By Lisa Macdonald
Supporters of the big business parties may grumble about the undermining of democracy and "majority rule" through the election of several small parties to the NSW Legislative Council. But the approximately 130,000 people who voted for the Greens in the upper house are looking forward to the prospect of delivering even more blows to "politics as usual" in NSW.
The election, for the first time, of a Green party candidate to the NSW parliament is an important victory for all those seeking to create a political alternative to the Labor-Liberal, one party with two factions set-up, in Australian politics.
Armed with radical policies and a support base which includes activists with considerable campaigning experience, the Greens NSW have the potential to make some waves in state politics over the next few years.
Inspired by the rapid growth of the German Greens and the successful environmental struggles in Tasmania, the Greens formed as a political party in NSW in 1984. The party which contested the last state election was formally registered with the Electoral Commission in 1990 as part of a process which established more than a dozen regionally defined Green parties in all states and the ACT. Since then the Greens NSW have had a chequered history of growth and activity.
Like all Green parties in this country, the Greens NSW were founded on the basis of the four green principles originally formulated by the German Greens. These are ecological sustainability, social equality and economic justice, grassroots democracy, and peace and non-violence. Over the past few years, the party has added the general aims of meaningful work for all, respect for ethnic, religious and racial diversity, and Aboriginal land rights.
The constitution of the NSW party attempts to codify the principle of grassroots democracy with clauses which require the party to use a consensus method of decision-making and to respect the autonomy of local member groups to decide their own priorities, campaigns, lower house candidates and local policies. (There are currently 10 affiliated local groups across the state.) The constitution also requires that elected representatives donate a percentage of their parliamentary salary to the party.
In terms of adopted policy, the Greens NSW are the most radical of the Green parties in Australia. Their policies reflect a breadth of activist input to their platform, in particular during the early stages of the party's formation: it emerged from the Green Alliance, which initially contained activists from many political groups, campaigns and parties (including the Nuclear Disarmament Party, the Democratic Socialist Party and the Australian Democrats).
The NSW Greens' decision in 1992, following almost two years of debate, to exclude activists who were members of other political parties, marked a narrowing and weakening of the new party. Nevertheless, the legacy of the rich process of discussion, policy development, alliance building and debate out of which the Greens NSW were born is still evident in their willingness to take principled positions on contentious policy issues.
Unlike the Australian Democrats and Bob Brown's Australian Greens, for example, the Greens NSW have clear policies in favour of women's right to choose abortion (there is no conscience vote in the NSW Greens), trade union rights and land rights. Their pro-women's liberation "men's policy" is the first of its kind in an Australian political party.
In practice, the Greens NSW still have a big task ahead of them to live up to their positions on paper. While some members of the party are very active in local campaigns for social justice and environmental sustainability (their newly elected MLC, Ian Cohen, being a case in point), the Greens collectively have not played much of a role in left or environmental campaigns between elections over the past few years. In ongoing public campaigns such as those for free education or for a free East Timor the Greens NSW have, on the whole, been noticeably absent.
Concerned as they are about the importance of participatory democracy, movement autonomy and leadership accountability, the Greens could play a vital role in campaigns which are currently held hostage by bureaucratic peak bodies such as the ACF, and some trade union leaderships.
With a position in state parliament they could also play an important role as a high profile voice and a source of much needed resources for progressive movements.
Ian Cohen's position in the upper house could represent an important step towards building a political alternative to the major parties and their profits before people agendas.
This would be possible to the extent that the party pursues a very different approach in parliament from that of the Australian Democrats. Their "keep the bastards honest" perspective serves as a political safety valve for the ALP rather than as a contribution to strengthening progressive politics. It would also have to differ from the approach of the Tasmanian Green Independents, whose accord with the state ALP in government in 1989 did worse than nothing to lessen that government's attacks on the environment and social justice.
Using the money, staff, facilities and mainstream media coverage that accompany parliamentary positions, the Greens NSW have the chance to make a unique contribution to rebuilding large, active, independent extra-parliamentary movements and campaigns.
With such a perspective of building mass movements, incorporating the lessons from past mistakes and looking beyond parliamentary legislation, seats in government, factional number crunching and accord-type deals, the Greens NSW could really make a difference.