Greens’ candidate for Lingiari Rob Hoad briefly stopped by Katherine after spending a few days campaigning at the Barunga Festival.
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During his visit, he and his guitar, visited a few local establishments to get up close and personal with members of the electorate he hopes to represent.
A musician and performer Mr Hoads let his music express his views on the controversial issue of hydraulic fracturing with his “count-hop” song “Don’t Frack It Up”.
“I think fracking is a really big and important issue because our water supply, all of the Northern Territory throughout Lingiari, we depend on subterranean water,” he said.
“The aquifers are life, without the aquifers if the aquifers become poisoned that’s the end of pastoral activity, the end of community life, it’s the end of the Northern Territory as we know it.
“This practice poses such a threat to the aquifers that there’s no way we can stand by and let it happen.”
This is not Mr Hoad’s first time running as the Greens candidate, he also ran 15 years ago while he worked as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performing arts officer for the Katherine region.
“I spent a lot of time in the Katherine region at that time and I know that it is a strong cultural hub,” he said.
“I believe that Katherine people are very intelligent, thinking people and that’s why anti-fracking in the Northern Territory started here in Katherine and I solute the Katherine people for wanting to defend our water supply.”
Mr Hoad found during his visit that people were really happy to talk and to listen to the Greens.
“I think there’s a lot of myths about the Greens and I want to dispel the myths about the Greens,” he said.
“For example we have the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party at the moment trying to discredit the Greens, saying that we want to stop fishing and hunting and I just want to that is absolutely not true.”
Mr Hoad said recreational hunters and feral animal hunters are important to the health of the environment and it is often recreational fisherman encouraging and enforcing others to adhere to the bag limits and fish size.
“I’m very keen while I’m here in the top end to dispel these myths, because the truth is we are probably better mates with the fishers and the hunters than the other people who will destroy the environment,” he said.
“We’re very keen to keep things clean, for everybody.”
Mr Hoad’s plan for the Northern Territory is to create good subsidies to encourage people to install solar panels on their roof, an initiative that has been fairly successful in South Australia.
“We are going to renew the Australian economy, with renewable energy,” he said.
“In the sunny part of the world that is the Northern Territory we can actually become a major player in the new global renewable energy industry.”