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Journalism and politics student , who is contesting Currumbin for the Greens in the Queensland election on October 26, told һƷ̽�� that the challenges to transition away from the state’s reliance on mining and energy are huge, but not insurmountable.

Smith, who grew up in Currumbin, joined the party following the 2022 federal election in which it won three seats in Magan-djin/Brisbane. He said he was inspired by the fact that grassroots progressive left-wing politics could win “even in traditional Liberal seats, like Ryan”.

While concerned about climate change, he was mainly drawn to the Greens’ progressive economic policies. He is passionate about “expanding public ownership [and] having an economy that’s run for people and not profit”.

To realise this agenda, the Greens are proposing initiatives such as “a public bank, public mining company … [and] public developer” as a means of “reorienting the productive forces in our society for more people-centred goals”.

Smith said the Greens are proposing “a two-year rent freeze followed by ongoing [rent rise] caps of 1% after that” to make housing more affordable. It is also committed to building more public housing.

“We have proposed a public developer and also to reinvigorate our existing [Queensland] public construction company, QBuild,” which Smith said has been “left to slowly decline” by Labor and Liberal governments.

The Greens want to give QBuild the power to “acquire insolvent building companies so that we can put people to work building public housing for our proposed public developer”.

In response to federal Labor’s “build-to-rent” schemes, Smith said the Greens want to take housing out of the market.

He said the distinction between social housing, public housing and so-called “affordable housing” has been “deliberately obfuscated by Labor and Liberal governments” at state and federal levels, “so that they can continue to push a more marketised model”. This model enriches construction companies and developers, such as Mirvac, which get away with “charging 20% above market rent for supposedly affordable housing”.

“Housing needs to be viewed first and foremost as a human right,” Smith said. “We can end homelessness … with public housing, with a vacancy levy.”

Smith said private developers “have, fundamentally, quite well captured both major parties”.

He that shows the two major parties “have taken thousands and thousands of dollars in dirty developer donations … through a loophole in the system that has allowed them to take donations from companies owned by developers”.

He said the first priority is to get rid of the conflict of interest. “We need representatives in government to make these laws who aren't captured by the developer industry, who won’t take a cent in these dodgy donations.”

Then high quality, medium-density development and public housing can be built “with proper community consultation”.

“A lot of the antagonism between the community and the idea of new housing — which is necessary to solve the housing crisis — is because, currently, we aren’t adequately working … with the community … to explain why things are happening, to get their input and then apply it in a constructive way.”

Asked about how MPs can build community campaigns on the ground, Smith said that getting more people to attend and support grassroots events and speaking at rallies is “absolutely essential to being a Greens MP”.

Smith said if the Liberal National Party wins government, “we’re going to see a lot of the hyper-neoliberal politics come back from the [Campbell] Newman era”. He said: “It’s particularly important to not just be objecting to it in parliament, but to be mobilising outside … to form a kind of people’s movement to obstruct as much of [the LNP’s] toxic agenda as is possible or, at least, draw attention to it.”

To end the government’s reliance on coal royalties, Smith said that first there should be no new coal and gas mines. There needs to be “mass investment in publicly owned renewable energy: solar, wind [and] hydrogen”. Meanwhile, collecting royalties from extracting coal and gas, “as long as it is still around”, is also important.

The Greens want to set minerals royalties at a rate that is comparable with the rest of the world “instead of at the very low — on average 9% — currently being charged to resources [companies] across Queensland.

“We also want to establish a publicly owned mining company so that we can directly take a stake in the resources.”

As for the challenges for transitioning the mining and energy sectors, Smith said the federal Greens have proposed a multi-billion dollar policy package “that includes job guarantees”.

“At the state level, establishing a public mining company is a big one,” he said, and “the priority in hiring for any public mining company would be former coal and gas workers”. This would “provide workers with job security after the transition” and “a plan to give communities more input … [for] what they want their communities to look like … without coal and gas”.

Smith said the task of transitioning every worker in the industry “is very possible in a wealthy nation like ours”.

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