Elections > Federal Election 2004 > Candidates

Paul van den Bergen

Australian Democrats candidate for Bruce

Australian Democrats Candidate for Bruce

Why I am standing

15 years of watching Research in this country decline from 1.5% GDP to below 0.35%. How are we going to be a clever country if people with degrees and PhDs a) can't get a job and 2) can earn more in a factory than as a consulting engineer. THis is what happened to me. Seems to me that the Australian Democrats are the only party with any long term policies for this country.

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Important issues in my electorate

Why do we insist that Freeways should be paid from the public purse (Victorian and Federal Liberals "No Tollways" campain) but that public transport should somehow pay for itself? A State Liberal candidate recently pointed out that the Freeway would bring in $5 for every dollar spent on it... Just ask yourself how much Public Transport Infrastructure we could build for AU$2.5 billion? Then think of the savings in terms of lower green house gasses, road maintanence, lower death and disease rate.

See, I'm an engineer. I look for the most cost effective path that achieves the best outcome for our society. Not the outcome that is easiest to sell to voters.

Education. I'm a product of the state education system, though a special case since I went to Melbourne High School, a school fed by the state based on merit. I oppose government funding of private schools, full stop. If a private school is a private business, they should succeed or fail, privately.
What we need in our schools is multiple learning methods, either integrated or as separate available streams. What we have is a one size fits nobody system. I have watched teh quality of the students coming out of schools decline over the last 15 years, yet the students have far more work now than ever before.

Universities have become degree factories. We needed Tafe, colleges and Trade Institutions as well as Universities, before the ammalgamations or the 1980's. We still need them now. Universities should be elite... based on merit. They should be hard to graduate from but easy to get into.

Universities play a dual role. They are also research institutions. Discoveries are made with a "that's funny". We do research not because we think we will discover great things, but because that is the way we train our brightest to recognise teh significance of the "thats funny" moment. Without a lot of researchers doing a lot of work in a broad range of fields, and with the freedom to explore the unusual, we will never benefit from research. The more you spend, the more you benefit, but the money a) takes 15-20 years to come back and b) does not enter the economy where it leaves.

This brings me to my final point - Energy Research. We are uniquely placed to do solar and wind energy research, not to mention geothermal/hotrocks. We should be world leaders, yet Germany, a country with snow for half the year does more than we do.

If you want to establish an industry to support your society where none was before - Nokia in Finland is a prime example - then you must support that industry. We can excell on the things that this country needs as a consequence of it's isolation - Medicine, Defence, Agriculture and Renewable Energy!

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Important policy documents

See all our policies at
http://www.democrats.org.au/policies/

Those that matter to me most are

* Public Transport.
* Education.
* Research.
* Renewable Energy.

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Contact Details

Other Candidates

GILES, Tania - GRN
* GRIFFIN, Alan - ALP
LARNER, William - CEC
RANDALL, Angela - LP
WATNER, Richard - FFP

* incumbent