By Steve Painter
Senator Jo Vallentine has suggested cancellation of the proposed August 3-4 national meeting to discuss formation of a green party. The suggestion is contained in a June 17 letter to green groups and individuals.
Green Left Weekly has received information that a decision to cancel the meeting was taken a few days earlier in a national teleconference which included some or all of the five self-appointed conveners of the meeting: Steve Brigham, Bob Brown, Hall Greenland, Drew Hutton and Jo Vallentine. This is the second time the timing and nature of the national meeting have been changed.
Public moves for quick formation of a national green party began with an April 6 speech at the Ecopolitics V conference by Tasmanian independent MP Bob Brown. The detail of Brown's speech, including a suggestion that a green party might eventually join with the Australian Democrats, indicated that there had been private discussion among some prominent individuals, including leaders of the Democrats.
Vallentine's letter does not mention Brown's speech as a factor in the timing of the push for a national meeting, attributing it instead to a generous and coincidental offer by the five conveners to take over the task from Lismore activist Alan Oshlack.
Within a week of Brown's speech, a national meeting on the establishment of a green party had been scheduled for May 18-19, and the five conveners emerged publicly as a group for the first time as signatories of a mailing informing some green organisations about the proposal. While all five are leading figures in green organisations, most acted individually, without the endorsement of their groups.
The mailing included a draft structure for the party and gave groups three weeks to suggest amendments or alternatives. It proposed that the draft structure should be adopted on May 18 after several hours' discussion.
The May meeting was postponed to August after the NSW elections were called and following feedback that many green groups would not be able to discuss the proposals adequately in three weeks.
The latest change of plan appears to be due to green groups' rejection of the conveners' proposals for decision-making and attendance at the national meeting. In response to the conveners' proposal for a "broad-based" meeting of 30 or 40
participants, many groups responded that they would prefer a meeting open to all greens.
Moreover, a number of groups expressed reservations about the structure proposals, and argued for a loose alliance to preserve existing unity and cooperation between diverse groups committed to fundamental green principles. The Lismore-based Richmond Green Alliance wrote to the national meeting organisers, saying: "We wish to make it clear ... that our group does not support any sort of centralised party structure, or any decisions that are not seen to abide by the four principles, especially any betrayal of grassroots democracy ... there needs to be an Australia-wide Green Network, however we do not see the need for a centralised party structure run along mainstream party lines."
It seems the August 3-4 meeting will now be replaced with a gathering open only to groups and individuals amenable to the five conveners. It is likely a criterion for participation will be non-acceptance of members of other parties in a green party.
This in itself might be a difficult rule to enforce consistently, given that one of the conveners, Drew Hutton, belongs to the Rainbow Alliance, a party-type formation which has contested elections and whose Brisbane members at least appear to caucus before meetings (see article page 6). Additionally, at least some of the Tasmanian independent MPs appear to favour joining the Democrats. Whether they are actually members or merely supporters of the Democrats might be a fine distinction.
The latest developments have some similarities with the 1985 ructions in the Nuclear Disarmament Party. In Melbourne, at the group's first national conference, a small group of leading members walked out ostensibly over the participation of Socialist Workers Party members in the NDP, but really over calls by most NDP members for democratic control over parliamentary representatives and democratic structures within the party.
At that stage, Jo Vallentine had just been elected to the Senate on the NDP ticket, and rock star Peter Garrett had attracted a big vote. Vallentine, Garrett and some of their supporters resigned from the NDP rather than accept that public representatives should be accountable to the ranks of the party.
As might be expected, different groups and individuals hold differing conceptions of a green party. A relatively small group, including figures who were prominent in the NDP walkout and others who are close to the peak organisations of the conservation movement, envisage a party similar to the Democrats or perhaps the soft left of the ALP. However, most green activists are distrustful of any such top-down style of politics, and have spontaneously developed their own electoral organisations.
While those close to the peak organisations argue that the participation of "high profile" celebrities is a precondition for a successful green party, rank and file greens have gone ahead and contested elections, achieving very promising results, and almost electing Ian Cohen to the NSW upper house.
It is unlikely that a viable green party can emerge from a top-down process based on exclusion of sections of a movement that prides itself on its diversity and tolerance. In any case, in the event of the formation of a narrowly based green party, or a green-Democrat merger, or both, a broader green network, alliance or coalition of progressive alternative groups and individuals will remain a necessary project.