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The Sustainable Hour no. 554 | Transcript | Podcast notes
‘Make accountability sexy again‘
Our guest in The Sustainable Hour no. 554 is Rob Eisenberg, founder of Local Matters (LOMA), a platform for building political accountability.
In this week’s Sustainable Hour, we zero in on the heart of democracy and community action – and how we as citizens can reclaim both.
Local Matters – LoMa – is a new digital tool created by Newcastle-based surgeon and climate advocate Robert Eisenberg. It functions like a combination of Spotify and Tinder, but for politics. Instead of music tracks or dating profiles, users see bills, motions, and agendas.
The system allows them to vote on issues, compare their stance with elected representatives, and monitor how well those representatives reflect their views in practice.
Designed to foster political accountability and community engagement, the webbased platform allows citizens to track how their elected representatives vote on Bills in Parliament, express their views on bills, and join forces with community groups to influence decision-making across all levels of government.
How does it work?
→ Visit the platform at www.loma.global
Browse legislation, bills or council motions and view the simplified summaries written in plain English
Cast your vote on issues – or follow them to stay informed
You can also proxy your vote to trusted community groups who will then be voting on your behalf. You still have the option to override if the group is not voting as you’d have expected them to.
Track your personal impact score and engagement history
What makes LOMA different?
While other tools like ABC’s Vote Compass or Build a Ballot focus on elections and policy alignment, LOMA is action-focused and works between elections. It shows what politicians actually do, not just what they say.
The platform makes political engagement accessible to those who may feel disempowered or too busy to engage through traditional means. It is especially designed to support younger people and others who may feel that their vote does not matter.
Local and federal relevance
LOMA is being developed to support action at federal, state, and local government levels, as well as for corporate shareholder voting. Citizens can upload local council matters by sharing links to relevant council documents, making it possible to track and influence decisions in any local area.
The goal is to create a tool that strengthens community organising and allows small and large groups alike to campaign together. Even small numbers can make a real difference in marginal electorates.
Origins and funding
The idea for LOMA evolved from Rob’s earlier project Vote Earth Now, which helped over 100,000 Australians vote for climate action ahead of the 2022 federal election. Inspired by the Black Summer bushfires and a powerful conversation with his daughters, Eisenberg dedicated himself to creating a system that enables meaningful political participation.
LOMA is independently funded, largely out of Eisenberg’s own pocket. While he has travelled internationally to seek support, he has deliberately chosen not to tie the platform to venture capital or philanthropic sources that could compromise its independence or neutrality.
Who is it for?
LOMA is designed to be used by any group or individual, from local clubs and grassroots campaigns to national advocacy organisations. Eisenberg especially hopes that local community groups will take ownership of the tool and use it to deepen civic engagement and collaboration.
Call to action
The platform is still evolving and requires support to continue improving. Eisenberg invites individuals, organisations and potential funders to reach out directly.
Website: www.loma.global Email: rob@voteearthnow.com
A bigger vision
LOMA is part of a larger mission to restore trust in democracy, empower communities, and encourage citizens to take a more active role in shaping the future. Eisenberg sees the tool as a way to respond to the climate crisis, promote accountability, and build stronger democratic cultures – one local issue at a time.
“We can’t leave these critical issues to politicians alone. We need to be part of the solution – together, as communities.”
~ Rob Eisenberg, founder of Local Matters, LOMA
We also debut the song “Because Local Matters”, inspired by the platform and its mission. The song celebrates community, local democracy and people power – as an antidote to political disillusionment.
Because Local Matters | Lyrics
– A song for restoring trust and rebuilding democracy, inspired by Rob Eisenberg and his new Local Matters platform, featured in The Sustainable Hour no. 554
→ You can listen to more climate and community songs from The Sustainable Hour here
“A great example is your [climate action] groups in Victoria. I’d love them to all be working together using the tool that we’ve created to coordinate and to engage young people especially. It’s corny, but they are the future and they’re really keen, you know – they really want to get engaged, and they’re really disenchanted with the current political system.”
~ Robert Eisenberg, founder of Local Matters, LOMA
Global Outlook with Colin Mockett OAM
Colin takes us on a sobering tour of international developments:
– The UN Ocean Conference in Nice ended with non-binding resolutions to protect 30 per cent of the world’s oceans by 2030 – yet the US didn’t even attend.
– Despite new marine protection commitments from nations like Samoa, French Polynesia, Colombia and Tanzania, only 3 per cent of the global ocean is currently fully protected.
– Cloud cover is shrinking worldwide, accelerating global warming – a trend confirmed by Australian researchers.
– A new report places Australia as the second-largest generator of single-use plastic waste per capita – trailing only Singapore.
– Climate activists have taken Western Australia’s approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas expansion to the Supreme Court, citing legal and scientific negligence.
Citizens’ Assemblies and Building Local Power
In the final part of the episode, Mik announces an upcoming Zoom meeting on Sunday 6 July at 5:30pm, aiming to establish a citizens’ assembly in the Geelong region. He, Tony and Colin discuss how citizens’ assemblies – already used effectively in Ireland and the UK – can guide political decisions when parliaments are gridlocked or captured by vested interests. These assemblies help rebuild trust between citizens and politicians by grounding decisions in informed community dialogue.
