Climate Change and the battle for the hearts and minds of Goldstein

Zoe Daniel is a 3-time foreign correspondent, former ABC Australia US Bureau chief, Southeast Asia, and Africa correspondent. She is running for the seat of Goldstein as an Independent in the next federal election.
In late 2019 I traveled to the Arctic, to the North Slope of Alaska, to put together a piece for Foreign Correspondent on a proposal for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

It was a complex piece, logistically challenging, but also a tricky story to tell, with different points of view from indigenous residents and lots of politics. But overall, it was a stark case study of the manipulation of people by big oil, people being forgotten by their governments, and the realities of global warming. Having previously only heard of melting sea ice, I saw the polar bears scrabbling for habitat, heard the stories of the people whose food sources are changing and dwindling, and walked across the plains where deep holes represent melted permafrost.

It was both an exhilarating adventure, but also a depressing journey.

Soon after, I stood amid the rubble in Northern California where very late season wildfires wiped out swathes of houses, farmland, and vineyards North of San Francisco. Power was off for hundreds of thousands of people.

That was against the reminder of this when we almost lost our house on Christmas Day 2015.

The scarring experience of covering Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, then the world’s largest-ever superstorm wiped out Tacloban City.

Climate change has been everywhere in my reporting life. I have covered floods, typhoons, bushfires on 4 continents.

Anyway, the Alaska trip was towards the end of my posting as US bureau chief and it crystallised my view that my time in journalism was coming to an end. It was time to cease being an observer. Politics was never really on my radar. I’m not party political and I couldn’t run for one of the majors. But I needed to make a bigger contribution.


First, I wrote a book about Trump, not a negative tome, but an explanation of who his supporters are and why. The dangers of populism and misinformation and erosion of trust and integrity in leadership.

Voices of Goldstein came to me, via Angela Pippos, I did not seek them out. Initially, I was very wary due to the toxic environment in Canberra and the loss of family time, but my kids are hugely climate aware. They have met Greta Thunberg and they believe the time is running out. I agree. My 14-year-old son makes a powerful argument when he says, you have a chance to do something for all of us Mum.

That means redirecting our economy, training, innovating, being optimistic, using the opportunity. Not waiting.

There’s a song from Hamilton, In the room where it happens. Often, you have to get into the room to create change. Frequently, I’ve been an observer in that room. If the Goldstein community will join me and allow me to represent them I will step up to the table.

After all of my travels, I came back to Australia, to Goldstein, because this is where I want to be. I run most days along the bay. After all of my challenging reporting life, I am very mindful of the privilege of living here. But as I worry for our spectacular environment, our outsized prosperity, and the future of our kids, I realise that my vote means nothing. And I am a swinging voter. I vote for who I think can be the change, Liberal, Labor, doesn’t matter.

Goldstein is full of brilliant people, leaders in their fields, successful individuals. I have huge respect for that. I don’t think our government does. Goldstein is taken for granted and it needs a voice.