Principles
The Greens NSW believe that:
1. Industry in NSW should be ecologically and economically sustainable. Governments play an important role in promoting equitable, efficient and sustainable industry development.
2. In order to build successful and prosperous industries, NSW should have: efficient transport and communications infrastructure; affordable, accessible and relevant education and training, low-cost clean energy; and significant public investment in science and research.
3. Successful and prosperous economies promote a culture that greatly values and supports science, engineering, design, innovation, enterprise and creativity.
4. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that workers and communities reliant on unsustainable industries are supported to plan a staged and just transition towards more sustainable local jobs and industries.
5. Governments should act to ensure that economic activity remains under the control of democratic institutions, rather than private interests and purely market mechanisms.
6. The government should directly invest in anchor institutions, such as hospitals, universities, public sector agencies, housing associations and transport hubs in order to keep other industries embedded in place and support better, longer-term jobs and more secure communities.
7. Deliberate and coordinated government intervention is necessary to encourage a diverse and resilient economy.
8. Development of industry in NSW can be facilitated by public sector investment that is open, transparent, and targets sectors rather than specific companies or businesses.
9. Natural monopolies and essential services should generally be in public ownership.
10. All natural monopolies and essential public services should be subject to a regime of transparency, accountability and stewardship that ensures maximum benefit to the public.
11. Privately owned corporations should not be seen as the only or main form for commercial activity.
12. Forms of business organisation such as co-operatives, social enterprises, the sharing economy, mutual economic enterprises, and employee share ownership are important for the health of the economy, local economic resilience and distributing economic power.
13. Direct government financing is the preferred mechanism for funding public infrastructure. The privatisation of public assets to finance new infrastructure is unsustainable and damaging to the economy and the community.
14. Locally owned small and medium businesses are significant and crucial elements in the strength and resilience of local economies, and can help in transitioning to a more ecologically and socially sustainable economy.
15. A well-regulated, competitive and diverse banking sector, including publicly-owned financial institutions, will serve the broader public interest and the economy.
Aims
The Greens NSW will:
16. Ensure workers and unions have a guaranteed say in the development of all aspects of their industry.
17. Support the transition to a sustainable economy to minimise waste and pollution.
18. Work towards providing safe and socially useful jobs for all who want them.
19. Advance the economic self-determination of First Nations peoples.
20. Increase research and development incentives to business, particularly in areas that serve broader objectives such as ecological sustainability and social responsibility.
21. Encourage innovation, diversification and local manufacturing.
22. Require governments to purchase their needs from local sources first, where available, and encourage private industry to source locally as a first resort.
23. Implement mechanisms to support strategic industries, protect industries from unfair competition, and to encourage environmentally sustainable production and the growth of manufacturing.
24. Implement stronger public awareness initiatives in the areas of consumer rights, reduced and responsible consumption and responsible investment.
25. Support continued productivity improvements, the equitable distribution of the resulting increase in income, and the option for workers to take their share of productivity bonuses in the form of shorter working hours, as well as higher pay.
26. Provide resources and incentives to support social enterprises including cooperatives, producers’ markets, schemes to share vehicles and equipment, and enterprises providing supported employment for those disadvantaged in the labour market.
27. Support design as a key driver of business growth through:
1. Promoting good design through competitions and awards.
2. Improving design education from primary school through TAFE.
3. Facilitating links between industry and designers.
4. Creating a design culture in NSW, so that NSW industry can build brand recognition for the design and innovation we are already doing.
Manufacturing
28. Rapidly decarbonise the economy by providing direct government investment and industry assistance towards the energy efficiency, renewable energy, sustainable technology, and public transport industries.
29. Ensure the construction of necessary infrastructure and coordinate information exchange between related industries and unions to allow the development of sustainable industries, encourage the development of upstream and downstream industries and facilitate the development of sustainable industry clusters.
30. Promote the development of industry in regional centres in order to support the sustainability of regional communities.
31. Support small manufacturing businesses through collaboration, information exchange, and the development of common training programs.
32. Ensure that the funding of NSW TAFE is restored and the so-called Smart and Skilled entitlements market is disbanded to ensure that public vocational education can support a modern and internationally competitive manufacturing industry.