Featured songs in this episode
“Because Local Matters” – written for this episode “Play Your Part” – a musical reflection on citizens’ assemblies, civic engagement and shared values “Symphony of the Shift” – exploring the broader evolution of our values and systems in the face of a global meta-crisis
Links and more information
→ Try the LOMA platform: www.loma.global
→ Zoom invite for Citizens’ Assembly in Geelong on 6 July, 5:30pm – sign up by sending an email
→ Learn more about Online Citizens’ Assemblies
→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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“It is remarkable how humans observe our changing climate and the extreme wild fires and droughts and collapsing ecosystems and the first thought is: ‘LET’S BURN MORE STUFF!’ “
~ Climate News, @climatenews.bsky.social
Australians do care
According to a new Lowy Institute poll, support for climate action remains strong in Australia, despite an increasingly uncertain and unstable world.
The poll found 74 per cent of Australians disapprove of US President Donald Trump withdrawing from international climate agreements and 70 per cent continue to support Australia hosting the COP UN climate talks. Those numbers are steady from last year.
Support for renewables also remains strong, with 82 per cent backing subsidies for developing renewable energy technologies, and 75 per cent see renewables playing a “major role” in the 2050 energy mix – far more than envisage a major role for nuclear (37 per cent) or coal (24 per cent).
Urgency in addressing climate change has softened by six points – this year 51 per cent of survey respondents say “global warming is a serious and pressing problem” that we should act on “even if it involves significant costs”.
Ryan Neelam, director of the Lowy’s public opinion and foreign policy program, says the numbers suggest that most Australians believe the transition to a renewable energy economy is not only inevitable but desirable, something worth paying for.
He also believes that despite that softening in the sense of urgency over climate action, the link between attitudes to renewables and concern over climate is clear. “My sense is that renewables is closely tied to the climate question,” he told me.
~ Excerpt from newsletter from The Age, theage.com.au, 18 June 2025
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 554
TRANSCRIPT:
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General:
We are flirting with climate disaster.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re on the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to the elders – past, present and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re on stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land. They have accumulated a great amount of ancient wisdom as they nurtured both their land and their communities for millennia before their land was stolen. And as we approach NAIDOC week next week, it’s a good time for us to reflect on how that ancient wisdom has so many lessons for us as we navigate the climate crisis.
Mik Aidt: (at 01:17)
2025… So we’re just about halfway through this decade that we were told is ‘make it or break it’ for the climate. Meaning we either act now or we can forget about it. Things will get out of hand beyond our control. And we’re seeing the signals already from the climate system out there screaming at us louder than ever. It’s breaking down. Temperature records are tumbling. The oceans are heating up beyond expectations. Agriculture is struggling.
And now we’re being told that the climate models probably were underestimated the way things are going. And despite this, fossil fuel extraction is not just continuing, but accelerating, including here in Australia. And somehow all these signals from the climate are not loud enough to pierce through this fog of political compromise we’re seeing and fatigue from the media who don’t make the connections and don’t tell people what’s going on. But you have The Sustainable Hour, we’ll be talking about it. And certainly, our global news reporter, Colin Mockett OAM, is always ready with news from around the world and talking about where we stand on the climate front. Colin, so what do you have for us today?
Colin Mockett’s Global Outlook:
Good morning Mik, and it’s not that different to be really honest. My roundup begins in Nice in France where last week the United Nations Ocean Conference took place and it ended with a resolution to bring in legislation that would protect 30 per cent of the Earth’s global oceans by 2030. That sounds really positive doesn’t it? But let me let you down gently.
Although the world leaders who attended or sent delegates all agreed to sweeping commitments to designate vast stretches of their territorial waters as marine protected areas, it was noticeable that their final resolution was non-binding and that for the first time in the history of these talks, no delegation came from the United States.
Nevertheless, the new resolution covers millions of square ocean miles and it restricts or bans human activities to protect critical ecosystems such as coral reefs and conserve endangered species. These include mantra, rays, sharks and sea birds. The countries also want fish populations to recover from overfishing.
Currently, only about 8 per cent of the world’s ocean has protection of some form, and that’s according to the Marine Conservation Institute. That’s a Seattle-based non-profit that tracks marine protected areas, and they did attend the conference. Just under 3 per cent of oceans are fully protected from extractive activities such as industrial fishing, mining, or offshore oil and gas.
Think about that one, 3 per cent of the world’s ocean. At the five day conference, which is the third UN biannual gathering that was focused solely on the oceans, scientists repeatedly called for accelerated action. “We can’t inch our way to 30-by-30. We must race,” said Enric Sala. He’s the marine ecologist and founder of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project. He was there too. “We need to establish 85 new marine protected areas daily to achieve the goal that we put down.”
Now, Australia’s South Pacific neighbours announced some of the boldest commitments at the conference. Samoa will create nine maritime protected areas. That will collectively account for a section of the ocean roughly the size of Vietnam, while French Polynesia pledged to protect 350,000 square miles of its national waters. The governments of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu unveiled plans for a Melanesian ocean reserves which could protect 2 million square miles, an area the size of the Amazon rainforest. Now when complete, this would be the world’s first multinational indigenous-led marine reserve.
Beyond the Pacific, Colombia said it would protect about 2,000 square miles of the Caribbean Sea as part of the new Cianilla and Bajalurvo marine protected areas. The area will protect several remote coral atolls and the species of deep sea sharks.
