We present here brief profiles of six endorsed Green candidates in the NSW election. The other Green candidates were presented in last week's Green Left.
Drummoyne
Standing in Drummoyne is 41-year-old Bruce Threlfo, a prominent member of the Greens in Lowe and a town planner with Leichhardt Municipal Council.
Threlfo says: "Against the major parties, we Greens stand for a comprehensive program for energy conservation, policies to emphasise public and non-polluting transport, more funding for public health services and immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions".
Threlfo opposes the third runway at Sydney airport (which will send extra flights over Drummoyne), demands the removal of hazardous industry from residential areas and advocates a community-based plan of management for the Parramatta River wetlands.
Heffron
South Sydney Greens candidate Mark Berriman is an activist in the animal rights' movement, most recently being involved in the struggle against the annual duck slaughter.
For Berriman one key issue is the overhaul of industrial safety procedures so that explosions like that which destroyed the inner-city Boral plant last year become a thing of the past.
Berriman fears that a second Greiner government would privatise industrial waste disposal and some aspects of pollution control, placing these matters even more out of community control than they are at present.
Other key issues for Berriman are education (which should be more practically based), public transport expansion (the only way to end the reign of the smog-generating motor car) and real community participation in decision-making.
Lismore
Joy Wallis, the Greens candidate in Lismore, is a long-time Kyogle district resident and single mother of five. With a long record in the peace and environment movements, Wallis is stressing social justice issues.
These cover the lack of affordable housing, the need for the expansion of preventive and holistic health care, non-fluoridisation, burgeoning class sizes and the crisis in the local Technical and Further Education system.
Lismore Greens also put forward a community development strategy based on community enterprises and cooperatives as well as a comprehensive program to green the Richmond Valley, based on reforestation. Public transport, especially after Greiner's elimination of rail passenger services, is another vital issue.
With regard to the environment and natural resources, Wallis calls for an immediate ban on aerial spraying and sand mining and the use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, as well as for an inquiry into the function and policing of the Pesticides Act.
Marrickville
The South Sydney Greens candidate for the seat of Marrickville is Bruce Welch. Employed in the printing industry, Welch has been involved in many community issues such as opposition to Sydney's third runway.
Welch says, "The Greens are committed to offer democracy and community involvement as well as control over their elected representatives".
His platform reflects the concerns of this inner-city, industrial electorate, demanding an overhaul of industrial safety procedures and safe methods of disposal of factory waste and opposing the construction of a high-temperature incinerator and the third runway.
"The Greens want adequate and affordable housing for all, including the upgrading of present housing stock and the creation of new and appropriate public housing."
Wollongong
Candidate for the seat of Wollongong is Steve Brigham, a psychologist with the Illawarra Area Health Service and founding member of the Illawarra Greens. Brigham believes the environment, our "life-support system", has to be integrated into every political decision.
In Wollongong a central issue is industrial pollution. Dubbing Greiner's proposed Environmental Protection Authority "a research and advisory body" rather than an agency to enforce standards, Brigham says that, at the very least, any such authority needs to be federal but also that "we have to fight for a new, non-polluting, model of industrial development".
Other issues in Wollongong are coal haulage by road, the burning need for decent public transport, the expansion of the health bureaucracy at the expense of clinical services and the almost total lack of democratic structures for community decision-making, typified by the near-endorsement by Wollongong City Council of the Helensburgh development.
Legislative Council
Dave Nerlich, number two on the Greens' Legislative Council ticket, is a founding member of the NSW Green Alliance. His main activity has been on the urban front, where he has been involved in many local actions expressing community concern at the threat to the environment.
Nerlich stresses that such protests are necessary to raise consciousness that only fundamental structural change to our economy and society can save the planet.