Australian Greens
| Australian Greens | |
|---|---|
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| Party leader | Adam Bandt |
| vice-chairman |
Larissa Waters , Nick McKim |
| founding | 1992 |
| Headquarters | 23/85 Northbourne Avenue Turner ACT 2612 |
| Youth organization | Young Greens |
| newspaper | Green Magazine |
| Alignment |
Green politics progressivism |
| Colours) | green |
| House of Representatives |
1/151 |
| senate |
9/76 |
| Number of members | 13,400 (2015) |
| International connections |
Global Greens , Asia-Pacific Green Network |
| Website | www.greens.org.au |
The Australian Greens , commonly known as The Greens , is the national green party in Australia . It has its origins in a protest movement against a planned dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania in the 1980s . But their political issues now extend to environmental problems also on the peace movement , grassroots democracy ( " Grassroots Democracy ") and Social Justice.
Political ideology
Today the Greens call themselves a party of the “New Politics”. Lance Armstrong, a former member of the Tasmanian House of Representatives for the Tasmanian Green Party, described her position as "... neither left nor right, but progressive". Members of other Australian parties consistently refer to green politics as "radical". According to the prevailing opinion, the Greens are to be found in the left-wing party spectrum.
The charter lists “4 pillars” as the basis of its policy: social justice , sustainability , grassroots democracy, and peace and non-violence . In pursuing these basic principles, the Greens have also adopted other (often controversial) positions: (legalization of) euthanasia , corporate taxation and decriminalization or legalization of drugs .
The growing number of votes for the Greens has given them more attention from other parties and the media. Despite the rather leftist politics the Greens in a number considered to be conservative constituencies (eg Kooyong / Victoria or the home constituency of Prime Minister John Howard Bennelong / New South Wales ) and in advanced as Sydney and Melbourne able to record high share of the vote.
The Greens differ from the other major parties in a number of positions that are often discussed in public, for example in dealing with asylum seekers . As a result, they lost their reputation as a "one-issue party".
structure
The Australian Greens, like all Australian parties, have a federal structure. That means that there are independent green parties in each state, which are then united in a national green "umbrella organization", the Australian Greens. This is then also responsible for the joint program. The highest decision-making level is the National Council (cf. party council of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ). It consists of members of the subordinate (federal) green parties and usually decides by mutual consensus . Formally there is no chairperson. Nevertheless, there is the Australian Greens Coordinating Group (AGCOG) , which is made up of national officials, the National Convenor (a kind of managing director), the Secretary (a kind of secretary general), the treasurer and party delegates from the states or territories composed. There is also a party spokesman (public officer), a party agent and a registered officer.
The Greens have nine senators in the Senate , the Australian upper house :
- Senator Nick McKim ( Tasmania )
- Senator Peter Whish-Wilson ( Tasmania )
- Senator Lee Rhiannon ( New South Wales )
- Senator Larissa Waters ( Queensland )
- Senator Sarah Hanson-Young ( South Australia )
- Senator Richard Di Natale ( Victoria )
- Senator Janet Rice ( Victoria )
- Senator Scott Ludlam ( Western Australia )
- Senator Rachel Siewert ( Western Australia )
This structure has replaced a previous system according to which the speakers responsible for the respective subject areas were appointed by the National Council .
The National Council has set up a number of working groups that also directly involve each member. You have an advisory role in the development of political strategy, party organization or other tasks ordered by the National Council .
All decisions and strategies must be ratified by each state party .
At a party conference on November 12, 2005 in Hobart , the Greens gave up their long-cherished tradition of not appointing an official party chairman and opted for a process in which the parliamentary group chairman in the Senate (and thus the highest-ranking Greens) from the so-called Greens Party Room should be chosen. On November 28th, Bob Brown - who had long been seen as the de facto party chairman by both party members and outsiders - was elected without significant resistance.
history
Origins
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Election results 1996 : 2.4% 1998 : 2.7% 2001 : 4.9% 2004 : 7.7% 2007 : 9.0% 2010 : 13.1% 2013 : 8.7% 2016 : 10.23%
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The green movement grew out of environmental campaigns in Tasmania. The predecessor of the Tasmanian Greens (the oldest green association in Australia and the world), the United Tasmania Group , was founded in 1972 during the fight against the construction of dams to impound Lake Pedder . However, the group could not prevent the construction and did not manage to fill political offices. One of the candidates at the time was Bob Brown , then still a doctor in Launceston (Tasmania) .
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, environmental activist Norm Sanders managed to move into the Tasmanian Parliament as part of a campaign against building a dam on the Franklin River for the Australian Democrats . Brown, then director of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society , ran as an independent candidate in the election, but failed to get elected to parliament. In 1982, Sanders resigned and Brown took his place.
During her visit to Australia in 1984, West German Green politician Petra Kelly urged the various Green groups to develop a common national identity. Partly because of this call, 50 green activists gathered in Tasmania in December of that year to organize a national conference. The Greens gained their first seat in parliament when Senator Josephine Vallentine ( Western Australia ), who was elected for the Nuclear Disarmament Party and was later considered independent, joined the Greens.