Tanzania will designate reserves to protect seagrass beds and mangrove forests, which serve as natural storm and erosion barriers for its coastal communities. But conservationists emphasize that the hardest work lies ahead. Lance Morgan, who is president of the Marine Conservation Institute, said countries must follow through on all these commitments and implement and manage the proposed areas. Biodiversity only benefits when these commitments translate to real changes in the water, he said. Earth cloud cover is rapidly shrinking and contributing to record-breaking temperatures. We’ve covered that before. And proof of that came from new research that was released last week by Monash University.
They lead a group that’s called the Australian Research Council Centre on Excellence for 21st Century Weather. Now, this group analyse satellite observations of clouds and they found between 1.5 and 3 per cent of the world’s storm cloud zones had contracted during each decade of the past 24 years. It’s a slow but ongoing and measurable process.
The data shows that with fewer clouds reflecting sunlight back into space to keep the planet cool, the warming effect of greenhouse gas emissions is driving up global temperatures even faster than we all expected.
And still connected to the world’s ocean, a new report from Circularity Hub lists the five nations that can contribute most to the world’s plastic waste problems. The report found that Singapore uses more single-use plastics per person than any other country on the planet. Each Singaporean discards 76 kilograms of plastic per year.
And you know who’s in second place in that list? It’s Australia. Each Australian discards 59 kilograms of plastic per year. In third place is Oman, which 56 kilograms. Fourth is the Netherlands, at 55 kilograms. And fifth is Belgium, at 55 ahead of population per year. These are the world’s major contributors to plastic in our waterways and therefore our oceans. The micro-plastics in seafood and also overflowing landfills.
Now, I do believe that we’re looking to put on a drowning in plastic Sustainable Hour special in the near future and we can go into it much deeper. But this is the first warning shot of the amount of plastic that is drowning our oceans.
But now for a final piece, it’s not exactly positive. I was looking for a positive ending for this week. But a group of environmentalists announced earlier this week that they are taking the government’s decision to approve Western Australia’s Woodside North West Shelf project. They’re challenging the WA government’s approval of this project in the Supreme Court with an argument that’s grounded in science and law. They say their action isn’t just about protecting WA’s rock art. It’s about confronting a government that approved a disastrous climate project in full knowledge of what it would cost the planet. It’s about the government breaking its own laws, failing to properly consider the climate damage and heritage risk, even as scientists and heritage experts pleaded with them not to approve Woodside’s plans. And that semi-positive note ends our round up for the week.
Jingle:
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
. . .
Tony Gleeson:
Our guest today is Robert Eisenberg. Robert is a Newcastle surgeon. We’ve had him on before. Today he’s going to talk to us about a political tool that he’s had a lot to do with developing called LOMA or ‘Local Matters’. And he says that he’s very keen to make accountability sexy. So Robert, let’s do that. So I’d love to see accountability made sexy.
Rob Eisenberg:
That’s right! Yeah, no, I guess the reason I said that was that I saw the Facebook movie and it’s called ‘Social Network’ and they had 18,000 hits within a couple of hours of launching the real thing. Which is interesting because when we launched… Of course their Facebook was about young people at college and it was all, and how good looking they all were and who was single and who wasn’t. You know, nothing else cuts through like sex, does it? But, accountability, I guess, has not had that kind of sexiness, but we had about the same number of people click on to our website tool, Local Matters, or LOMA, just before the election, in just a couple of days. And obviously people are interested in what does this mean, holding politicians to account and what are the possibilities there. I guess power is sexy to many people.
Yeah, so what is Local Matters? It’s basically a web-based platform like an app that you could roughly call a combination of Spotify, which is that music app for but for instead of songs, we’ve got bills and motions that are happening in Parliament. We can have agenda items from local council or from corporations meetings.
And then on the other side, we’ve got the sexy part, which is the matching part. It’s a bit like Tinder, I guess. We use the same algorithm as they use on the dating apps to basically let users know when they’re matching well with their representatives. So, you know, we’re all represented by politicians, basically, at federal, state, local government level, and in other forums. They represent us and they vote on our behalf on things. But what if we could tell them how we want them to vote on those things in advance? Tell them what things we want them to vote on, tell them how we want them to vote, and then we use that matching algorithm to show whether they vote the same as us.
And so we get from that, we get an idea of how well they’re representing us, how well we’re aligned to them. But on the flip side, they find out what we want and it’s going to help them because they need to know what we want. They need to know that we’re going to support them in doing things that might be unpopular with their party, for example. So it’s a great way to get a gauge of what’s going on and to increase the engagement between citizens and between the community groups that are helping us and helping represent us and then politicians who are representing us.
Mik Aidt:
Is it similar to some of the tools that already exist? What I have sort-of in mind is, for instance, here before the election, ABC had a website where you could go in and say a lot about what your thoughts were, and it would come out with some different results that then showed you where you were in a landscape of politics, as an example. Is it similar to that, or…?
Rob:
Very, very much so. The difference is those websites, which are terrific, are about, firstly, they’re about elections and secondly, they’re about policy. So they’re not actually about action. So what we’re seeing with Local Matters, with LOMA, is how politicians act on stuff that we have told them how we want them to act first. So there’s a couple of dimensions in there that are well beyond policy. And we’ve all seen that politicians can say a whole lot of stuff, but what they actually do is the important thing. And the big difference apart from that is that local matters can be used all the time. And that’s the whole point of it, is that we can’t wait for elections. We need to help our politicians and help each other get action on the things that matter to us now.
