New national meeting?
The Brisbane-based "Australian Green Working Group" is circulating a letter calling for a national meeting on the question of a green party, probably in November. The proposal is based on a controversial call at the June 16 meeting of the Queensland Green Network to proscribe members of other parties from a national green party.
Since the QGN has a non-exclusion clause in its constitution, supporters of proscription set up a new group as a vehicle for their proposal.
According to the letter, full participation in the November meeting would be open only to the section of the green movement that favours proscription. Members of existing parties would be denied speaking or decision-making rights, but would be permitted to "apply for observer status".
The letter calls for a national preparatory meeting in "about August", and projects a state preparatory meeting and conference as well.
Alternative green proposal
NSW Green Alliance activist Janet Parker is circulating a proposal for an Alternative Green Network.
The nine-point proposal calls for:
- "A provisional framework to nurture ties and dialogue between existing organisations and individuals".
- Minimal agreement around the four basic principles of the German Greens: ecological sustainability, social and economic justice, grassroots democracy and non-violence.
- A network among all existing and future green parties, movements, alliances and other organisations. This network would encourage unity and accept diversity.
- Acceptance that there can be no monopoly of green ideas or the green name.
- A national clearinghouse or newsletter "that would act as a forum for exchange of views and information".
- Encouragement of green political, social and electoral activity.
- "Regional and national conferences as necessary to exchange views, coordinate work and hopefully develop closer and more organic links among affiliates."
- Freedom of affiliates to initiate local, regional or national activities.
- Funding of AGN activities by subscription or voluntary contributions from affiliates.
DSP replies to Jo Vallentine
The Democratic Socialist Party has replied to Senator Jo Vallentine's recent letter raking over the Nuclear Disarmament Party controversy of 1985. In a letter sent to green organisations last week, DSP national secretary Jim Percy said "it was Senator Vallentine and Peter Garrett who tried to ram their agendas through" the non-binding, consultative Melbourne conference of the NDP at which the split occurred. "They failed in spite of their high personal profiles. People were just sick of the star system of politics ... The decision of Jo Vallentine and Peter Garrett to crash the NDP against the wall of a media anti-communist barrage was egotistical and destructive in the extreme."
Percy is also critical of Senator Vallentine's relationship with the Greens (WA): "It's no accident that the constitution of the WA Greens offers no way of determining the activities of their parliamentary representatives. We stress here that the question is not the issue of 'wavering' of parliamentary reps ... but the democratic empowerment of members ... On the issues so far, Jo Vallentine has been the most consistent parliamentary voice for peace and the environment."
Of recent moves for a national meeting on formation of a green party, the letter says: "What happened was a grab by part of the existing Green movement for domination and control of the agenda of any new national Green Party. That was clear from the first proposal of the five conveners."
The letter adds that the latest attacks on the DSP flow from the fact that its national organisation enables it to gather and disseminate information, breaking the monopoly of parliamentarians and their staff over this process. "It's certainly not good that the emerging Green movement does not have more centres of information ... But it would be much worse off if we were to rely on what we got from the parliamentary apparatuses or the five conveners only."
Percy adds that the DSP's commitment to green politics is "fundamental", and if a party similar to the German Greens in its first decade emerged here, "we would be part of it. There would be no need for a separate DSP ... But
dissolving a party before the event and after are two different things ... the sort of party controlled by politicians that pursues the old parliamentary wheeling and dealing game doesn't turn us on and won't solve anything."
On the issues of possible divided loyalties and the DSP's attitude towards democracy, the letter says: "it is our policy, not just in the Greens but in many other areas ... that our members should be loyal to those movements and organisations ... The fact is, the DSP could not have survived ... over the last 20 years if it had not practiced a very real form of democracy and a very real form of consensus. Small parties that didn't and don't do this, split and wither."
To Senator Vallentine's claim that "the emerging green party national organisation will have little credibility in the community with the DSP involved", Percy replies there is no evidence for such claims. The NDP was not damaged electorally by SWP support, and green organisations have not suffered either, although "you can make it a self-fulfilling prophecy by yourself doing a job in the mass media on the DSP just as in 1985".
The letter concludes that Senator Vallentine and "all others who see it that way" have a right to "form their own party". But "the issues of politics and democracy inside the five conveners' sort of party will not go away, with or without the DSP", and "those of us who see it differently won't go away either. The issues and philosophy are too big and too important to be anyone's exclusive prerogative."