2021-05-02
By The Green Issue Editors
Despite the biggest election campaign that The Greens (WA) has ever mounted, at the March 2021 state election we lost the four incumbent Legislative Council seats gained in 2016, i.e. North and East Metro, South West and Mining and Pastoral. However, we reclaimed South Metro, but only after all below-the-line votes were counted. The Labor tsunami washed over not only The Greens but most other parties, devastating the Liberals in particular. It seems that all other issues were submerged by the overwhelming majority of voters wishing to show gratitude for the way the Labor Government has handled the Covid crisis.
Although a disappointing outcome, particularly for Greens campaigners who had contributed countless hours, it needs to be realized that The Greens (WA) vote has been going up and down over its 30-year history. But we have remained resilient over time and focused on what needs to be achieved, realizing that it may take a long time to realize such achievements. Our focus now is on retaining two WA Greens in the Senate and also in boosting the Greens profile in local elections coming up in October.
It is indeed unfortunate that Green Issue can no longer regularly report on the myriad activities and achievements of Alison Xamon, Robin Chapple, Diane Evers and Tim Clifford as MLCs. But Robin was retiring in any case. However, we will no doubt continue to hear from them in other capacities. The Green Issue team expresses appreciation of their contributions over the years and wishes them well in their future endeavours. We welcome the opportunity of being able to report on Brad Pettitt’s endeavours in the Legislative Council and his opening report is in the “From our MPs” column of this Issue. Also in this column we have updates from our Senators – Rachael Siewert and Jordon Steele-John.
The articles in this Issue address the theme of international conflict, past and potential. Global expenditure on armaments proceeds at ever increasing pace, at the expense of efforts to actually improve human well-being. The global existential threat of nuclear weapons is still with us but an important step has been taken in that the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons has recently come into force. However, there is still much work to do in convincing nuclear weapons states and their supporters to actually give up nuclear weapons. The recent marking of Anzac Day reminds us that there is still much thinking to be done on how to avoid war. This thinking on conflict avoidance needs to be urgently ramped up in view of the ever-louder beating on “the drums of war” in relation to China.
Header photo: Brad offering thanks to the South Metro campaigners, on 11th April. Chris Johansen