You know, the three year election cycle is a problem in democracies, I think. And this is a way that we can overcome that by being more engaged all the time.
Mik:
It sounds really interesting, Rob, yet difficult to understand how it actually works, especially for our listeners who don’t have it right there in front of them. Can you take us on a guided tour? Let’s say, for instance, I’m a user, right?, I go into the system, I’m frustrated with that it seems like nobody’s listening to me when it comes to fossil fuel projects. They’re opening up new gas projects in Western Australia. They’re opening up a new gas hub here in Geelong, where I live. Where do I begin and where do I go in and then use this system to contact the people who are my representatives?
Rob:
So the way it works is that it takes into account that most people, especially young people, don’t feel like their vote matters. And day to day, they don’t feel empowered, they feel disenchanted with the system. They’re struggling, they’re trying to just put food on the table. So they’re often finding it difficult to… about the things that are really worrying them nagging away at the back of their mind they’re finding it difficult to get engaged. If they’re lucky they can go to a protest or they can sign an online petition or send an email to politicians but we all know the politicians don’t necessarily listen to those and they’re not particularly worried by that.
So this is a way they can, talking to their friends, find out about a way they can do something online on their phone or on their laptop. That’s very easy. And the simple thing is to go on there and have a play around. You just type loma.global into your browser and you go on there. And if you get invited on there by someone, you’ll via a QR code, you’ll just go straight to either their page or to a group’s page or to a bill, you go straight to where you’ve been invited and you will have had a hopefully a chat to the person about why they’re bringing you there.
But it’s because most people find it difficult to understand what’s going on in politics day to day. We’ve broken it right down. We’ve we’ve we’ve got the bills and we have used AI to break them down and make them very simple in language a 12-year-old can understand and to set out the for and against of the different bills for people. And then, well, you know, as time passes, we’ll have lots of users on there who are going to be making a comment about different bills, following bills, saying which bills they think are important.
For example, you just… you know, we’re talking about fossil fuels. Perhaps there’s a bill about the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. So we might all go on there and say, ‘Follow that bill’ to show that we care about that. And then we might even say how we want people to vote on that bill, how we want our representatives to vote on that bill by clicking ‘Vote For’.
If we’re not sure, we’ll see how other people have commented about the bill and what they say we should do.
And the best thing of all is that you can proxy your vote and vote with a group. So if there’s a group that you trust, I know you’re involved with lot of groups in Victoria. If there’s one of those groups that’s saying, look, this is a really important bill, let’s all get in there and get behind that, you can go onto their group page and you can click vote with and you and that means that when they vote on a bill that they think is important, you’ll vote with them. It will appear on your page. You’ll be notified. You’ll be able to go in there and say, ‘Great, I’m voting on this one with them.’
Or you’ll be able to go in there and say, actually, I don’t want to vote on that one or I’m I don’t agree with them. You can change your vote or you can withdraw your vote. But at least that way, it’s quite easy for people who feel like that whole political process is so complicated to get involved.
I noticed on your website, you talk at the Centre for Climate Safety, you talk about ‘clicktivism’, like, activism on your phone, which is a great term, I think. But I think it’s more than that. It’s like dipping a toe in the water. And a lot of people who might find it a bridge too far to go and go along to a protest or go and pick at their politician’s office will feel comfortable to go on there and learn about what’s going on and then have a say on there. So I think it’s going to fill a big gap for those people who are ready to engage but not ready to jump right in.
Tony:
The issue Mik mentioned is a federal issue and potentially states as well. What about local government though? Because there’s hundreds all over the country. How does it work there?
Rob:
Look, at this stage, we’ve just built federal. However, where the interface is very similar for state and for local government, and for shareholder activism. And we’re building the interface so that people can use it for any of those things.
And basically, even if we don’t have the funding and capacity to do all 600 or 700 local government areas or councils, we’ll have the interface where if there’s something coming up in your council, you’ll be able to give us the URL, you know, where the website is, where the information is for your council and we’ll be able to upload it. And we’ll be able to then upload how your council has voted when they were voting on your behalf on this item. And then the beauty of it is not only that you tell them how you want them to vote, but you then monitor how they vote. It’s all published, it’s all open source. We can all see what everybody’s doing and you’ve recorded it. Because you care about it, it stays on your page as long as you want. And you’ve got your own page.
Mik:
Have you set yourself some goals for, you know, like critical mass? How many users are you hoping to have by this and this date and things like that?
Rob:
No, too hard, too hard. I mean, I think what we’d like to see is we’d like to see groups take it up and working with each other to get their members coming on there and getting behind things that are important. Because I think one of the problems that I see as a latecomer to the climate environment movement is that we should all be working together better than we are. And this does provide a great platform where groups can invite other groups to campaign with them on things and where they can all together sort of generate more community more communication with citizens and understanding of citizens about what’s going on and together really help politicians do the right thing.
I think so many of the issues we’re facing right now, I don’t know how to put it delicately, but they’re too important just to leave up to politicians. We have to help them and we have to show them that we’re all ready to take these actions.
