What follows below is a Guest post by Marit Hegge and I asked her to write this piece as she had made some rather interesting revelations about the machinations within the Greens party in our correspondence. Her experience of the evolution of party’s internal structure that she details below reveal the way the Greens have been hijacked by the “loonie Left”and just how profoundly undemocratic it is in both it’s intentions and the way that it operates.
The Australian Green Party was established in 1991. From the start it had a constitution which was basically flawed. In NSW a number of small parties had been set up and registered calling themselves Green Parties – Illawarra Greens, Newcastle Greens, East Sydney Greens to name a few. Some of them had been infiltrated by the then Democratic Socialist Party – the ones that sell Green Left Weekly and are now part of the Socialist Alliance. It proved almost impossible to extract them and a proscription clause was introduced into the Greens constitution to prohibit dual party membership. Problem was some of them had registered officers owning the name. So NSW was given special status within the Greens constitution to have semi-autonomous parties within the overall structure. I went to initial meetings in 1991 in Sydney to try and iron out this process.
West Australia Greens refused to adopt the Oz Greens constitution for the whole of the ‘90s and so stayed “affiliated”. They too had a number of members with dual Communist Party membership and were also unwilling to relinquish registration ownership. It was only just before the 2004 federal election that they finally became fully integrated with the Australian Greens.
The constitution, which was much amended over the years, finally did away with most of the small regional NSW parties, however as a compromise they had a large number of delegates to the National Council.
Decision making at branch, state and national level was supposed to be by consensus or by two thirds majority. In most instances when any conflict or controversy has emerged it has always devolved to the majority 2/3 vote. While in theory this may sound democratic, in practice over the years one third minority dissenters have used this to procrastinate and block decisions, sometimes on major issues, and have dragged decisions out for years in some cases and finally won on their issues through a process of exhaustion. Thus a small radical minority can hold a moderate majority to ransom.
Drew Hutton
This was the case in Queensland from 2002 to 2005 where a faction emerged calling themselves the Grassroots who had personal issues with Drew Hutton and believed the Greens should focus on Peak Oil as their major policy platform. Whole branches were stacked and formed with their supporters, and each State Council and AGM became a numbers exercise to get over that magic two thirds required. When Drew Hutton was pre-selected as Senate candidate in 2004 the Grassroots went about sabotaging the election campaign as much as possible and probably contributed very much to him not being elected. Their leader was eventually expelled from the Party in December 2005.
At times it got very ugly to say the least. As North Brisbane branch secretary I supported Drew Hutton and experienced personal threats and harassment, which still continue to this day, even though I am no longer a member of the Greens.
There is, and has been for quite a while, a major disconnection between Bob Brown’s office, the public image and what is really happening on the ground in the Green Party.
Kerry Nettle
Ex- Senator from NSW Kerry Nettle was the main one lobbying for David Hicks’ release from Guantanamo Bay. Much of her focus in her time in the Senate was on anti “US imperialism” issues. She spent huge amounts of tax payers money touring universities and holding public meetings on that man’s behalf. Her mate Lee Rhiannon, Upper House MP from NSW is a hard core “loonie leftie” from card carrying Communist party parents.
Lee Rhiannon
The loonie agenda gets up mainly because at National Council the delegate structure is weighted to give greater voice to NSW and Vic because of their population size. Rhiannon totally controls who goes from NSW and Vic has always had a larger share of crazies. The controversial drug policy came from Rhiannon and her mates, and was pushed through at National Council. Bob Brown was appalled and fought it strongly and it was modified after his personal intervention when he totally spat the dummy. Loonie drug policy still in NSW as far as I know. When I sat on the drug policy formulation group in 2004 to try and bring some sanity into things for the Federal election I was vilified by ex-Marijuana Party members who had joined the Greens, called a Nazi and a Fascist and almost physically attacked.
Bob Brown
Bob Brown, while he appears to have great authority over the Greens on camera is basically unable to deal with these people and essentially powerless at National Council, as Tasmania has so few delegates. It is a strange situation given that he has been the public face of the Greens for so long. When he eventually retires they will be in serious trouble, however like the Queen I think the Greens will try and keep him in Parliament for the rest of his life, as long as Tasmanians still vote for him! He has talked of retiring for years, but I think he knows in his heart that the whole thing could go down the
tubes without him!
Juanita Wheeler
Larissa Waters
I thought things would get better in the Qld Greens after the demise of the Grassroots faction. Unfortunately in 2007 one hell of a Senate pre-selection cat fight emerged between the National Convenor Juanita Wheeler and glamour girl candidate Larissa Waters. Wheeler had been positioning herself since 2002 to one day be lead Senate candidate and as National Convenor , major power broker and confidante to those in Bob Brown’s office probably thought she was a winner for sure. She fell out though with Ian Gittus, the state campaign coordinator, one of the few paid office staff the Qld Greens had. He promoted his friend solicitor Larissa Waters, who had only joined Qld Greens just beforehand as the better candidate. A bun fight to end all bun fights emerged. It was dubbed by one online commentator as the “Beauty and Beast Fight”. Larissa proved to be a real dirty fighter though. She was not above leading men on to get them to work for her. In particular the husband of one long term member and friend of mine who had been the State Treasurer. He came home one day after a campaign tour with him and Larissa to North Qld and announced to his wife he was in love with Larissa and was leaving his wife of over two decades, the teenage son and the family home. He then went on to become Larissa’s minder and pre-selection thug, monstering people online and providing a looming presence at meetings, dangling on her every word in the hope of some sort of relationship. Eventually got himself kicked off the election campaign committee after Larissa got pre-selected and she left him and the wrecked marriage for dust.
