By Pat Brewer
Green parties and electoral alliances around Australia could soon face the alternative of giving up much of their autonomy to a national structure or losing the right to use the name Green in election campaigns.
This possibility, which became evident at meetings of the NSW Green Alliance over the February 1-2 weekend, has emerged from the latest efforts to establish a national green party, as some of the participants seek to create for themselves a monopoly on the use of the name Green.
The background to this situation is the more or less spontaneous birth of green party organisations around the country in the late '80s. At the time, under the federal Electoral Act, the name Green was held by the Sydney Greens, who had first stood a candidate in that electorate in the 1984 election.
Under the act, Tony Harris, the Sydney Greens' registered officer, could grant use of the name to other groups by declaring them a "related party". The Sydney Greens decided to give this status to any group which would abide by the four principles of the German Greens — ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social equality and economic justice, and disarmament and non-violence.
Support for the four principles was the only condition. Each local or regional party or group operated autonomously, deciding for itself its membership, structure, activities and specific policies. The autonomous groups collaborated on agreed activities, including alliances to run upper house electoral tickets.
Also established was an Applications Committee, sometimes known as the Registrations Committee, composed of delegates elected by each autonomous group. Its main task was to consider applications by new groups for the use of the Green name according to the rules established by the Sydney Greens and to elect people to fill the formal positions required by the Electoral Act — registered officer, and one or several deputy registered officers.
However, in fact Harris never handed over the legal power to appoint registered and deputy registered officers, choosing instead to nominate these personally.
Melbourne Group
Moves to alter this structure began at least as early as June 1990 in discussions of an informal body known as "the Melbourne Group". Membership of the group has never been officially disclosed, but it was reported to include Phillip Toyne of the Australian Conservation Foundation, leaders of the Democrats, Bob Brown of the Tasmanian Green Independents, members of the Rainbow Alliance and then senator Jo Vallentine from the WA Greens.
The moves became public at the Ecopolitics V conference last April, when Bob Brown called for the creation of a national green party and he Democrats.
While nearly everyone involved in green politics agreed that a national organisation was a desirable goal, there was anything but unanimity on whether the time was ripe, the process by which it should be established, what its structure should be, how much autonomy should be left to local and state groups, and program.
Some proposals circulated would have severely limited the autonomy of groups to select their own membership and to choose their delegates, candidates and procedures, setting up a centralised structure with the power to override local decisions and with control over the functions previously exercised by the Applications Committee.
The implications were obvious at a national meeting convened in August by Steve Brigham (Illawarra Greens), Bob Brown, Hall Greenland (Sydney Greens), Drew Hutton (Queensland Rainbow Alliance) and Jo Vallentine. Organisers of the meeting refused to allow participating groups to choose their own delegates freely, deciding not to seat any delegate who was a member of another party in addition to a green party.
The August meeting agreed by a large majority that a national party should proscribe members of other political parties — not a surprising decision given the prior "sifting" of delegates.
However, the meeting could find common ground on very little else. It became apparent that there were widely differing ideas on structure, ranging from a loose network of autonomous groups to a centralised national council with extensive powers over policy, upper house elections, national spokespersons, etc — the latter supported by all the conveners (except Hall Greenland, who had resigned from the Greens). Bob Brown additionally advocated a rapid fusion with the Democrats.
Given the differences, the way forward was to "live and let live" — for green groups and individuals with differing ideas to proceed with their own activities and structures, collaborating as much as possible on agreed projects.
However, when it was pointed out that different green structures should be allowed to develop with assurances that no national organisation would attempt to revoke the green party status of any other party, delegates from Queensland, Tasmania and Illawarra and Jo Valentine's representative, Annabel Newbury, refused to give any such assurance.
Party 'launched'
Attempts to organise a continuation of the August conference failed; most green parties appear to have evaluated the process negatively. But the supporters of a centralised party in the Illawarra, Queensland and Tasmania, plus a minority in the WA Greens around Vallentine, began to build towards a launch of their version of a national green party.
In Brisbane on November 29, the Queensland Greens were launched with Jo Vallentine as one of the feature speakers. According to the November 30 Courier Mail, this was the launch of the national Greens Party, and Vallentine stated that this party in all states by the next federal election, when all seats would be contested. If this intention were to be carried out, it would clearly involve conflict with local green parties that choose not to be part of this particular national structure.
Further information on the activities of the proponents of a centralised national party comes in an "update" of January 28, titled "Progress Towards the Formation of a National Green Party", written by Steve Brigham. It reports:
"Since the August conference, an interim national working group has been evolving strategies, priorities, a draft charter, and a draft constitution, and discussing these with various groups around the country. The working group consisted of Malcolm Lewis, representing Queensland Greens, Judy Henderson, representing the Tasmanian Green Independents, and myself, representing the Illawarra Greens."
A telephone conference proposed for February 6 was to "organise a steering committee and launch the process of formally establishing a national Green Party", which local organisations and the WA Greens "may be interested in joining". Particular emphasis is placed on trying to involve WA Greens.
The problem here is that, at a number of meetings over the last six months, the WA Greens rank and file have decided not to rush into a hasty decision on a national party but to consider how the process develops over time. Pressure is therefore being brought to bear through legalistic manoeuvres.
