To stop Adani, we need to shift the politics.
Follow the steps below to turn up the heat on your MP. We won't stop until Adani's mine is ruled out for good.
GATHER SOME MATES
Get some friends or neighbours in your local area together to plan an action. Call a friend. Invite people over for a coffee, dinner or a movie night. Get them fired up about Adani and ask them to help you plan an action to escalate pressure on your MP.
GATHER INTEL
Follow these steps to find the information you’ll need about your MP for all future advocacy activities. Do it as a group and distribute the tasks.
- Get a sense of who your MP is. Read their website, Facebook page, biography, first speech in parliament and recent media statements. Friend them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter, visit their office and grab the campaign pamphlets they have in reception to see what's important to them and their electorate. Research what they and their party have said on the issues you care about.
- Sign up on your MP’s website to receive regular email updates, invites to local events, and information on their position on local issues to understand what they’re saying. Every MP has an e-newsletter.
- Find out where your MP stands on climate change, coal, clean energy and our environment. Remember your MP will have to vote the party line, and the policy positions on their website will have to align with federal party policy. However you can also learn a lot about what your MP really thinks from their comments in the media, which new releases they put on their website and historical commentary on issues from before they became the subject of party politics.
ACTION MENU
Hold a meeting at your MP’s office
Ask your MP for a meeting. If you want to have a strong impact on your MP bring along your local friends, family and neighbours who care about this issue too. The more people in your electorate your MP hears from the better.
Organise a creative action outside your MP’s office
This is a great tactic if your MP won’t meet with you but also a great tactic to make your meeting big! Encourage local media to come along by calling them the day before to let them know what you are doing. If they can’t make it send them a few pictures and statements about what you did after your action.
Find out where your MP will be and turn up!
Are they on local radio? Call in and ask them not to fund Adani. Are they running a public town hall or speaking at a local community event? Show up and ask them to not fund Adani.
Run a coordinated phone in to your MP’s office
Hold a coordinated phone in. Get a bunch of people who live in your electorate together and jam your MP’s phone lines with calls about Adani. If you can’t get a big group together, get your friends together and pick alternate days to call your MP’s office.
Can’t visit your MP? Make sure they hear your message.
Invite your local friends, family and neighbours over and get them fired up about the issue then:
- Each write a letter to your MP, or;
- Take photos holding this sign and post it on your MP’s Facebook page
Kooyong Climate Coalition show how it's done!
A well planned action goes a long way. Sit down with your friends or local group, plot out your action and assign roles and responsibilities.
- What resources do you need?
- How many people do you need to pull it off?
- What creative tactics can you use to get their attention?
Here’s a simple template to use to plan your action. Be bold, be creative, have fun!
POST YOUR EVENT ON OUR WEBSITE
Register your event on ACF’s website so we can invite the ACF community in your area. Our volunteer team may be able to support you with materials and answer questions. Use the ‘host your own event’ button on the events page on our website.
There are four steps to register your event:
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Create an account on the ACF website.
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Click the link in the email you get to activate your account. Create a username and click ACTIVATE ACCOUNT.
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Go to our Events page and click HOST YOUR OWN EVENT.
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Enter the event details and click SAVE AND POST.
RECRUIT SOME PEOPLE!
Then share the link and start recruiting! Create a Facebook page and invite your friends! Email your networks. Flyer your neighbourhood. Spread the word and get people down to your action!
Do your action and escalate the pressure on your local federal MP. Write to them, phone them, meet with them, turn up at their events and protest outside their offices. Don’t give up until their parties rule out public funding for Adani’s disastrous mine.
If your MP’s party has already ruled it out, get your MP to state it publicly. If your MP’s party supports the loan, there are still lots of things you can ask for.
- Make your MP defend their party’s policy in public.
- Ask your MP to make public statements that disagree with their party’s policy on an issue.
- Ask your MP to raise issues in their party room for discussion with their colleagues, and lobby internally for a change of position.
- Ask your MP to raise it while they are speaking in Parliament. They can read out your letters in Parliament.
Do what you can to get a commitment from your local representative and record it – in writing, in a photo holding a sign or speaking to camera so you can share it with the world and hold them to their commitment later. Even if they don’t give you the answer you want, it’s still worth capturing. You can share this with your community to get them fired up.
Make your action reach far wider by sharing it! Take photos and video, write a blog. Post it on social media and share it with your networks. Tell us how it went so we can share it with the broader ACF community.
Use the hashtag #StopAdani
Please, please, please, please, please will you report back your action to us so we know what our collective impact is and we can tell a powerful story. It's really important.
Check out our handy guide here with tips on how to talk to your MP and some useful talking points.