In 1992, Greens from across the country gathered in Sydney to create the Australian Greens . Some, v. a. the Western Australian Green Party , but retained their own identity for a while. Bob Brown resigned from his Tasmanian parliamentary post in 1993 and became the first elected Australian Greens candidate when he was elected Senator for Tasmania in 1996 .
The most successful Green Party at this time was the Western Australian Green Party , which at the time was still independent. Its Senator Josephine Vallentine was followed by Christabel Chamarette in 1992, and Dee Margetts, another Senator from Western Australia, was elected in 1993. Vallentine (1996) and Camarette (1998) lost their Senate seats, and Bob Brown remained the only Green Senator.
Election 2001
On November 10, 2001, all 150 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate were to be elected. It was dominated by the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the heated debate about the Norwegian cargo ship "MS Tampa", which had rescued several hundred Indonesian refugees off the Christmas Islands (belonging to Australia) from distress. Australia stubbornly refused to accept the refugees and in the end Nauru agreed to accept them in return for financial concessions from the Australian side.
Senator Brown took a clear stand against Prime Minister Howard's highly restrictive refugee and asylum policy, which led to increased support for the Greens and others. a. led by dissatisfied Labor voters. This played a crucial role in perceiving the Greens as more than just a "one-issue party".
The Greens received 569,075 votes for the House of Representatives (4.3% or + 2.4%), which was not enough for one seat. In the Senate election they received 570,509 votes (4.9% or + 2.2%), which earned them an additional Senate post.
In 2002, the Australian Greens first won a seat in the House of Representatives when Michael Organ won a by-election in Cunningham, New South Wales .
Election 2004
In the 2004 elections, the Greens received 841,734 votes (7.2% or + 2.2%), which gave them 4 senators in the Senate. But since the government of John Howard now also won a majority in the Senate , the legislative influence of the Greens declined . Michael Organ lost his seat in the House of Representatives to a laboratory candidate.
The Christian-oriented Family First Party ran a TV spot in the run-up to the elections as part of a massive media campaign in which the Australian Greens were referred to as "Extreme Greens". Due to the extremely complicated electoral system , v. a. for the Senate election, where there is a kind of ranking of the parties among themselves, the Greens lost some advantages in the calculation of the votes and their value to the Family First Party . Although the Greens received more than four times as many votes, instead of David Risstrom, Family First candidate Steve Fielding entered the Senate. In Tasmania, the Greens Christine Milne only barely managed to defend her Senate seat against the Family First candidate, although she received significantly more votes. Only the high occurrence of so-called "below-the-line" votes in Tasmania prevented the exchange of votes between Labor Party and Family First, which was favored by the ranking .
The Greens were able to run candidates in almost all electoral districts of the House of Representatives and for all Senate positions.
Controversy with the Herald Sun
In August 2004 the Melbourne newspaper The Herald Sun headlined its cover story "Greens back illegal drugs" (for example: "Greens advocate illegal drugs"). The article received considerable media coverage and was further disseminated by groups critical of the Greens. In response to this article, Party Chairman Bob Brown filed a complaint with the Australian Press Council . He came to the conclusion that the article contained a number of false claims and classified it as "irresponsible journalism ". An appeal by the Herald Sun was denied and the newspaper was obliged to publish the press council's decision. Brown said, “It wasn't an accident or a mistake. The goal was to attack the Greens, not through the comment column, but through the news page. The result of these inventions about the politics of the Greens was the loss of tens of thousands of votes and, in my calculation, of parliamentary seats. "
Cooperation with other political groups
The Greens have no formal ties to other environmental groups known by the media as “green groups” such as the Australian Conservation Foundation , The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace Australia Pacific , all of which claim to be non-political. Even so, a significant number of the Greens are also members of one or more of these groups. In the run-up to elections, there is sometimes a competition with some of these groupings, who would like to see green goals achieved in cooperation with the Labor Party or the Liberal Party . The Greens tend to prefer negotiations with the Labor Party in order to increase the chance of Green Senate candidates through the mutual ranking and thus also bring green issues such as the destruction of the Tasmanian forests onto the agenda. As a result, the Labor Party is higher up in the green ranking than the Liberal Party , but according to general knowledge this did not have a decisive influence on the outcome of the 2001 and 2004 elections.
Labor Party and Unions
Many supporters of the Labor Party and the trade unions see the policy of the Australian Greens as hampering (the creation of) jobs in areas such as mining and forestry to. Left trade unionists and members of the left “Social Left” wing of the Labor Party , however, are sometimes more willing to sympathize with the Greens, v. a. with their social policy . Some unionists from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) (union of university employees) have even run for the Greens in parliamentary elections. A Labor MP , Kris Henna (Mitchell, South Australia ), joined the Australian Greens in 2003 - but resigned in February 2006 and stood as an independent candidate in the South Australian state parliament elections .
