Adam Blakester wants to become a member of the "most dysfunctional part of society".
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Travelling to Glen Innes last week, the independent candidate for the division of New England sat down with the Examiner to talk independents, rural sustainability and Barnaby Joyce - and the mentorship of Tony Windsor.
In a lengthy interview, he started by arguing for a review of the very structure of government at a fundamental level.
"(The House of Representatives) doesn't work as a parliament," he said.
"The 151 House of Representatives members and the 76 senators don't work collectively together in the best interests of the country and the people. They keep fighting with their party loyalty."
He said partisan bickering has locked Australia out of a clear direction on energy policy, because with changes in minister and prime minister policy setting swing back and forth like a ping-pong match. It's meant that business has to climb a mountain every time they want to get anything done, and there's no certainty everything won't shift once you've got there, he said.
"Has the technology changed - no.
"Has the evidence base in terms of what's in the best interests of the country changed - no.
"Those things have been relatively the same for the last twenty years. There's been a move towards renewable and clean (in the business world and in markets).
"It's a good example of where parties and political vested interests are running the government as opposed to requiring the individuals once they're in parliament to work together in the national interest.
"The question for me is is (government) effective, is it fit-for-purpose, does it work for us and if it doesn't what do we do about it. Now if it is working for us, great I'll get a book and a board and go hit a wave."
The Uralla-based charity runner announced his candidacy for the seat in February and has been on a listening tour of the electorate through March and early April. He is one of five candidates running for the seat in the May 18 election including incumbent MP Barnaby Joyce. He hit Glen Innes last week, holding an event for supporters and the general public, surrounded by campaign volunteers decked out in distinctive blue shirts.
In 2008 Mr Blakester started the Starfish Initiatives, a charity that helps fund and organise everything from the development of social housing to biodiversity and renewable agriculture, raising about half a billion dollars in investment in the New England area. The organisation lists six renewable energy projects on its website, including a proposal to turn Uralla into the first zero net energy town in the country.
Which possibly explains why Mr Blakester thinks Barnaby Joyce's proposal to subsidise a coal power station in Queensland is not realistic. He calls coal a "sunset industry" and says renewables are already cheaper than new-build coal.
"When Mr Joyce says other countries get it cheaper, that's because other countries have very different regulatory environments, environmental laws, safety laws and wage-labour industrial relations conditions.
So if we dropped all of our standards to the standard of India, then maybe a coal-fired power station would be cheaper, but we just throw another river under the under the bus and throw human health under the bus.
"it's not going to happen in Australia."
Glen Innes is lucky enough to be a great place to develop both wind and solar. In the last decade, there has been some $2 billion investment into the region with another $10 billion in potential.
But Mr Blakester says it's largely been wasted - and that's Barnaby Joyce's fault.
"I am unaware of any proactive training for employees; I am unaware of any proactive capacity building for supply chain businesses so that they could bring themselves up to the specialist skills and systems they require.
"I've been raising this issue for thirteen years.
"We have failed as a society and certainly the parliament both state and federal have failed to capture the jobs and business opportunities to the full extent we could have.
"For me there's an opportunity begging there, we could do really well out of this."
He wants one of the 80 training centres that is proposed to be funded by government in the recent budget to be put in the electorate and to pay for training in future oriented industries like renewable energy.
He said in his campaign of five months, that's of the thousands of people they've talked to one-on-one that the biggest issue people are approaching him about is climate change. He also said his most supportive demographic is farmers.