“An electoral period is when we have the most power”
An interview with surfer and activist Lucy Small, who is from Western Australia
“An electoral period is when we have the most power and the biggest voice in politics. Politicians are trying to figure out what the community wants, and what to say and do that might please them. So, that’s when we have to be the loudest, to contact them the most and air our concerns and show them there are a lot of people who care about these things.
For surfers, it’s about trying to activate in the wider community and built that bigger support.”
I’ve been a big fan of Australian surfer Lucy Small since 2021 when she went viral for calling out contest organisers at a longboard event in Sydney, where they awarded the men over double the prize-purse of the women. She’s since worked extremely hard in pushing for gender parity in sport (one my favourite Lucy quotes is: “women do not have to be grateful for the crumbs”), while working her day job for the Greens Party, and making awesome surf movies such as Yama, which focuses on women surf pioneers in Ghana.
We chatted last week before the news of the upcoming UK general election but as you’ll see lots of our chat was very timely and thought-provoking! I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Hey Lucy, how’s it going? How’s France?
It’s great. I’m living in the Basque country at the moment and having a year of fun and experiencing something new and different.
How’s the surf?
It’s so nice to go in the water now the weather has warmed up a bit but there is way less swell. We got here at the start of March, and I was struggling to get in the water as I’m so not good with the cold, but it was pumping every day. Now I’m super keen to get in but it involves a bit of driving to find surf…
We get that in Brighton. Storms and waves or sunny days and flat water. Could we start by talking about your environmentalism, is it something you’ve always thought about?
Before I found surfing or was involved in Equal Pay for Equal Play, I was always very conscious of the environment. As a kid I was the one going around the house turning off the light switches and telling my family we had to save electricity.
My hometown is beautiful, and on the coast, but it’s very isolated and home to just 5000 people. Growing up there, I was very connected to nature and when I first started to learn that these beautiful places were under threat, I was passionate about wanting to protect them. I couldn’t believe that people in power would not want that.
Obviously, surfing is a whole other level of proximity to the environment – the drive to protect our oceans and coming to learn that all the ecosystems are so deeply connected – and that’s grown over the years.
When I started to become an activist around gender equality, [it would give rise to questions such as] what does equal pay even mean if your home is getting washed away in a climate-induced disaster? And how the gains that women make are so often the first things to be eroded in times of crisis and so that’s basically what women all across the world are dealing with now.
I’m working to bring those two things together a little bit more and I’m working on a film that is about women and the climate crisis and environment.
That’s great as so often these issues get siloed…
Yeah, and I understand why because there is literally only so much you can do as a human being. You want to fight for gender equality and climate justice, but those things are so huge.
When I started working for the Greens [the Australian political party], I wanted to get involved in politics and the systems and see how they could be changed. I started working on an election campaign in 2021 and it was the most intense thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it was also a very good learning experience. And then I worked for an elected Greens party member in the New South Wales parliament, and we were working on net zero models. It was infuriating how the solutions are known yet the people with the power to make those changes were right there down the hall and not doing it.
Was it depressing?
It made me realise that in these political systems where we have big parties, they will never be the ones that bring us solutions as all they care about is their party politics and staying in power. And by the time people work through those party systems to get into a position where they could be a PM or have a senior role, all connections to their communities or environment, that they might have started in politics for, are gone.
It made me realise so clearly the only things that will make politicians decide in favour of a community is if they think they have an electoral risk if they don’t make that choice. So, if we want to make politicians to make the changes we need, we need them to know they’re going to lose their seat if they don’t, that’s the only thing that will do it and that’s the power of us as a community.
In terms of how we as surfers can do that, that’s talking in our community but also outside of our community? I’m thinking with the upcoming elections we have in the UK and US.
An electoral period is when we have the most power and the biggest voice in politics. Politicians are trying to figure out what the community wants, and what they can say and do that might please them. So that’s when we have to be the loudest, to contact them the most and air our concerns and show them there are a lot of people who care about these things.
For surfers, it’s about trying to activate in the wider community and built that bigger support, and then talk in the loudest voice to those people.
Surfers Against Sewage has done an awesome job of raising awareness about sewage dumping in the UK, and it feels like surfers in Australia have a big voice in environmental activism?