It was the sordid business of the 2007 election campaign and the continuous support for terrorist David Hicks that led me after 15 years membership to not renew my membership and then formally resign at the beginning of 2008.
At the end of the day, apart from the Grassroots people, they never did anything nasty to me but I had just had a gutful of the hypocrisy of this political party that always took the high moral ground but in reality were just as grubby as any other. And furthermore downright dangerous to Australia given the amount of loonies now in their ranks!
When I was part of the group that first got together to form the Green Party in 1991 it was done so to focus on and address the environmental crisis facing this planet. Unfortunately they have evolved into a party which has taken on the full grab bag of loonie causes. One of the more notable being the international campaign they launched with Get Up to free terrorist and Lashkar-e-Taiba member David Hicks, a man I personally believe should have been locked up for life and had the key thrown away! They use the threat of preferences at each election to force a more radical agenda on each government. Just look at how much of a “politically correct” society we have been forced to become over the last 15 years. Even Howard succumbed to this threat over Hicks.
If the Greens ever did get into a real position of power in this country I think we would be in for a very rocky ride. They would most certainly introduce highly punitive and draconian legislation to enforce environmental compliance at all levels in society. Legislation which, I believe, despite their bleating on about civil liberties, would seriously infringe the rights of every citizen in this country. Bob Brown is the mild-mannered public front of a political party which hosts some very extreme and radical people!
Marit Hegge
Filed under: AGW and climate change, Australian Politics, David Hicks, Ethical questions, Federal Election, Federal politics, Gender Issues, Green Hypocrites, Guest post, Leftism, Marxism, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Political Correctness, Queensland, The War On Terror, Victorian State Politics, human rights, international politics | Tagged: Bob Brown, Democratic Socialist Party, Drew Hutton, Green Left Weekly, Guest post, Juanita Wheeler, Kerry Nettle, Larissa Waters, Marit hegge, Socialist Alliance.
Wow, strong stuff indeed and very thought provoking. I fear that too much ideology attracts the zealots. I am saddened that these thing so often end in personal attacks and villification as you have described. I will look into this more with interest. It does confirm some niggling doubts I have had. Now I am scared as the Greens feed on the media hype over GW issues (I am opinion neutral for now) that they see themselves as saviours of the human race. That kind of righteous fervour I could do without as someone always gets hurt. I predict this may get worse but they could implode if they go too far, which undoubtedly they will. Eventually the media will turn on them and the hunter will become the hunted. As they say, you can fool all of the people some of the time but…
As far as multi party membership goes I am a little confused. Could there be grounds for de-registration or is it only the nominated “500″ members on the application form that need be solely affiliated with the party?. I know the AEC calls a random sample to check.
What are the suggested mechanisms for keeping control of a party that you may have started? What a disappointment to start with something and have it hijacked by radicals. You know I am not sure there is room for democracy within an individual party. Any comments?
I too will look into this, this is an excellent exposé of leftist and Green culture. maybe we aren’t so wrong after all…
Wow indeed Beevo
I was blown away by Marit’s piece which is chock full of interesting stuff
GD
Yes in confirms many things that I thought were likely just from the Greens policy claims.
Beevo, there is no dual membership any more in the Greens. That is why the proscription clause was introduced into the constitution in 1991 – to force the DSP out of the individually registered NSW Green parties. They had to make a choice. However as I said in NSW and WA while this dual membership thing was going on there was this strange “affiliation” thing happening. So for most of the ’90s the WA Greens Senators – at one stage there were two,were not even bound by the Australian Greens constitution. Hence they could, and did, do some quite off the wall things and were only accountable to their constituency in WA.
In WA they had what was known as a “grandfather clause” re membership in their constitution – basically a bunch of old Commies who for sentimental reasons were allowed to stay in both. Registration is not as stringent in some states. I think it is only Qld that requires 800 members for registration.
For a while in Qld there were also “affiliated” members with no voting rights and who were not counted in the register of members – they donated regularly and did a bit of voluntary work.
The Communist Party of Australia was dissolved after the fall of the Soviet Union, however they had considerable assets worth millions – property, money willed to the party etc. They set up a trust fund called the Search Foundation which was used to give seed funding to causes they approved of. Interestingly in the ’90s the Greens was a major recipient of this funding and I remember a few election campaigns that were virtually bankrolled by the Search Foundation.
