Nicole Palachicky has big ambitions for the Greens in Hammond
The party’s state election candidate hopes to follow in an ancestor’s footsteps by reforming South Australia’s tax system, and that’s not all.
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Greens candidate Nicole Palachicky wants to achieve much more in the electorate of Hammond than just win a few votes.
Her hope is to re-engage hundreds of locals in the political process, and make the party’s local branch a force in South Australian politics.
The former financial counsellor and security guard sees a future in which the Greens have 1500 members in the Murraylands, volunteers driven to change our society for the better.
She would love to take over the former Coles building in Murray Bridge and turn it into a community recovery centre: somewhere those volunteers could assemble bikes and tiny homes for locals in need of transportation and a roof over their heads.
Liberal MP Adrian Pederick’s office next door, she suggested, would make a nice shelter for survivors of domestic violence.
In the meantime, she was busy campaigning for this month’s state election.
The policies she most wanted to push were:
- Tax reform, with the wealthiest paying more: “Unless we have tax reform, we can’t have nice things”
- Rail services to Murray Bridge, and eventually to surrounding towns
- Public housing and the Greens’ promise to build 20,000 new homes
- Government transparency, an issue she highlighted at a community cabinet meeting in Murray Bridge last month
Tax reform, in particular, was a cause close to her heart.
A distant relative, William “Big Ben” Rounsevell, served as South Australia’s Treasurer in the late 19th century, and introduced the state’s first land and income taxes.
Ms Palachicky also hoped for better-resourced mental health services in the community.
Her brother Dean had been experiencing mental health issues at the time of his death last year, she said, and she blamed the government for failing to provide him with enough support.
Her own journey had been varied, Ms Palachicky said: she was born interstate and raised in Mount Barker, the daughter of an Australian Army serviceman and karate instructor.
Her previous roles have been with Department of Child Protection anti-poverty teams, similar roles with the SA Housing Trust, then 15 years as a security officer contracted to the Department for Education.
She had also volunteered for St John Ambulance, Callington Primary School, and the State Emergency Service, with whom she earned a citation in 2010-11 for helping out in Queensland after the floods associated with Cyclone Yasi.
These days she is a carer and home school teacher for her 13-year-old daughter.
She hoped to have a new job come March 21: Member for Hammond.
But if her election bid was unsuccessful, she conceded, maybe she would head off camping in the Mid North instead.
- More information: greens.org.au.