Nevertheless, the left wing of the laboratory does not always sympathize with the Greens. The similarities between the two groups mean that both often compete for the same group of voters. The growing popularity of the Greens makes them a serious threat to the Labor Party. 2002 wrote Lindsay Tanner, a prominent member of the "social Left" -Flügels: "The emergence of the Greens already the ability of the Australian Labor Party, new members has to attract among young people hurt." In the elections in 2004 Tanners threatened his own parliamentary seat in Melbourne , Victoria to be lost, according to polls to the Greens. During the election campaign, Tanner described green politics as "mad". Ultimately, however, she was able to defend her seat with a comfortable majority.
Conservative groups
Relations between the Greens and conservative parties are consistently kept to a minimum. In the 2004 election campaign, members of the Liberal-National Government Coalition ( Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Australia ) insulted the Greens as “environmental extremists” and even as “ fascists ”. The party leader of the Christian Democratic Party , Fred Nile, and former National Party -Vorsitzende John Anderson described the Greens as "watermelons", they are "green on the outside and inside red". Prime Minister and Liberal Party Chairman John Howard said “The Greens are not just about the environment. They have a whole bunch of other very, very crazy views on things like drugs and all that other stuff. "
Rivalry with the democrats
The Australian Greens have a lot in common with the Australian Democrats politically , partly on environmental and social issues. This fact leads to regular debates over proposals to unite both parties. Even so, the Greens and Democrats often have different views on economic policy (for example on the 10% VAT introduced by the Liberal government with the support of the Democrats) and on the willingness with which the Democrats work with the current government.
For a long time, the Democrats followed a moderate course between the two big parties, whereas the Greens are less willing to compromise with the big parties to the detriment of their positions. This difference, and the fact that both parties are courting voters looking for an alternative to the Liberal Party and the Labor Party , has created a rivalry between the two parties. In this context, the drop in votes for the Australian Democrats is blamed on growing support for the Australian Greens. Even so, the decline in the Democrats is greater than the increase in the Greens, which is seen as an indication that many former Democratic voters switched to the big parties.
Politics in the States and Territories
Different Australian states and territories have different electoral systems , some of which allow the Greens to be represented in parliament. In New South Wales , Victoria and Western Australia the Greens are represented by members of the Legislative Council (upper house), which is elected by proportional representation. The Greens won their first upper house seat with Mark Parnell in South Australia in 2006 . The Greens also have MPs in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly in Canberra . In Queensland and the Northern Territory , majority voting prevented the Greens from getting a seat in the state parliament.
The main area of green politics was Tasmania - the only state where the House of Commons is elected by proportional representation. Since 1986 the Greens have been represented in the Tasmanian Chamber of Deputies (the House of Assembly) . In the 1989 election, the Greens won 5, Liberal Party 17 and Labor Party 13 seats. After making various political concessions, the Greens agreed to support the Labor minority government . 1992 ended this support with a dispute over jobs in forestry . The Tasmanian Prime Minister ( Prime Minister ) Michael Field called early elections, which the Liberal Party won. Liberals and Labor MPs later voted to reduce the size of parliament from 35 to 25 seats, making it much more difficult for smaller parties to get seats because they now need significantly more votes for one seat. In the 1998 elections, the Greens only won one seat, although their share of the vote had only fallen slightly, mainly because of the new electoral system. They recovered in the 2002 elections and won four seats. All seats could be defended in the 2006 election, although they received 1.5% fewer votes and the media speculated on the loss of two seats in advance.
Former MP for the Australian Greens
- Senator Jo Vallentine (1990-1992), for the Greens Western Australia
- Senator Christabel Chamarette (1992–1996), for the Greens Western Australia
- Senator Dee Margetts (1993-1999), for the Greens Western Australia
- Senator Bob Brown (1996-2012)
- Senator Christine Milne (1998-2015)
- Senator Penny Wright (2011-2015)
- Senator Kerry Nettle (2001-2008)
- Michael Organ, Member of the House of Representatives (2002–2004)
Senators Vallentine, Chamarette and Margetts were all elected to the Greens Western Australia before they joined the national Australian Greens , which means they were not counted as the actual "Green" Senators at the time.
Web links
Party structure of the Greens
Other web links
- Comment from the Liberal Party on Green Policy: Interview with John Howard during the 2004 election campaign (see pages 5 & 6)
- Democratic View of the Greens: Senator Bartlett's speech at the National Press Club on Sept. 28, 2004
- Press Council statement on Bob Brown's complaint about the Herald Sun
- Press release by the Greens on the Herald Sun
- Article by the Greens on the Herald Sun's dismissed objection
- Margo Kingston's web diary "Who's afraid of The Greens?"
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Greens: Your Representatives ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Results of the 2001 election
- ↑ Information on theage.com.au
- ↑ Information on presscouncil.org.au ( Memento of the original from June 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Website of the Victorian Greens
- ↑ Information on abc.net.au
- ↑ Information on abc.net.au ( Memento of the original dated February 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Information on theage.com.au
- ^ Website of australianpolitics.com
- ↑ Information on abc.net.au