Tony:
Yeah. And those numbers, if they know that they’ve got a certain amount of people supporting them, they can speak more confidently then in the party room or in other fora where they are.
Rob:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, you’ve got it in one. And on the flip side, you know, we’re also, I mean, this is all about open sourcing information, making it easy for people to see information. We’re also showing how close many of these electorates are. I mean, in Bradfield, Nicolette Boel, the independent one, she won by 27 votes. So every single person counts. And it’s great for people to realise how important they are.
Even the electorates where thousands and thousands of people with a difference between winning and losing are still more precarious than they’ve ever been before. People are no longer aligned to parties. People are disenchanted with the party system and they want to see representatives representing them better. And this is going to help people see that and it’s going to help representatives demonstrate that.
Mik:
I’m still, Rob, looking for what do you need to happen in terms of, are you hoping that organisations basically will drive getting the numbers in, or are you hoping for individuals actually to help with that?
Rob:
Look, I think the most valuable user is actually the community groups. And it’s one of the end points that we’d like to see is strengthening of community. And I would say there’s no level of community group from 10 people at your local bridge club to hundreds of thousands of people if you’re Australian Conservation Foundation or some giant community organisation. There’s no size that is too small or too big to be able to use this and I’d like to see it building around small community groups especially because that’s where people are talking face to face and I think it’s so important that even though this might be online that we’re all still talking face to face.
But yes you’re right if you want politicians to notice that we’re going to need to see lots of people on there but I think that’s the kind of thing that will occur if this is providing what people want and if it’s providing what the groups want and what helps them, and, yeah, so I don’t think there’s a magic number. And especially when you’ve got 27 people in an electorate can make a difference between someone winning and losing. You only need 50 people in that electorate saying, ‘Look, this is really important to us’ to get attention.
. . .
SONG
‘Because Local Matters’ – mp3
[Verse 1]
There’s a house with broken windows
on the edge of every town
The folks inside are waiting
for someone else to come around
but the wind keeps asking questions
that no one likes to hear
Silence doesn’t fix things
it just makes them seem to disappear
[Chorus]
Because Local Matters more than we knew
What we sow, and water, soon becomes the view
Because Local Matters – it’s a new tool for you
Enabling things you didn’t think you could do
[Verse 2]
There’s a child who draws the future
in chalk along the street
and a neighbour with a fear
they’ve been too afraid to tweet
but something stirs when voices
gather round Local Matters site
not with power, not with titles
just the will to make it right
[Chorus]
Because local matters more than before
when government build walls, we will build a door
Don’t wait for the ballots to tell you how
This is our moment and it starts right now
[Bridge]
Because the heart of the world
beats close to home
and no one will have to go it alone
Local matters – and now we see
our future is built in community
restoring trust – rebuilding democracy
[Chorus]
Because local matters – and because it’s NOT too late
to turn the tide, reform, reshape
Because local matters – and it always did
This is the work we owe our kids
[Outro]
Because local matters
[Voice excerpts:]
7News:
Three people have been arrested at a climate change protest in Melbourne…
Robert Eisenberg: (at 26:06)
Young people especially, they are the future and they’re really keen, know, they really want to get engaged and they’re really disenchanted with the current political system.
Robert Eisenberg: (at 27:17)
We don’t know what’s around the corner, game change is going to come and we’ve got to be ready to make the most of it when it does.
Robert Eisenberg: (at 28:28)
I think the way we’re going to do it is with communities, people getting involved, and you know, part of that’s going to be saving democracy.
ABC News on 23 June 2025 reporting from Taree flooding funding rally
…for all flood-effected areas…
ABC Lab:
We are going the wrong way
Young climate activist speaking at climate rally in front of Geelong City Hall:
We may be young, we may be old, but we can make a difference!
Stephanie Asher, former Geelong mayor:
All those in favour? Those against? Carried!
. . .
Tony: (at 29:44)
So many, at local government anyway, so many of the issues are common. Like a developer wants to do something that’s going to impact negatively on the environment. And is there a facility in LOMA for them to connect and say, “… we knocked this over, this is how we did it.”
Rob:
There will be. will. There will be. Definitely. I mean, that’s that’s really important. So, yeah, there’ll be a way you can find, I mean there’s already a search bar there that can help you find bills and groups, but there’s going to be a way you can find causes or campaigns about topics and then you know some things are done by federal government, some things you know if you want to find bills that are going to make a difference about the health system then you’re going to go to state level mostly. I mean there’ll still be things at federal level but there’ll be a lot at state level that’s important.
And then we’ve all seen lots of important stuff happening at local council level. And I guess that’s why we’ve sort of gone towards local matters as the branding, because I think for a lot of people, it’s going to seem easier to engage about the whole potholes in the road down the street or the fact that there’s no bike paths than it is about the big items to start with. But I think that when you’re on there and engaging with something that matters to you, you’re going to be able to see all the different ways that you can get involved through the groups, through the different levels of government and telling them what you want. I think that… This is something that hasn’t existed before. It’s very new and that’s why I’ve had a brilliant team of developers working on it. Because when people encounter something totally new, they need to find it intuitive to use and just in the act of using it, they learn how it works and they start to feel the power. And the other thing we’ve built in, I guess, to help people realise their impact they’re having is a few different measures of their impact, like their vote power and their impact score. And people will soon learn which actions they take of supporting bills or voting on things or getting other people involved joining groups, which things have the biggest impact. So a lot of it is something that’s all, it’s all been very new to me as a medic, it’s not my field of expertise, but it’s been great to work with a whole lot of brilliant developers to learn about what makes it easy for people to engage. Because it’s been way too hard. It’s time for something easy.
