Greens run for Newcastle council

By Margaret Allan
NEWCASTLE The Greens have announced their candidates for the September 9 elections for the City Council. Apart from the ALP, the Greens are the only political party to stand candidates in all of the wards.
Three quarters of the Greens candidates are women, including Margaret Henry, a long-time community activist and former Newcastle University academic, and Liz Rene, who works for the Department of Social Security. Rene contested the seat of Waratah in the NSW elections in March, receiving the state's third highest Green vote.
Leading the tickets in the other two wards are David Owens, a supervisor for Greening Australia and former coordinator of the Wilderness Society here, and Councillor John Sutton, who was elected to the Newcastle City Council in 1991, the first Green in this position. Sutton is also the Greens lord mayoral candidate.
Henry explained that the Newcastle Greens' approach to local government involved community participation in re-examining and reorganising council operations with a more regional approach to politics. The Greens support the phasing out of state governments.
The Greens state that social equity implications of environmental policies must be fully examined to ensure that the environmental repair burden does not fall on those least able to pay. They are also supporting an investigation into the feasibility of a light rail system in Newcastle and the reintroduction of a local kerb-side recycling collection service.