Bass Coast Post
  • Home
    • Recent articles
  • Federal Election 2025
  • News
    • Point of view
    • View from the chamber
  • Writers
    • Anne Davie
    • Anne Heath Mennell
    • Bob Middleton
    • Carolyn Landon
    • Catherine Watson
    • Christine Grayden
    • Dick Wettenhall
    • Ed Thexton
    • Etsuko Yasunaga
    • Frank Coldebella
    • Gayle Marien
    • Geoff Ellis
    • Gill Heal
    • Harry Freeman
    • Ian Burns
    • Joan Woods
    • John Coldebella
    • Julie Paterson
    • Julie Statkus
    • Kit Sleeman
    • Laura Brearley >
      • Coastal Connections
    • Lauren Burns
    • Liane Arno
    • Linda Cuttriss
    • Linda Gordon
    • Lisa Schonberg
    • Liz Low
    • Marian Quigley
    • Mark Robertson
    • Mary Whelan
    • Meryl Brown Tobin
    • Michael Whelan
    • Mikhaela Barlow
    • Miriam Strickland
    • Natasha Williams-Novak
    • Neil Daly
    • Patsy Hunt
    • Pauline Wilkinson
    • Richard Kemp
    • Sally McNiece
    • Terri Allen
    • Tim Shannon
  • Features
    • Features 2024
    • Features 2023
    • Features 2022
    • Features 2021
    • Features 2020
    • Features 2019
    • Features 2018
    • Features 2017
    • Features 2016
    • Features 2015
    • Features 2014
    • Features 2013
    • Features 2012
  • Arts
  • Local history
  • Environment
  • Nature notes
    • Nature notes
  • A cook's journal
  • Community
    • Diary
    • Courses
    • Groups
    • Stories
  • Contact us

The times they are a-changing

6/5/2022

4 Comments

 
PictureMat Morgan says something has changed when more people are having a go at their Liberal MP than
at the guy in a Greens T shirt.
By Catherine Watson

MAT Morgan’s only 23 but he’s already a political veteran. “We’re one of those families that yells at the TV and discusses politics over lunch. I was never going to be able to avoid it. I’ve been handing out How to Vote cards since I was a kid.”

The Greens candidate for Monash picked his team early, tagging along with his grandfather Daryl Fyfe to hand out How to Vote cards. “Those were the Bob Brown days when there was a lot of homophobia around as well as prejudice about tree huggers so it was a good training ground.”

He volunteered for the Greens at the 2019 federal election. This election he volunteered to be the front man in Monash. Not that there’s ever great competition for the gig. “If we all keep moving along, we’ll get there. Someone had to put their hand up.”
​

And this time is different, he says. He’s knocked on 1000 doors in the past couple of months, in towns and out in the country areas. Coalition Country. “And there are more people having a go at their Liberal MP than at the guy in a Greens T shirt!

“It used to be very anti-Green but people now will have a conversation with you. I’m under no illusion that someone who’s voted Liberal for 30 years is going to vote Green.  But even a lot of Liberal voters are realising climate change is an existential threat. It’s not so much about party politics for them.”

We meet in the Wonthaggi library, a favourite childhood haunt. Mat's family on both sides have been farming in South Gippsland for five generations. He grew up in Berwick and Ringwood but spent weekends and holidays with his grandparents on their farm at Pound Creek.

A folk songwriter and musician, he played in local pubs until Covid arrived. He’s an activist and a student in the final year of a degree in philosophy and politics. He later mentions as an aside that he’s studied feminist philosophy. He is from a generation that finds this unremarkable.  
He lives in Foster in a tiny house on wheels he built during the pandemic out of scrap metal from the tip and doors and windows from a recycling yard.  Total outlay: around $6000 and about 18 months. In case that makes him sound too clever, he quickly undercuts himself. “I’m no carpenter. There were a lot of mistakes.”

The tiny house was his individual solution to the housing crisis but not everyone has the opportunity, the family support or a place to park. Housing affordability is one of his main issues. “The Australian dream has slipped away for a lot of people.  Housing should not be an investment. Give renters real rights.”

He says too many Australians have switched off politics. “Of course they have. ‘I hate politics. I don’t care. I’m not even registered.’ The idea of politics as something they can engage in is quite foreign. We have to accept politics hasn’t been representative of the people for a long time.”

