Comment by Dave Wright
The Greens, a party which hopes to become a national green party, was launched on August 30. This party is mainly based on the newly formed Greens in Queensland, some Green groups in NSW and the Tasmanian Independents, who have recently changed their name to the Tasmanian Greens.
On September 2, the Hobart Mercury ran a front-page story by Bob Lamb of the South Australian Green Party attacking this project.
Lamb said that the national Greens launch was the culmination of three years of covert manipulation by a handful of people who had decided that they, and not the original members of the Greens, were its true leaders. He called the Tasmanian Independents "pragmatic", saying that they had given tacit support to the ALP at crucial times. "We fear that this is the hidden agenda of the national Greens."
Bob Brown, in an interview in the September issue of Modern Times, speaks of the governmental accord between Labor and the Green Independents as "being co-opted in a way". He puts this down to a learning experience. He states that what is unique to the Green party process is the "vision" that "the planet is in desperate trouble and we must act to save it."
Examining the evolution of the Tasmanian Green Independents may throw some light on the likely future of the national project, in which the Tasmanians are by far the largest component.
In 1989, many people thought that a new and progressive political era had dawned in Tasmania. Five Green Independents were elected to parliament and held the balance of power. For the first time anywhere, Greens formed part of a government.
Since then however, the excitement has largely been replaced by disappointment and a sense of parliamentary deja vu. In the February '92 elections, the five were re-elected, but with a drop in their vote of around 25%.
What began as the parliamentary expression of radical mass environmental movements, backed by two major lobby groups — the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society — failed to maintain its base of support. The Green Independents appeared to follow the ALP to the right. They did nothing as Labor slashed 2100 public sector jobs and axed social services.
Jobs
This rightward motion was reinforced prior to the February elections, when the Green Independents finally released their jobs policy — "The Business and Industry Strategy — Green, Dynamic and Prosperous". This is the policy Brown offered as "the model for Australia as a whole" at the August launch of the national party.
The conservative thinking behind this strategy is on display in articles in the Daily Planet, the newsletter of the Green Independents.
Bob Brown, in an article in the September issue entitled "For a Clean, Green Tasmania", argues that small, labour-intensive enterprises producing quality and environmentally friendly goods and craft items will foster a booming tourism-led recovery.
"We say government has a pivotal role in directing Tasmania away from propping up the heavy industries to promoting the island as the 'clean green' producer of top quality goods and services."
But where does the money come from to pay for an expanded public sector and industry incentives? At a time of worldwide recession and monetary crisis, tourism is unlikely to lead a recovery.
Applying this model to Australia is even more bizarre. It doesn't begin to offer a workable program of job creation, nor address questions of conversion of industry and agriculture to ecologically sustainable production, nor take up questions of environmental repair. The idea that small business and tourism will create "green" jobs as traditional resource industries close down is fantasy.
Already fleet-footed entrepreneurs are cashing in by learning a new green language and developing new eco-products. Greening the market doesn't remove the drive for profit and the consequent subordination of social and environment issues. Ecological sustainability becomes trivialised into packaging and advertising language.
Accountability
The Tasmanian Greens economic conservatism has been matched by a similar shift on social issues.
This has emerged most clearly around the question of organisation. In the process of developing the structure for a national party, the Tasmanian Greens have adopted the policy of allowing parliamentary members a "conscience vote".
This is defended as a progressive move which separates them from the "old guard" Liberal/Labor caucusing. That argument misses the point entirely. Caucusing and conscience votes are both mechanisms to avoid accountability to the party ranks. Major parties have used both mechanisms to avoid carrying out party policy adopted through democratic processes.
Bob Brown, at the last statewide Greens meeting, suggested this would be a good thing on questions such as abortion. That's exactly the position adopted by Labor, Liberals and the Democrats.
Accountability and rank-and-file democracy are basic if any Green party is to provide a real alternative to the party process which has disillusioned and betrayed so many members and voters.
By enshrining the conscience vote, the Tasmanian Greens and the new national Greens elevate the individual views of parliamentarians above the collective goals of the majority of the members, creating a top-down structure just like all the major parties.
Where this can lead was indicated in April, when the Greens' Reverend Lance Armstrong introduced a bill to restrict advertising and display of publications. This bill is aimed at the display of publications such as People and Playboy in newsagents, which Armstrong argues are degrading to women. But in a state which has repressive anti-abortion laws and minimal access to lawful abortion, there are more urgent priorities for women.
And who will such a law really affect? Where does it lead? A similar anti-pornography law in Canada led to a raid on a gay bookshop and the arrest of its owner. In Tasmania there are already moves to ban condom vending machines in high schools, teenage sex and abortions. Tasmania has the most oppressive anti-
homosexual law nationally. Armstrong's censorship legislation is likely to increase the climate of repressiveness around sexuality.
Population
Another pointer to the rightward climate of discussion appears in an article by Paul Smith in the September Daily Planet entitled "Are we Green enough?". This poses the question, "Does our concern with getting votes lead us to avoid policies which are essential to a green position but which call for more self restraint than the electorate can stomach?"
Smith argues that, until we have a world government which is capable of democratically managing population size, this
responsibility should remain with the national or state government. How should this be achieved?
"Tasmania's population could be discouraged from growing in several ways. One is by discouraging immigration by keeping Tasmanian incomes lower than in the rest of the nation. Keeping unemployment significantly higher than in the other states would also work (as it already does!) but is not advocated because of its injustice, unless it is shared around through part-time working arrangements. Secession from the Commonwealth is another possibility — to allow Tasmania to establish immigration controls. Another approach is for Tasmanians to be persuaded (or persuade themselves) to have fewer children. Green policies on population appear obvious."
No, that wasn't written as a joke, or by someone intending to send up green politics.
Note also how mere assertion replaces the need to persuade: "green policies" are simply "obvious". So if you disagree, it can only mean that you're not green. This "greener than thou" approach does nothing to further democratic decision making on policy.
While this viewpoint on population control doesn't necessarily represent the Tasmanian Greens as a whole, its prominent airing in the Daily Planet sets very narrow parameters for discussion. The extraordinarily parochial tone dismisses any real global solutions and reinforces the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome. Think locally, act locally!
For many who became radicalised around Lake Pedder, the Franklin blockade and Wesley Vale, the disempowering experience of the Green Independents' approach of "let us take care of it for you", has led to a decline in political activity. No real attempt has been made by the "established" leaders of the green movement to build a mass democratic alternative that will seriously challenge the stranglehold of Labor and Liberal.
The likelihood of the new national Green party achieving this is not great. As Bob Brown admitted to Modern Times, he sees the trajectory of "successful" political parties as becoming more conservative, and the Greens as no exception.