Mik:
We live in a time, Rob, where a lot of the systems that exist out there, think about X, think about Facebook, are very much dominated by the people who are behind it. Mark Zuckerberg, there’s Elon Musk, and so on. So you have a huge job now in creating trust in terms of who has created this LOMA, who are the people behind it, why are they doing this? And this is your opportunity, because you now have an open microphone to the world through The Sustainable Hour. So can you convince me why I should trust Loma in terms of what are your intentions with this? Who are the people behind it and so on? Who financed it?
Rob:
Well, me. How did it happen? So, well, we met, you and I, you the sustainable hour, and Tony met with me back in September 2021 when I was, I had built something called Vote Earth Now. Now that was on the back of, so I’m a surgeon, I’m a surfer, I’m a family man.
And back in the Black Summer bushfires, I was surfing when we were on holidays, where we usually camp, and there was ash falling all around me in the surf, because there were bushfires were going, the sky was red, the birds had all gone. Helicopters were flying overhead, dipping buckets, giant buckets in the lake, and on the other side of the lake dropping water on a fire. And I got out of the surf.
And my daughters came up to me who were 16 and 19 at the time and they said, dad, we can’t bring children into a world like this. Now, you know, that was a real kick in the guts. I’d spent my whole life, you know, helping people as a doctor and a surgeon. And, you know, I’m very lucky. It’s a great job. You really feel like you’re making a difference. But what was it all going to be for if those people whose job it was to act on climate change and act on the other big issues weren’t doing it. And I realised that what you’d call vested interests had state capture. At that time it was of the Morrison government. And so then I created the platform Vote Earth Now, which was to help people vote for climate action. And that platform, and thanks to you guys, you were part of helping me get the message out there about that one.
That platform enabled 100,000 people, more than 100,000 people to vote for climate action. And it did it using information that was available, but making it easy for people to see how their politicians had voted on bills in parliament about things related to climate change. And the people behind it, I guess, other than me, were a lot of people I know, a lot of very clever people.
Many of them were doctors, of them are environmentalists, ecologists, scientists. I can’t even say who some of them are because they would lose their job because they work for government agencies and it was not okay for them to be seen to be associated with something political. So yeah, there was a whole group of tremendous people and of course I paid software developers to help me do it. I went through three software developers with Vote Earth Now before I found the right one for that. But and it worked so well and we had the climate election in 2022, but straight away the new Labor federal government kept right on approving fossil fuel projects. And I realised that the vested interests still had state capture.
But it was very positive because we could see that many people were disillusioned or disgusted with that behaviour from the major parties. And also, wonderfully, I was no longer ridiculed for believing in anthropogenic climate change. Prior to that election, even educated scientists and doctors would ridicule me for feeling so strongly about anthropogical climate change and trying to do something. But after that, there was a noticeable change and I’m sure you guys were aware of it. In Australian society, from my patients, I mean, when you’re a doctor, you meet all sorts of people from all walks of life. It’s a very privileged position and it was a major change. It was great to see all the people that suddenly realising, you know, this is something we’ve got to do something about it.
But of course, there’s so many other problems happening in the world that, you know, there was even COVID was a great opportunity to be distracted from dealing with climate change and, you know, all the ecosystem loss that has been occurring. So after that, I mean, if you’re wondering who’s funding it and why it’s still me, I actually went traveling. I went to West Tech Fest in Perth to meet possible philanthropic funders. I went to the World Economic Forum in Davos. I ran a full day session in New York at Climate Week at the United Nations Science Summit called Digital Democracy for Climate Action that I convened.
I went to all these places to try and draw up support to see if I could get some funding to be able to build this platform based on accountability that would engage people. But I came up against this challenge that everybody, venture capitalists who traditionally fund apps want a return on investment. Even the philanthropic funding wanted tax deductibility and charity laws are so restrictive about what you can say that it was just too hard. I realised that, you know, we’ve got to come back to your vote is worth more than your dollar if we’re going to get anywhere. And so, yeah, it’s just been me funding it, I’m afraid.
We did have a crowdfunding effort early on with Vote Earth Now and a lot of great people pitched in, which helped me to build that platform. But I haven’t been able… I just don’t have the bandwidth to do that with Local Matters. It’s not my skill set, so hopefully we’re going to get some help from people at some point soon because I’m sure we’re going to show that this is something that we all need and want.
Mik:
Where does the system LOMA fit in in the picture of the systems that exist? For instance, before the election this time around, there was a Build my Ballot-kind-of site by two young people who had set it up and had a lot of success and a lot of users very quickly. And we have here locally in Geelong the Letition.org site, which is about a way to communicate and send off letters to your local MP or to council and so on, and I could probably quickly name three or four other similar systems already existing. So how do you think the LOMA system fits in there?