'The Greens'
Accompanying Brigham's "update" is a copy of a letter from Brigham to Patti Christiansen of the WA Greens. This mentions that, at some unspecified time since the August conference, Tony Harris appointed Brigham to the registered officer's position. (No notification of this was made to the autonomous green parties which have access to that registration, nor was there any reference to the Applications Committee, the body democratically set up to deal with such issues.)
Brigham then goes on to claim that the WA Greens have no right to decide who will be deputy registered officer in West Australia. Specifically, they can't remove Kim Herbert from the position, as they voted to do at a state conference following the August national meeting. Supposedly, this right belongs to a separate party, "The Greens".
In fact, as Brigham acknowledges in the letter, "The Greens" is a "name only". It was originally used in the registration of the Sydney Greens, and is still registered with the Electoral Commission, but has not been the name of an actual party since the Sydney Greens changed their registration to "Sydney Greens". So "The Greens" are Steve Brigham and anyone he chooses to anoint with the name — presumably supporters of his version of a national party.
The implication is that Brigham and friends don't need to actually establish a party and persuade existing groups to join it: they can simply use Brigham's position as registered officer of "The Greens" le, to nominate "The Greens" candidates against the candidates of Green groups that don't come on board.
It's true that Brigham has said parallel green parties and structures have the right to exist and that no Green party has jurisdiction over another. But, why, then, insist on the legal fiction of a separate party called "The Greens"? This fiction is being taken to the point that Kim Herbert resigned late last year as a full member of the WA Greens and took out associate membership, which applies only to those who are members of other parties. Yet if "The Greens" were a separate party from the start, Herbert should never have been a full member of the WA Greens, let alone holding any position of responsibility.
NSW
The efforts to gain monopoly control over the name Green have been even more blatant in NSW.
The state registration was taken out by the NSW Green Alliance, which is the federally registered party which runs tickets in Senate elections and coordinates activities between affiliated local parties in the state.
A State Registrations Committee was set up by the Green Alliance with a set of rules as to how to administer access to the name for state elections, while the alliance carried out preselection ballots for the state upper house based on its own membership.
Since the August national meeting, disputes have emerged in the State Registrations Committee. Some proponents of a centralised national party and others denied that the Registrations Committee was responsible to the Green Alliance at all, thus questioning the relevance of the original operating rules. It was decided to resolve these questions by calling a NSW Alliance conference for February 1 and holding the next State Registrations Committee meeting on the following day.
Prior to the conference Murray Addison, the state registered officer, tried to negotiate between the differing opinions and developed a set of rules for the Registrations Committee. He proposed that control of the Green name be given to the committee if these rules were adopted by both the Green Alliance conference and the committee the next day.
At the Saturday conference, attended overall by some 30 people (five not eligible to vote because they were not members), the alliance approved the organisational rules without objection. By a vote of 16 to 2, it accepted the transfer to the revamped committee subject to the latter's adoption of the rules. A motion to introduce proscription into these rules had previously been lost 8 to 11, with 1 abstention.
But despite the unanimity and near unanimity on the major questions, the conference was marred by unprecedented threats of physical violence and acts of intimidation, including disgustingly sexist abuse and harassment.
One of the most vociferous advocates of proscription and a national party, Alan Oshlack of the Lismore Greens, threatened legal action because no audited financial statements were circulated, even though a ven and accepted in the same manner as had occurred at previous conferences. In another outburst, Oshlack called a woman present a "dirty Nazi cunt". None of those who shared Oshlack's views on the issues in dispute called him to order.
Attempted putsch
At the State Registrations Committee meeting the next day, it was unanimously decided to eject anyone who indulged in physical or verbal abuse or sexual harassment. But delegates who did not vote the way others wished them to were verbally castigated and constantly pressured when voting was taking place, in some cases by people who were not delegates.
Nothing was resolved. It was moved to declare the committee independent of the Green Alliance. If passed, the motion would have amounted to an illegal putsch: a committee usurping the powers of the larger group that established it. The motion was lost on the 75% rule, 9 in favour and 4 against.
Eight of the nine had been present when the new rules were adopted by consensus the day before; they now objected to 20 out of the 27 clauses. The major question under dispute was the insistence by some that the autonomous local groups/parties and any future groups should be forced to proscribe either totally or in some substantial way. The meeting broke down when facilitator Ian Cohen walked out, followed by those wanting proscription.
After the meeting, further threats were made about what would be done in the future. It was suggested that the next step would be for Brigham, as the federal registered officer, to request the Electoral Commission to investigate how to deregister specific Green parties.
A similar sort of interference in others' electoral rights has already taken place, in the recent Tasmanian elections. Oshlack, calling himself a NSW Greens delegate, lodged a protest with the Tasmanian Electoral Commission (circulated simultaneously to the press) against Ian Jamieson, a community candidate from the West Coast standing as an independent.
Oshlack alleged that Jamieson misled the Electoral Commission and gained access to the media under political advertising regulations as an independent while being a member of the Democratic Socialist Party. Jamieson, well known as a DSP member, ran as a community candidate on a platform of jobs, decent social welfare provisions, defence of the environment and opposition to resource security legislation. The DSP does not have electoral registration in Tasmania, so it was impossible for Jamieson to stand as a DSP candidate.
No-one denies the right of those who want a centralised national party to form one, with as many restrictions on membership as it likes. But it is past time for the proponents of such a party to begin to respect the equal rights of other Greens to organise in the way they choose. It is time for them to understand that attempts to monopolise green politics and to get their way through secret discussions, open or veiled threats, and the abuse of other greens can only undermine the green cause.