2014-07-04
Hall Greenland
These have been stirring times for the NSW Greens. In May we had the remarkable anti-fracking victory at Bentley in the north of the state. Thousands of citizens of the northern rivers had rallied to the blockade at Bentley to prevent the start of drilling for coal seam gas. Finally, on the eve of an expected offensive by hundreds of police, the NSW government backed down, withdrawing the drilling license from the would-be fracker, Metgasco.
Bentley was an unmistakable victory for people power. A referendum on CSG had been held with the local council elections in 2012 and 87% had voted against drilling. But people living in the area realised that voting is often not enough and for eight weeks they maintained the barricades at Bentley. The Bentley outcome was also clearly a triumph for ecological prudence over corporate power and markets — something our society needs a lot more of.
Greens members were naturally involved in all aspects of this campaign (see the gallery). While we have no illusions that the state government and the CSG companies have given up, Bentley shows (again) what can be achieved when communities mobilise.
Busting the budget
The most environmentally and socially retrograde budget in living memory has also galvanised our members. Many have thrown themselves into the campaign to “bust the budget” (and remove the Abbott government as soon as possible) organising local meetings and marching in the streets and lobbying their unions. At 72-hours notice more than 100 members came to a consultation in Sydney's western suburbs (in the middle of a long weekend, what's more) to discuss the best response of the Greens to the budget. Hundreds of other members responded on the members' website.
Our State Delegates Council meeting in June resolved to poll local groups on a proposal that our senators be requested to vote to return Appropriation Bill No.1 — the main Supply bill — to the House of Reps with a demand to revoke the cuts to vital public services. This bill included, for instance, the cuts to the CSIRO, the ABC and SBS, the Climate Change Authority, indigenous health and foreign aid as well as funding for the chaplaincy program and the shift of environmental approvals for resource projects to the states.
The result of the poll was a 73% vote in favour — just short of the 75% needed to ratify the proposal under our constitution. This was part of an ongoing debate around the federal budget which included discussion of the debt levy on high-income earners and fuel excise indexation.
All this activity does indicate a reassuring enthusiasm for participatory or grassroots democracy amongst our members. Our challenge is to enhance the ways we can make it more inclusive and effective.
Election ahead
Meanwhile, we are also preparing for the NSW state elections in March next year. We have preselected our upper house ticket — with 46% of eligible voters casting ballots — and as a result John Kaye and Mehreen Faruqi will head our ticket. We have also chosen candidates for many lower house seats, especially those we have a chance of retaining or winning — principally Balmain and Newtown (see Painting Newtown Green).
At a seminar on constitutional changes to the Australian Greens held in Melbourne to coincide with the national council, Adam Bandt highlighted the age discrepancy between our membership and our voters and the challenge we had to overcome this. It's something the NSW Greens are now turning their attention to.
In the midst of all this activity we moved offices to a more central address at the Glebe end of Broadway in Sydney. Coinciding with this move, our first ever executive officer, Carole Medcalf, has taken up her position as well.