2015-01-16
Josh Wyndham-Kidd
I'm the new International Secretary for the party, and I thought I'd use my first column to pan across some big moments coming up in 2015 for the Greens worldwide. Short version: it's going to be a big year!
Many of our Green colleagues around the world are tackling elections. Canada, Turkey, Poland — all three have Green parties facing critical tests. All three are also massive fossil fuel producers, where a strong Green voice is more important than ever in the face of the climate emergency. We here in Australia can help them by sharing campaign tactics and mobilising expat communities, and that's a big part of our global work this year.
Circle May 7 in your calendar — it's the date of the next UK general election, the least predictable in a generation. Green parties across the UK are surging in the polls and in membership as people look for a genuine alternative to Tory / Liberal and Labour cuts to vital public services. The Scottish Green Party has gone from just over 1000 members to nearly 8000 this year alone — and the Greens in England and Wales are outpolling the Liberal Democrats and in the last week, have surged past 44,000 members and are now bigger than the Lib Dems and UKIP! Our friends are doing amazing work.
Especially seeing as the fantastic Greens leader there, Natalie Bennett, is an Australian who began her journalism career on the Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth — we'll be finding any way we can to support our British colleagues.
Closer to home, the Asia-Pacific Greens Federation is preparing to hold its Congress this June in New Zealand. It only holds a Congress once every five years, so we're lucky to have it coming up and (relatively) close by. The Congress will give us time to meet Greens from diverse corners of the Asia-Pacific, train each other in party building and campaigning, and update our structures as Green parties grow in the region. The Australian Greens also run a development program to support emerging Green parties, so Congress will be a great chance for us to work together with them in person. Get in touch if you'd like me to send you more details on how you can be a part of the Congress.
Here in Canberra and across Australia, our elected representatives keep global issues to the fore. If you're like me and global warming is the issue that gets you out of bed in the morning, you'll know that there's no other party standing up for a safe climate future.
You might not know that representatives from our party are also the ones raising other vital international issues in Parliament and on the streets: from Peter Greste's imprisonment and the recognition of Palestine, to shedding light on secret trade deals and standing up for overseas aid.
They're active around the world, too. For a quick snapshot, just in the final weeks of last year:
- Christine Milne joined Greens from around the world at the UN Climate Conference in Lima, tirelessly putting the case to leave fossil fuels in the ground and move to real climate justice before the Paris Conference in December this year.
- Richard Di Natale travelled to West Africa to use his public health experience to assess the Ebola response.
- Sarah Hanson-Young went to Cambodia to lift the lid on conditions for refugees the Abbott government wants to send there, and
- Janet Rice saw first-hand the life-saving vaccination programs provided to children through Australian aid funding in Laos.
I'll keep highlighting their work during the year as part of our party's great global presence.
If you, like our MPs, want to spend part of your 2015 working on global issues, there are plenty of ways to get involved! Global Issues Group members will organise discussions, forums and more in every state. Get in touch with me if you'd like to be put in touch with other people working on global issues in your part of the country.
We're going through our international relations policies this year during the national policy review, too. I'd definitely encourage you to make the most of being a member of a democratic party where all of us can be part of big decisions like that.
No matter what you're passionate about, 2015 is a big year on the global front, and I can't wait to work with you all to make it a Green one too.
To contact the International Secretary, email Josh Wyndham-Kidd on international.secretary@greens.org.au