Economic Diversification
33. Work with unions, industry representatives, workers, universities and TAFEs, local governments and local communities to identify alternative industries that can offer employment and economic sustainability for communities currently dependent on unsustainable industries, and to create appropriate compensation and industry adjustment programs for affected communities and people.
34. Ensure the continued presence of key services such as postal, banking and telecommunications services in communities adversely affected by industrial and economic restructuring.
35. Provide high quality vocational education and training through the NSW TAFE system to ensure that workers can make adjustments to new industries.
Public Investment
36. Ensure that any significant public investment is conditional on delivering meaningful worker co-determination through elected workers’ representatives amounting to no less than 50% of voting board appointments.
37. Ban outsourced labour hire that undermines pay or conditions, as a requirement of all government funding and supply contracts.
38. Require all corporations receiving government support to adopt an accounting methodology with explicit social and environmental goals.
39. Require that significant transfers made to private corporations are undertaken as buy-outs, not as bail-outs.
Public Ownership and Monopolies
40. Eliminate non-public monopolies, cartels and foreign control, and encourage economic diversity, small business and more worker share ownership.
41. Ensure that natural monopolies and other essential services such as water, public transport, and prisons are under public ownership and that there is a higher level of public ownership in energy, hospitals, health clinics, banking, insurance, and telecommunications.
42. Bring outsourced and privatised services back into the public sector, where practicable.
43. Require worker and customer representation on the board of every publicly-owned enterprise.
44. Support for diverse, democratic and community-based organisations to challenge dominance in the supermarket and food distribution industries.
Co-operatives and worker-owned businesses
45. Increase the number of cooperatives, small businesses and worker-owned businesses in comparison to large corporate businesses.
46. Increase awareness and education of the co-operative business model and foster uptake of the co-operative principles that it is based on.
47. Provide concessional financial assistance to newly formed co-operatives and for the transformation of existing businesses into co-operatives, community- and worker-owned businesses.
48. Ensure guidance is available to facilitate the establishment of co-operatives with good governance and connections with clients to ensure these enterprises are viable firms.
49. Implement measures that protect co-operatives from demutualisation, such as mandating the usage of indivisible reserves.
50. Provide tax concessions and reduce the fees charged to co-operatives and worker-owned businesses.
51. Work with communities to identify the potential to form and operate as a cooperative in the event a key business, upon which that community is reliant, indicates an intention to leave or cease its operations.
52. Advocate for the creation of a national registrar of co-operatives to relieve the burden from under-resourced State and Territory co-operative regulators.
Small business
53. Encourage the growth of those small businesses that provide goods, innovative services and employment that support the ecosystems of our planet, underpinning sustainable economies and industries.
54. Encourage community ownership of local initiatives and infrastructure such as small energy projects, waste management and training facilities.
55. Encourage cooperative schemes that allow small retailers access to shop space which might otherwise be monopolised by large firms.
56. Support procurement policies that enable small businesses and cooperatives to gain a greater share in government purchasing.
57. Increase financial support for small businesses, especially cooperatives, requiring that good working conditions and wages are in place.
58. Provide and maintain affordable small business management skills courses and advisory services.
59. Create incentives for small business’ practices, goods and services to become ecologically sustainable such as energy efficiency, accessing 100% renewable energy, green audits, and seed funding.
60. Adequately resource mediation and conciliation services for conflicts within small businesses and family enterprises.
61. Ensure retail tenancies, especially in major shopping centres, do not set unfair or unworkable conditions for small shops in favour of major chain stores.
62. Develop initiatives to activate dormant commercial and retail spaces.
63. Provide appropriate legal protections for franchisees to prevent them from being treated as de facto employees without industrial protections.
64. Support the use of digital technologies and platforms to reduce red tape for small businesses, making it easier and more affordable for them to navigate regulatory processes such as licensing and approvals.
65. Legislate and regulate against anti-competitive measures, monopolies, price gouging and buying up competing businesses.
66. Promote local business as a means of supporting local communities and economies.
Revised August 2022