We have a few MPs who surf so we have surf voices in parliament and our governing bodies, such as Surfing Australia and at a state level, are very strong. I’ve seen a couple of shakas thrown around parliament in my time.
In terms of pure numbers there are a lot of surfers in Australia, and the majority of our electorate lives on the coast, so those elected members know they have to [pay attention to] that community.
And there have been some really great surfer-led campaigns against fossil fuels such as the Fight for the Bight campaign that was massive and basically surfers leading that national conversation [against oil drilling in a precious marine wilderness].
But it is still very difficult to get surfers to engage on a lot of issues. There is a sort of mythology that surfing transcends politics but to bring it home is the challenge, which is what organisations such as Surfrider are leading on.
Tell me a bit more about the film project you’re working on?
We shot it in Ecuador in January over four weeks with Maddie Meddings from Cornwall, the filmmaker I did Yama with. It was the most insane thing I’ve done, and we were shooting with Pacha Light, the surfer who was born in Ecuador but grew up in Australia and has been on this journey of discovering her identity over the last few years. She’s quite big in terms of environmental advocacy.
We travelled to Ecuador’s four different regions – the Amazon, the Andes, the mainland coastline, and the Galapagos Islands – and in each of those places we met up with women from a community there and they take us through some of the challenges they’re facing. It’s a showcase of women’s leadership in Ecuador.
I learnt so much, having the opportunity to spend time with these women who are the guardians of their community. It doesn’t always take the same form, some people are resisting just by not leaving their land and being there and some people are going to be organising and there are lots of different ways to contribute to change, which are all valid.
We’ve shot the film and are planning to release it next March but we’re still fundraising the rest of our budget.
Are there parallels between surfers who don’t want to speak up on the environment and those who have kept quiet over equal pay?
Since 2021, when I first took a stand on equal pay, I think people’s voices have become a lot louder and that’s awesome. The majority that I hear are women, but a lot of men also seem to be in agreement.
But there are a lot of people who basically don’t want to be involved in anything. And if you’re trying to forge a career in surfing, whether in the industry or as an athlete, you’re so precarious, and everything is about relationships and being easy to work with. And that really weighs on people’s minds.
It’s something I worry about all the time when I’m doing these things and I cop flak from people who don’t agree with what I’m saying. Nothing I have ever done is controversial, there is nothing controversial about gender equality, what’s controversial is that people might think it’s ok for women to be paid less or given less opportunities than men but there is always going to be resistance to change and sometimes I do really wish that more surfers would speak up and take a stand and not just hope that someone else is going to do it.
How does surfing recharge you?
I’m always a bit hesitant to speak about surfing in an evangelical way because I don’t really subscribe to a belief that it’s something spiritual because I understand that actually there is a lot of imperialism and domination that comes with surf communities overrunning areas and sending prices up when people move in because there is a wave there.
But on a personal level, all I want to do is go surfing! And all the other stuff I’m doing, like having a full time job in politics that I had, is not because it’s what I want to do or where I’m meant to be, it’s all just trying to make the world better so more people can enjoy this wonderful experience of surfing without having to worry.
Basically, I’m trying to fix some problems so I can spend more time in the water.
And also, when you’re doing all these things, you’re on calls, and working with so many tabs open, going out in the water is such a great moment to switch off and appreciate the beauty that you’re in. When I was in Ecuador on the Galapagos Islands leaping into the blue water, I felt like I wanted to drink the ocean as it was so beautiful and just swimming in it wasn’t close enough.
Short notice but there are still some tickets available for a screening of Yama and Q & A with Lucy in Tynemouth tonight, in association with the awesome Surf Yonder community group. Get your tickets here.
And to watch the trailer for Yama and find out about future screenings head here.
This
podcast from 2021 with Lucy is great too. Listen here.Other news:
I loved being a part of the Surfers Against Sewage Paddle Out in Brighton last week, and enjoyed this ITV news report on the protests across the country including an interview with Sally from Surf Yonder (mentioned above), and this Guardian write up by Jonny Weeks, which includes an interview with my good pal from the LSFF Demi Taylor.
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Also, just to say, all my interviews (bar one at the start) are done with long video calls or face to face chats and I spend a good amount of time editing them. If you value my work and can afford to, pls do support the newsletter by becoming a paid subscriber & big thanks to those of you who already are xx