What about young voters? “When you see two middle-aged white guys as the only options, no wonder young people have switched off. They just need representation. If I was wearing a Liberal or Labor T-shirt they wouldn’t be interested, but when I come up in my Greens T-shirt they’re really happy to talk.”
​
Top three issues
  1. Climate action. “We will be a green and hydrogen super power.  We’re talking about 805,000 new jobs, and they’ll be in the places where they’re needed like the Latrobe Valley.”
  2. A federal integrity commission with teeth. A $1000 cap on donations to political parties. Once you’ve unpacked all that you can talk to people as humans.
  3. Affordable housing. Greens policy is to build one million sustainable, accessible, affordable houses over 20 years.
Preferences
  1. Greens
  2. ALP
  3. Independent
  4. Liberal Party
  5. Liberal Democrats
  6. Australian Federal Party
  7. United Australia Party
  8. One Nation
He says the Greens message on climate action is a really positive one for younger voters, and Monash voters. “There is so much to look forward to in a green economy. We’re not anti-coal workers. I’m a unionist. I thank the power stations and coal workers who have made my life comfortable. We can have zero emissions by 2025 without leaving a single person behind.”

His youth allows him to make some telling points, and not just to younger voters. At the candidates’ forum on Wednesday, he parodied Scott Morrison’s infamous line that he probably wouldn’t even be around in 2050. “Well I’ll be around in 2050 and I’ll be younger than Scott Morrison is now.”

And on the cost of education. “Their university fees cost them nothing. Mine have doubled in this term of government. My undergraduate degree will cost over $50,000.”

Is he interested in a political career?

“Not so much. I’d like a job as an adviser maybe. I’m very focused on good governance and the way the world operates. Whether it’s me pulling the strings or someone else doesn’t really matter.”

Having spent a lot of time on his grandparents’ carbon-neutral beef farm, he had a different perspective of farming in South Gippsland. As a candidate he’s met farmers who will tell him that trees don’t belong on farms in South Gippsland.

“We are starting from different places so it’s generally going to be a difficult conversation.” But he likes talking to people, hearing their needs and wants and what motivates them, finding out if there is any common ground.  

He won’t win, he knows that, but he’s hoping for a 5 per cent swing to the Greens. Somewhere around the 12 per cent mark would make him very happy. “We’ve got a five-year plan to change it from a Liberal seat to a Green seat. We’re running the biggest campaign the Greens have ever run in Gippsland. We’ve got more money and more volunteers than we’ve ever had. It’s all people power.”

The Independent candidate will take some of the votes that would otherwise have gone to the Greens but that doesn’t worry him too much. “We’re both pushing for action on climate and we both want an integrity commission. But I don’t think the Independent will have the same sway in Monash as in some other seats.”

The national aim is to get rid of the Liberal government and for the Greens to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

“The best parliament in my lifetime has been the Gillard minority government with a Labor-Greens agreement. That was a very productive parliament. We can learn some lessons and do it even better next time.”

I do a quick calculation. He was 11 when Julia Gillard became Prime Minister and 14 when she lost the job.  

“I could go on about this for hours …” he says, and laughs.
4 Comments
Anne Tindall
9/5/2022 09:43:30 am

Mat Morgan is an inspiring young man.
I have seen his work ethic and values up close and personal.
He worked alongside a group of us farmers and landowners who fought VicForests to stop the decimation of Alberton West State Forest.
He is highly intelligent, motivated and actually humble. A breath of fresh air.
I wish him every success because a vote for Mat is a vote for the future of our planet and those who live on it.

Reply
Jeni Jobe
9/5/2022 11:26:01 am

Matt is a hard worker with a strong moral compass and a genuine desire to make a difference here in Monash. Wish you all the best with a green swing. Good luck from me, Chris, Oliver, Ella and Jhoce (who lives in Higgens and will be voting for Sonya Semmens!)

Reply
Daryl Hook
9/5/2022 09:36:35 pm

Daryl Hook is the proud grandfather of Mat Morgan.I am also his most enthuastic supporter.He was a great little kid who has helped us plant hundreds of thousands indigenous trees and even climbed through the under growth to help spray blackberries,mirror bush,and other non Australian plants.We wish him every ounce of luck he deserves.

Reply
Vivienne Turner
10/5/2022 10:22:03 am

Fantastic article, thank you. I enjoyed learning more about this impressive young man's background. Go Greens!

Reply



Leave a Reply.