Rob:
I think it fits in there perfectly. It complements all those other systems as a nice, simple way. mean, most people are going to be on their phones is the way they’re on their mobiles interacting online in their spare moments. People are still mostly concentrating on paying the bills and putting food on the table and day to day life. when they come up for a breather, they don’t go and… Most people don’t have the bandwidth to go and do a submission to parliament or even a letitia, which makes it very easy. I mean, there’s certainly, there’s people who those things work brilliantly for, but there’s other people who it’s just not gonna happen.
And then on the flip side, Build a Ballot was a fantastic way of getting people to consciously vote for last election, it was great, but it was based on policy rather than how politicians had actually voted and action. And I firmly believe the best predictor of future action is past action. And I don’t think you can trust policies. And I think we’ve had that demonstrated to us again and again and again.
So, but it was an excellent way to get people to vote consciously and that makes a huge difference. But I’ve spoken with the people that have done Build a Ballot who have done an incredible job of using social media to promote it. And there’s a lot to be learned from them about the importance of, even though we all mistrust social media and the polarisation and the misinformation there. it’s very important because it’s how a lot of people, especially younger people are interacting and the influence that influences or whatever you want to call them have is really important. And it’s a really important way of making community.
I think that it’s something that we’re going to work with them because we complement about it very well because we’re all about engaging and participating and making a difference every day and they’re concentrating on elections so it’s going to work you know really well to fit into that environment. Yeah. Have I answered your question?
Tony:
I’m just wondering what sort of support have you had for it so far? And where can people go to if they want to support it?
Rob:
I’d love it if they just contact me, it’d be fantastic. We haven’t built in a support mechanism on the site yet, www.loma.global. We haven’t built a support mechanism on there, but they can certainly contact me through you guys or through rob@voteearthnow.com. That would be wonderful. Love some support and really support.
Money would be incredible because software is best when it’s able to be iterated, which means improved, updated, rebuilt on a rapid cycle in response to how people are using it. And I don’t have the funds left to do that now. So definitely be a great time to get some partners. And I think the important thing is that any partners would realise from my story and what you asked me about who’s behind it, that an incredibly important thing to me and to everybody who’s been working on this with me is to retain our independence, to not be partisan, not affiliated with any party or any specific politicians, just to provide the tools that people need and to make things easy for people to understand and to act.
. . .
Jingle:
Scott Morrison, former Australian Prime Minister:
It’s coal! Don’t be afraid! don’t be scared!
Sheldon Whitehouse, American Senator:
At the heart of this conflict is a battle between truth and science and power and lies.
. . .
Mik: (at 44:22)
Speaking of democracy, there’s something happening in the Geelong region, which is interesting. I think we can say that there’s an online citizens assembly on its way. And why I say it that way is because there’s still just signs of warming up to it. There’s a Zoom meeting, a public Zoom meeting, which will be held on the 6th of July. It’s a Sunday at 5:30pm. And we’ll put the details out in our show notes on www.climatesafety.info.
Eddie Kowalski, who we had in The Sustainable Hour, I think a couple of months ago, will be talking about the process of what it means to run an online citizens assembly in a local community. And if there’s enough support for it, it’s going to be happening in August. And that’s another way of, you could say, getting the community together and create some sort of a collaboration that’s like cross community. No matter where you come from politically, you can still come together around a citizens’ assembly, which is about, I guess in the end, providing some guidance to the politicians, similar to the LOMA system that we’ve been talking about. It’s about showing politicians what the people actually think if you give them a question and they have time to learn about it and think about it and then come out with what they think about it.
Tony: (at 46:42)
Yeah, it’s on the back of what we’ve often mentioned that our democracy has been stolen by vested interests and state capture. And more and more people have said that we can’t accept this. This isn’t what life should be about and are fighting, pushing back against it. And a citizens’ assembly is certainly a way of doing that. They’ve been very popular and successful in Ireland.
It was sold to the Irish politicians and there were two cases particular. One was about abortion, whether that should be legal or illegal. And the other one was around same sex marriage. can imagine in Ireland being very Catholic control. The politicians just couldn’t, it’s similar to, I guess in our case to looking at the taxation system.
It created a similar amount of angst in a different way. It was sold to the politicians. Look, you guys haven’t been able to do this, haven’t been able to agree on it. You’ve been fighting each other. It’s become too political. Let’s take the politics out of it. Let’s have a citizens assembly. Let’s inform the citizens. And then we act on their advice. And they found that there was much less stress in parliament around it. And there was much more faith in the political system all up. So yeah, I guess it comes down to the quality of the information that’s fed into the people to allow them to make that decision.
Mik:
And again: building trust, isn’t it, Tony? Building trust among citizens, but also between citizens and politicians.
Tony
Yeah. I think it’s good to get back to what a citizens’ assembly actually is. You’re right, they were particularly effective in the freeing up of laws in Ireland at the beginning years of this century.
Colin:
Citizens’ Assembly sounds sort of quite flash, but really it’s just a group of people from the same region who meets together occasionally and stay in contact through social media. And they come up with ideas to guide their politicians. It started off in the United Kingdom with the concept, what happened is that our leaders, our politicians, do not lead us. What they do is they hold group chats with people and find out what they believe from those chats, what they believe the people want. And then that drives their decisions. We don’t have a leader of vision who says, this is the way we’re going because our politicians really don’t look further than three years.
