Candidate Profile: De Brierley Newton

BY DANIEL BISHTON

Greens candidate De Brierley Newton began her political career on the Spanish island of Majorca. After witnessing her local mayor fill in a valley which provided the village’s fresh water to allow vehicle access to his property, she joined the Greens party in Fornalutx. 

After returning to Sydney, she helped lead the campaign to save Hunters Hill High School. It was at this time that she met Greens MP John Kaye.

‘Here was a Labor party that was trying to close schools, which I thought was an antithesis of what a Labor party was supposed to be doing,’ she says.

‘It was a social justice issue.’

Social justice is a lynchpin of the Greens’ policy, and a clear motivating factor in De Brierley Newton’s campaign.

‘We need to put in place a strategy and a plan for affordable housing, so that people can work in the inner city and have housing close to where they work,’ she says.

‘That’s a major function of a strong, decent community.’

She is also sceptical of the current Council’s commitment to sustainability, despite touting its green credentials.

‘The action is not living up to the dialogue.’

She advocates adoption of solar-thermal technology for Sydney, a new technology pioneered by Australian scientist, Dr David Mills. Mills recently relocated to California after massive foreign investment in his technology to establish solar-thermal power stations there.

‘In Denmark, in the period since the mid 1980s when they became heavily involved in renewable energy, they have put on 20,000 jobs. At the same time, the coal industry in Australia has dropped 20,000 jobs,’ she says.

‘If the coal industry could automate everything, they’d do that.’