My name is Dr Luke Robinson, and I work as a specialist Emergency Physician at Lismore Base Hospital.

It is my great pleasure to present on The Greens ticket for the upcoming Local Government Elections, 14 September 2024. In many occupations and vocations, the human interactions are as important as the technical challenges we face, and my job is no exception. Get the human stuff right, and the technical stuff becomes much less challenging. Being able to work with colleagues as a team, often in high-pressure situations, is critical. Listening to each other’s perspectives, valuing each other’s knowledge, experience and respective roles, is essential to providing the best care we can for our patients. Perhaps most importantly, we need to listen to and advocate for patients and their loved ones, and take on the challenge of communicating often technically complicated or emotionally difficult information with clarity and empathy.

On a broader level, I believe it is important to ensure we provide care and respect to all, irrespective of their wealth or income, gender or sexuality, ethnicity or culture, social circumstances or age, and look out for the interests of our broader community as well as each individual we provide care to.

My first university degree was in science, and I worked for some years in medical research, where my respect for the ability of science, rational enquiry and debate to improve peoples' lives was further deepened. However, along with a growing passion for social justice, I became hungry for more face-to-face contact to help people more directly, and thus set off on the long road to becoming a doctor, first studying medicine and then completing many further years of training to specialise as an Emergency Physician.

As a junior doctor, I spent much of my time in the Northern Territory, whose First Peoples, there as elsewhere in Australia, still suffer both in body and spirit from our colonisation. However they also demonstrate incredible resilience and warmth, and taught me much about the importance of our connection to each other and to Country. Here now, on Bundjalung country, I continue to believe strongly in the importance of this connection and the provision of high-quality, free public health care, indeed all public services, to all Australians, wherever they live.

I love the way being a good doctor requires you use both your head and your heart – medicine is both a science and and art. I feel that in many ways, similar skills and passion are required to be a good community representative on council. One needs to be able to take in and evaluate many different sources of information and opinions while balancing competing priorities or values. You need to be timely yet thorough, interact with empathy and respect, and communicate clearly. And you need to be a good team player, keeping your eye on the ball – representing the community you are there to serve.

However, in my observation, too often our council, like our federal and state parliaments, has descended into an egotistical, childish, winner-takes-all mentality. Debate, if it happens at all, is often performative rather than deliberative, and taking on other's good ideas and compromise seen as a defeat, a dilution of one's brand, rather than a mark of maturity and a victory for democracy. We should instead aim for a cooperative endeavour where we put our egos aside, listen and debate respectfully, openly compromising where required, for the long-term good of our whole community and the natural world that is our home, rather than just representing short-term and narrow sectional interests.

Cr Vanessa Grindon-Ekins, in her time as Mayor, demonstrated leadership in this respect by bringing a conflicted Council into harmony and restoring its ability to serve our community. Later, I was further inspired by Cr Adam Guise's motion seeking a community-led visioning process post flood, in order for the community to decide where and how we rebuild and relocate. Sadly, this was crippled by the current majority, and we are now left in a poorer situation waiting on outsiders to decide our fates.

Indeed, it has been said that our council needs a “strong team” consisting of “a group that has got a majority” rather than a “fragmented council”. This is an old, lazy trope of Australian politics that only serves the interest of the major parties, or in the case of Lismore City Council, the narrow interests of certain so-called “independents” who consistently vote as a block, and are obviously not “independent”. The message I consistently hear from our community, and believe in strongly myself, is that our strength lies in our diversity and ability to work together, not in simple majoritarian rule.

Respectful debate, working together and, where possible, building consensus is not easy, but it creates much more inclusive and enduring solutions to the challenges we face than just going for the quick vote.

Always a country person, I grew up in rural Victoria, and my partner and I now live in the beautiful wilds of Whian Whian where we are part of a vibrant community that cares deeply for and works hard to restore the Big Scrub rainforest. We settled in the Northern Rivers because this place is so special - it is stunningly beautiful and unique, it has a rich Bundjalung heritage and culture, and a wonderfully diverse community. As a musician and poet, I was attracted to the incredible concentration of artistic talent in this region. And yet people here remain unpretentious and down-to-earth, and as demonstrated in 2022, gritty and resilient.

 Together with my fellow progressive councillors, I look forward to being a representative for this community on a rejuvenated Council that truly cares for all its people and this special part of the world we are privileged to call home.

So if you'd like to see me and other Greens on Council, on September 14 Vote 1 Greens above the line for Council, and Vote 1 Vanessa Grindon-Ekins for Mayor.

To find out more about Lismore Greens, or support our campaign, visit https://greensoncouncil.org.au/lismore/