In the UK, it’s four years, but that was recognised by the people who said, well, if they’re going to just listen to a group of people who happen to be walking past the politicians office, why don’t we get together and have a group of people who actually live here and know the conditions and know what we really want? And that’s how they work and it works incredibly well. It uses the modern communication techniques. So you’ll find Facebook chats of people who are part of the Citizens’ Assembly of Birmingham or somewhere like that. And they’ll be talking about plans to extend the hospital or a big thing where a decision couldn’t go wrong or backfire. Citizens’ Assemblies are now very much part of the political landscape in the UK and they are listened to.
Mik: (at 49:56)
Let’s make that happen… Hey Colin, let’s make that happen here!
Colin:
Get in people and say, ‘What do you want?’ Well, you know, we want to get an idea of what the people think. Nowadays, they listen to the citizens’ assemblies. And if we set one up in Geelong, I’m pretty sure our politicians will listen to them.
Mik:
It’s about shaping a more collective way forward where people actually do have a say. So if you’re interested in that, go to climatesafety.info, find this particular program that we’re doing today, and you’ll see how to get in touch with the people who organizing this. And it’s on Sunday, the 6th of July at 5:30 for an hour, where there’s a Zoom gathering and you can then connect and be part of building up here in Geelong, Surf Coast, Bellarine Peninsula, this region that we live in here.
. . .
Jingle
Mik:
That’s all we could fit in one hour, very focused on community and engagement and how you can get engaged. So the address that we have talked about the full hour almost is once again, www.loma.global. As simple as that. Rob Eisenberg, thank you very much for what you have done so far, but also let’s hear maybe a last statement from you about the bigger picture and your daughters, how do they feel today?
Rob:
My daughters are now, one turns 21 tomorrow, the other one turns 24 in a couple of months. They’re still deciding, but I guess I’m trying to, and as you said, we all must show the next generation that we are gonna get there. And I think it’s important that we keep fighting because 2e don’t know what’s around the corner, what game change is going to come and we’ve got to be ready to make the most of it when it does. And I’m more optimistic. I think we can do it.
Mik:
That’s nice. ‘Be ready.’
Rob:
Yeah. And I think the way we’re going to do it is with communities, people getting involved and, you know, part of that’s going to be saving democracy.
Mik:
Collaboration and community.
Rob:
And a great example is your groups down in Victoria. I’d love them to all be working together using the tool that we’ve created to coordinate and to engage young people especially. It’s corny but they are the future and they’re really keen, know. They really want to get engaged and they’re really disenchanted with the current political system. Be engaged.
SONG 1
“Play Your Part”
[Verse 1]
There’s a place on the net, formalised
Where voices gather, side by side
Not by rank, not by name
But by citizen’s right we all can claim
A thread of stories on the line
Each one carried with an open mind
We sit not to shout, not to win
But to listen deep, to let change begin
[Chorus]
Bring your voice and speak from your heart
about the kind of change you want to spark
No gate, no guard, just one condition
Speak on time and speak your conviction
A seat at the table, a space to be heard
A circle that listens to every word
This is the way we defend what is fair
Together with courage, with values and care
Bring your voice, your open heart
Bring your truth, and play your part
[Soft choir]
Reimagining democracy
for both the ‘I’ and the ‘We’
The future of humanity
Guided by insights from you and me
[Verse 2]
Old halls echo with tired debate
But truth walks in when we open the gate
The wisdom we need, it’s not far away
It lives in the hands of everyday
The soil remembers the steps we take
The air is watching the choices we make
And when we ask, the future replies:
“We’re shaped by the dreams you let rise”
[Bridge]
This is no game, no fleeting trend
It’s a road that bends and bends and bends
It’s one we walk not alone, but together
With care for both the land and the weather
[Final Chorus – lifted]
A seat at the table, the circle expands
Got life on this planet in our hands
This is the way we defend what is fair
Together with courage, with values – and care
Bring your voice, your open heart
Bring your truth, and play your part
SONG 2
‘Symphony of the Shift’
[Verse 1]
At first we saw it as a climate crisis
Then we found it to be so much more
As threads began to unravel
And the meta crisis converged
Inequality, control
oligarchs and emperors
[Bridge]
The world we knew started crumbling
But that’s when we found direction
We discovered that old song
of the natural evolution
[Chorus]
There’s a signal in the chaos
There’s a stirring in the wave
This is our time, this is our reality
This is our symphony – of the Shift
[Verse 2]
They were midwives of what came next
as humans gave birth to a values-based path
interconnected, indigenous direction
seedbeds emerging, regeneration
[Bridge]
There was an invitation
There was collective imagination
The mechanics were the easy part
The mindset was the harder climb
Breaking down hierarchies
Stopping extraction – and the greed
[Chorus]
There’s a signal in the chaos
There’s a stirring in the wave
This is our time, this is our reality
This is our symphony – of the Shift
[Intermission – spoken]
The shift is not above or below
It’s middle-out
It’s local
It’s conscious
It’s creative
It’s alive
[Verse 3]
Not in palaces, not with power
But in hands that plant
In hearts that listen
Cocreate with compassion
Every rupture
opens doors to complexity
A call to coherence
[Chorus]
There’s a signal in the chaos
There’s a stirring in the wave
This is our time, this is our reality
This is our symphony – of the Shift
[Outro]
Evolutionary impulse
We’ve found our voice
These are our choices
These are our values
This is our world
When we listened, we could hear
the world ask us to grow up
and come home
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.
Petitions
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