Australian Parents for Climate Action
$40,000 | August 2021
What do Australian Parents for Climate Action do?
We are on a mission to increase the political and corporate will for climate action by engaging and empowering millions of parents and carers across Australia to advocate for climate action in their communities, in the media, and to politicians and businesses. With with 100 volunteers and 14,000 supporters a cross every Federal electorate, and 30 local groups across every state and Territory, AP4CA are a power force for climate advocacy.
Why is this work important?
Parents’ responsibility to protect their children makes them powerful spokespeople. AP4CA is ideally placed to support parents to become climate spokespeople due to our knowledge of how to activate parents and our track record of training and empowering parents to confidently speak out.
The last election showed us that parents play a critical role in election outcomes. With the Federal election due by May 2022 we urgently need to increase public and political will for climate action. A strong movement of parents engaging candidates in key strategic locations can increase politicians’ perception of their constituents' climate concerns.
How is Groundswell supporting this work?
The Federal Election will make all parties and candidates more sensitive to community opinion. AP4CA’s election strategy is to build bi-partisan support for climate action. By engaging, empowering and amplifying parents’ voices in marginal electorates, AP4CA can use their numbers to influence candidates’ perceptions of electoral priorities, so that they feel strong voter pressure to support our climate asks publicly and in their parties.
With Groundswell support, their plan is as follows:
Asks: to be communicated through our network, with allies, and in meetings with key decision makers. We will also selectively promote allies’ engagement tactics, as appropriate.
1. A legislated plan to achieve emissions reductions of 75% on 2005 levels by 2030 in Australia.
2. Funding for solar and batteries for all schools and early childhood centres in Australia and support for them to be 'virtual power plants’.
Location: We will focus our efforts in two key marginal seats (Corangamite (VIC) and Boothby (SA)) where we have strong supporters and volunteers, while supporting our local groups and supporters nationwide to replicate the campaign in their own constituencies.
Communications approach: Our campaign will play a constructive role in transforming climate discourse toward positive solutions and benefits framing to affect the political discourse.
Our plan is to activate and train parents in our target electorates to influence candidates through:
Lobbying candidates: Meet with local MPs and election candidates to lobby them to commit to our asks.
Media coverage: Appear in the local media through holding media-worthy events or other media engagement (with the support of AP4CA staff and the Climate Media Centre).
Climate Conversations: Speak at local and online community events and in parents’ social media networks about the need for climate action in the context of the election commitments, and recruit more parents to join us.
Absorbing activated parents and pivoting our community: Planning beyond the election to absorb newly activated supporters and sustain our existing community activity in critical lobbying opportunities following polling day.
Grant update
In 2022, AP4CA’s national network of parents conducted 83 meetings with federal election candidates, including 49 meetings in marginal seats. They distributed over 5,100 ‘climate action now signs’, primarily in marginal electorates. 135 candidates from all sides of politics signed the Solar Our Schools pledge, resulting in 22 elected parliamentarians providing a new cross-party foundation for federal climate action. The climate swings in the three target electorates were 50% above average, with strong Greens and Labor support.
