There are now over 35 Voices Of communities in Australia fighting for Representative Democracy.

Sue is an active founding member of Voices of Goldstein who are looking to get better representation at a federal level in their electorate of Goldstein. It’s about people power, local citizens reclaiming our democracy for the people.

As citizens, we know that trustworthiness and clear choices underpin a healthy democracy and this includes a productive life, flourishing families, productive businesses and viable economies, however, it seems that Canberra has lost our trust and robbed us of honest, workable choices to create a sustainable future for all.

There is a growing dissatisfaction in the Australian community with the current state of our politics and politicians. Many do not feel our interests are being represented at all in Canberra.  This is not just a feeling. The evidence shows Australia is going backwards when it comes to representative democracy with:

• Public satisfaction with the way our democracy is working having crashed over the past decade – from 86% to 41%.
• Australia’s status as an open transparent democracy was downgraded from ”open” to ”narrowed” in 2019 by CIVICUS
• While for almost 20 years, Australia ranked in the top 10 least corrupt countries, by 2018, we’d fallen 8 points to 13.

This raises serious questions about the ethical underpinnings and intentions of political parties, politicians and institutions in this country.

This is why Sue is actively supporting the election of Zoe Daniel, community-backed Independent Candidate for Goldstein at the 2022 Federal Election who will to stand for scientific based climate action, integrity in politics, especially the introduction of an ICAC, media diversity in mainstream media and support for universal health care, adequate housing, action on the Aged Care Royal Commission and accessible affordable education from Kindergarten to Tertiary. She wants to make sure that no one is left behind in a rapidly changing world which means we need to support measures that fight inequality, discrimination, inhumanity and fake news.

You can listen to this 45 min interview where Sue and Denise Shrivell, creator of the @SpinProof podcast series, discuss the importance of representative democracy and the Voices Of Movement in Australia.

Campaign Manager for Zoe Daniel’s 2022 winning Federal Election Campaign for the Goldstein

In early November 2021, Sue accepted the offer to become Zoe Daniel’s campaign manager for the seat of Goldstein at the 2022 Federal Election.

There from the start when the community group Voices of Goldstein formed in November 2020 realising the untapped sea of people wanting real change – real action on climate, integrity, equality, shared prosperity and better politics- to being chair of the candidate selection panel selecting a community-backed independent candidate in October 2021, to starting a full-on political campaign with a handful of people in early November 2021, then leading a 1,500 strong organisation of volunteers in less than 6 months has been a real honour for Sue.

Campaign systems, resourcing, funding, team structures, roles and responsibilities, and a code of conduct all had to be developed from scratch pretty much, however it wasn’t done it alone because of the legacy and support of Cathy McGowan, who paved the way for the community-backed Independenty model.

In the space of 6 months, Sue and the campaign leadership team created operations and on-the-ground teams, a fundraising team, policies, website, campaign and media strategy, branding and messaging, marketing, advertising and social media campaigns, marketing materials and merchandising, learning and IT systems, events and community activity schedules including street meets, leafletting, door knocking, phone banking, community QandA events, summits, Zoe walks and bike rides, Zoe dog walks, a Team Zoe choir, the list is long, as well as raise $1.3M+, most of which has come from the Goldstein community to fund this campaign and give Zoe a real chance of winning.

It’s was a full-on, 7-day a week operation.

Sue didn’t accept the offer lightly. Truth is she had never lead or run a political campaign of any kind before, but when she thought about it, a political campaign is the ultimate example of an on-the-ground human-to-human sales led campaign and she has helped run many successful sales led campaigns before so she accepted this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Sue had written 2 articles about her experience as Zoe’s campaign manager:

• A Teal Test of Character
• Selling – a powerful change agent

Media enquiries – Sue is available for media interviews, commentary and public speaking engagements – contact Sue here.