I don’t know who funded Lee Rhiannon’s campaigns in NSW, but with her parents having been leading CPA members one would imagine they might have helped her out a bit! And I have a feeling they could have helped Kerry Nettle as well.
Loonies come in all flavours in the Greens unfortunately – far out vegans who want the meat industry banned, hippy ex-Marihuana party people who want drugs freely available for all, apocalypse scenario types who believe that when the oil runs out society as we know it will implode and we will all revert to some sort of “Mad Max” society. It was the latter who formed a faction and attempted to hijack the Qld Greens in 2003/04. They drove all the normal people out of about 5 branches and set up a few new ones in an attempt to get over the one third of delegates needed to block issues at State Council.
So it has been a constant battle over the years to keep the forces of craziness at bay by the more moderate members. There are some really committed environmentalists in the Greens, members of groups like the Wilderness Society and ACF. Just about everyone though is left of centre in the Greens, although there have been a few interesting members in the past who moved on to join One Nation? Guys from the pro-gun lobby who may have been a bit lost! Also a sprinkling of vocal ex CPA and serial lefties who are meeting junkies and who also unfortunately drive others away at a local level. And older, smelly, mostly left hippy guys with straggly beards, who tend to scare off female members over hygeine issues. For a while in North Brisbane branch there was an over representation of that group and I was often the only woman in attendance!
I’ve seen some outrageous things written in draft policies over the years. Policy is usually formulated by policy working groups, however a branch can draft and submit a policy for review. Over the years, and especially after the debacle of the 2004 drug policy, election committees are now empowered to be part of the review process before these policies are let loose on the public. I know that Bob Brown’s office always keeps a close eye on any policies released – mainly because he is the one that will cop the flack if anything crazy is in there.
I think the Greens were sadly very naive in believing that consensus is the way to achieve decisions in a political party. It only works when people
have good will. The 2/3 majority thing was a cop out and a sop to that concept and I think at some point they will have to revert to the 51% majority like all other parties, lest they continue to be held to ransom by a minority.
Thanks for that Marit, As far as I can tell (I have just looked again) current requirements are 500 members for ECQ and AEC (and WA as far as I can tell) so maybe this is recent. I haven’t been looking at this for long. It is a shame that things get so polarised and that a lot of the more conscience based policy platforms seem to fall to the left. I like to pick the bits I like from both (either side). Does that put me in the middle? It may be oversimplifying but to me, socialism is all about society as a structural whole and not at all about the individuals that make it up. More of a hive mentality. Some may have their gaze fixed on a utopia but how much individual suffering is acceptable to gain their prize? I am very uncomfortable with it. Freedom is precious.
The “majority” argument is a little vague if there is apathy (or fear of recrimination) where only a particular faction gets organised and loads the numbers and a proportion do not vote at all.
I know the Wilderness society does good work but I was way-layed in the street by a couple of UK backpackers and given a quick lecture and photo presentation on some remote river in FNQ. Apparently a mining company is about to pillage it and endanger some rare fish. (No surprise there) Or at least apply for a pillaging permit or some-such.
WS: “Sir, don’t you agree this is wrong?…”
me: “Ummm well…”
Then, I wasn’t asked to sign a petition so much as JOIN the WS and lend my support. This would have added my number to their lobby stats. I thought this was a woeful distortion of democracy and refused. They must have signed up hundreds that day who probably forgot all about it after their lunch time beer.! And then used this as an indication of public sentiment on the issue. (What was that fish again??)
The Greens and the far far left are intertwined.
Without the far left there would be no Green Party.
“It does confirm some niggling doubts I have had. “
As if you were ever going to vote for the Greens at all.
“The Greens and the far far left are intertwined.”
Shawn, would you mind defining “moderate left” for us? I suspect you define ANY version of lefty politics as “far far left”.
“Shawn, would you mind defining “moderate left” for us? I suspect you define ANY version of lefty politics as “far far left”.”
…and probably a few centrist and moderate right-wing politics too!
I do think people that think it is good for the government to confiscate their money and spend it for them are a little out to lunch. (really they want the government to confiscate other peoples money and spend it on them)
When this economic crisis that is barrelling down on us full steam hits, it will be interesting to see the result. Will the countries turn to the right as in the ’80’s or go further down the path of socialism. I am betting that the spoiled people of the west will turn to the government to save them. Has never worked before and won’t work this time.
You can be sure that people will soon forget all about the greenie stuff when the economy tanks.
“I do think people that think it is good for the government to confiscate their money and spend it for them are a little out to lunch. (really they want the government to confiscate other peoples money and spend it on them)”
By which you mean public services funded by taxation?
That’s your definition of “far far left”?
This is what I am getting at. The thought process of the average leftoid.
“Ivan and Boris Again
by Thomas Sowell ”
“There is an old Russian fable, with different versions in other countries, about two poor peasants, Ivan and Boris. The only difference between them was that Boris had a goat and Ivan didn’t. One day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp and, when he rubbed it, a genie appeared. She told him that she could grant him just one wish, but it could be anything in the world.
Ivan said, “I want Boris’ goat to die.” ”
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/11/26/ivan_and_boris_again