2014-08-11
Christine Cunningham
Last month, the Australian Greens National Council was held in Glebe, Sydney. It proved very productive to meet face-to-face again and to decide on all Council proposals and listen to many of our parliamentarians share their experiences at work over the very intense budgetary period. Thanks must go to New South Wales for their hospitality in catering, billeting and providing an historical and beautiful meeting place for us all. I express my deep gratitude for all the work of my fellow office bearers, members of the Australian Greens Coordinating Group (AGCG) and all national staff who played roles in planning, preparing and running the meetings over that weekend.
We welcome Stewart Jackson back to AGCG, who was elected to replace Giz Watson as an ordinary member until November. This occurred because Giz has now been elected as deputy convener of our national party. Congratulations, Giz! The extraordinary election of both candidates was sparked by the resignation of Ben Spies-Butcher from his latest office-bearing role as deputy convener. Ben has given years of service to our party at the national level. His intellectual acumen and gentle character will be deeply missed on AGCG and we thank him deeply for his commitment to service in our party.
A significant number of delegates — myself included — spent most of our time at Council in constitutional workshops. This breakout group spent the weekend discovering where all the states, territories and Party Room are currently positioned regarding many clauses of constitutional change. We made good progress but it is slow work to reach agreement on comprehensive change that our party can agree to by consensus in November. The national delegates have the notes that were taken during the constitutional workshops and they outline the key agreed points and key sticking points that we have reached in our deliberations. I hope many members can take the time to consider these notes and contribute to our constitutional processes, going forward.
It was decided over the Council weekend that the next step in our constitutional change process needs to be the holding of a special National Council in September. Progress on difficult points are best done face-to-face and we are grateful and fortunate that New South Wales has agreed to host and fund this special meeting. With this extra step in the process now agreed to by all, we should be able to make enough progress in September so that one constitutional change document can be drafted covering all the areas in the Constitution's chapters that we think have a good chance of being agreed to at National Conference in November.
Participatory democracy and grassroots involvement in governance are fundamental ideals of our party. The discussions that were had at National Council were heartening because I heard affirmation of two party goals: keeping these fundamentals and growing our party vote and membership at the same time. I look forward to working with many of you again in a month's time on tangibly progressing these goals.
Best wishes to you all,
Christine
Christine Cunningham is co-convener of the Australian Greens.