate change, and you don’t know if you can make a difference let me tell you, straight up: you are wrong.
Here is my story, and I hope that in writing this I may inspire some people to stand up for what they believe in.
My first visit to Canberra, the nation’s seat of power, came completely unexpectedly. I was at work one day when I got a call from an unknown number – I’m not meant to answer my phone at work, so didn’t answer.
Then my Dad called. Once again, I ignored it. Finally, my Mum sent me a text message. She told me I needed to ring Wayne Swan’s office ASAP for an “opportunity.” It turned out the unknown number had been the Deputy PM, and he wanted to invite me to attend the Climate Commission’s forum with him in Canberra.
These opportunities are rare in life, and this one would never have happened without the AYCC’s Meet Your Member campaign.
Several weeks ago, I attended a rally in Brisbane supporting a price on pollution. Although I had been a member of the AYCC for some years, it was this rally and the speeches of the AYCC’s Sean Kelly and Get-Up’s Simon Sheikh that inspired me to become more engaged.
This new found motivation coincided with AYCC’s current Meet Your Member campaign, in which AYCC is aiming to meet with all 226 Federal MP’s of the Lower House.
I live on the North side of Brisbane in the seat of Lilley, the seat held by the Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan, and a few weeks ago I met with him as part of Meet Your Member. Little did I suspect that my path was to cross with the Deputy PM again just a few weeks later, with a personal invitation to attend the Climate Commission forum with him.
The day arrived. After a 5am start, flight into Canberra, and backstage tour of Parliament House, I took my seat next to Wayne Swan and the forum began. The Commission panellists were informative and honest, and the audience asked insightful and thoughtful questions. I asked a question on behalf of the AYCC, and after the forum even had a chance to meet with Tim Flannery. Then, as suddenly as it began, the day was over.
I am not sure where the road leads from here, but this is a day I will not forget. It has inspired me to keep working hard with the AYCC, continue to fight for hope, and for that precious moment that lies willing at our fingertips.
My experience goes to show that if you are passionate about something, opportunities will manifest themselves. I think there is a lesson in that for the wider debate in regards to action on climate change.
We don’t know how the world will act, but what we can control is what we do ourselves. We have an opportunity in Australia – an opportunity to take the first of many steps to tackle this complex problem. We can just say it is all too hard, that maybe we will rock the boat too far and end up capsized in the water.
But then, maybe there are opportunities, ones we can’t even dream about, waiting for us, beyond the horizon. To find out what they are, we have to take a chance, we have to follow our passions and our convictions and just know that the rewards will come if we are ready to take them.
The most powerful rewards are the ones you carry on the inside, knowing that when something was there to be done, you were strong enough and passionate enough to say I won’t be left out of it. It is knowing that you stood shoulder to shoulder with other people fighting for a tomorrow that is more full of opportunities than yesterday. That is something that will never be lost and something you can always be proud of.
