What people have told us so far
Our Durack Deserves – Voices for Durack – Interim Report 2025 (PDF / Word) sums up what people have told us recently. (Our previous Durack Deserves document has been retired and cut up for spare parts.)
This time we have summarised what people have told us into eight key concerns. We hope that these issues are noted and addressed by candidates of all political stripes.
Please let us know if you would be interested in seeing the policies of all candidates placed against this list of Durack’s key issues – or if you would like to have your voice included in the next listening report.
How are you and your family coping with extreme weather events? We want to hear from you.
2024 was the hottest year on record. A ten-year-old child has now lived through ten of the hottest years on record (Tim Winton, WA Author).
Heatwaves kill more people than any other environmental disaster (Australian Climate Service).
Temperatures have become lethal, soaring past 50 deg. in parts of Durack during extreme heatwaves. Extreme weather events like heatwaves and cyclones are occurring more frequently, with higher impacts. They cause damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure.
Cyclone Zelia left wreckage across the Pilbara, closing Port Hedland port with estimated costs of $4.8b (ABC News 17/02/2025).
Everyone bears the cost of these extreme events, through higher insurance premiums and funding natural disaster relief. Meanwhile Peter Dutton proposes breaking up insurers to solve the problem of rising premiums caused by natural disasters.
How have you been affected by extreme weather events? We value feedback about what you have experienced.
Live in Durack?
Join a kitchen table conversation
Our kitchen table conversations (KTCs)* are easygoing, friendly, facilitated conversations held in comfortable environments and/or online, in small groups of people. They last an hour or so. People relax and enjoy safely contributing their ideas and opinions. It is not about reaching a group consensus.
Everyone’s views from all the KTCs are summarised faithfully, without identifying any individuals, and collated into our Durack Deserves report.
If you live in Durack, you’re invited to come to or host a kitchen table conversation. There will be no ongoing commitment. They are best in person, but we also hold them online. We aim to fit in with your availability, so please get in touch, and let’s line up a conversation!
We would love our incumbent MP Melissa Price, political parties, and candidates to seek to understand what people in the Durack electorate care about and what Voices for Durack is for – ethical, effective representation focused on enduring wellbeing and equity – and do their utmost to deliver it. In case they are unable to for any reason, we are seeking an independent candidate to run in the next federal election.
Positive outcomes from kitchen table conversations
Your enjoyment of a KTC with people will be a win.
The creation of the Durack Deserves report to share with interested candidates will be a win.
Sharing the idea that our representatives should consider our concerns and represent us, over their political parties, will be a win.
In Indi, the birthplace of the Voices for movement, the process of having KTCs and sharing the Indi Matters report helped locals achieve independent, electorate-focused representation in our federal parliament.
In Warringah, the KTC results helped inspire a questionnaire for candidates in the 2019 federal election. A summary of all the candidates’ responses was made available to voters. Warringah’s community events and their Warringah report helped locals achieve independent, electorate-focused federal representation.
There are now Voices for groups springing up, independently, all over Australia. People know that they deserve good representation and are willing to work together to help achieve it.
* Voices for Durack acknowledges The Victorian Women’s Trust in creating the Kitchen Table Conversation model; Voices for Indi and Voices of Warringah for refining it; and Voices of Mackellar, We Are Hughes, and many other Voices for groups for modelling the process.
Voices we hear
We recognise many people in Durack share their voices in many forums and at all levels of government, business, and community, including those below. We hope our representatives and candidates hear and consider all voices.
The Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices): Securing our Rights, Securing Our Future Report holds the voices of over 2000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls of all ages, from all across Australia.