Greens under pressure to sell their souls to the 1%

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne and the party's MPs and Senators stood up to immense pressure from the big parties and the mainstream media to support some form of “offshore processing” of refugees (either in Malaysia, as the Gillard Labor government wants, or Nauru, as the Abbott Coalition opposition demands). The Greens stood firm against offshore processing and mandatory detention of refugees.

This attack over refugees was followed by a string of ALP leaders declaring that they would freeze out the Greens in future preference deals. The likes of Paul Howes and Michael Danby want to direct ALP preferences to the Coalition or to reactionary religious parties like Family First over the “extremist” Greens.

The long-view purpose is to ratchet up huge pressure on the Greens to join the Lib-Lab pro-corporate bipartisanship, a pressure that may already be having an effect on Greens policy, according to NSW Greens member and writer Hall Greenland.

“There can be no doubting the moral and political courage of the federal Greens MPs after their magnificant stand on refugees two weeks ago and their resistance to unrelenting mass-media hysteria ever since,” he wrote on July 12. “So it appears to be a surprise that these same MPs led such a determined charge to drop the inheritance tax from the party platform at the Greens’ National Policy Conference in Adelaide last weekend.

“The 'party room' (as the federal MPs are called) moved for the deletion of the plank in an abbreviated debate – about ten minutes – in which Bob Brown seized the mike to spell out the reason for the elimination: it was electoral poison and costing us one or two percent of the vote. That was it. Truly. (Incidentally, the policy in question was a commitment to an inheritance tax on estates above $5 million, with family home, family farm, small business and bequests to spouses excluded.)

“The only votes cast against the dropping of the tax came from the entire NSW delgation. The move was carried 65-12.”

Greenland added that this move fitted in a strategy of courting “Green businesses”.

“The thinking is that there are firms out there with a real interest in an ecologically sustainable economy and that they can be split away from the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group to form a capitalist base for the Greens. As one of the leaders said – I think it was Bob Brown – this new alliance will also 'afford us new funding opportunities'.”

Another major disappointment of the policy conference, Greenland wrote, was “the initiative to drop from the platform any reference to particular countries (like Tibet, Palestine, East Timor and West Papua) and instead develop specific off-platform resolutions on these matters. This issue will be further thrashed out at the November policy conference but it is likely that NSW will be the one dissenting state.”

The two big parties and mainstream media have attacked the left of the NSW Greens before. An assault of their support for a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid led to the NSW Greens watering down its policy on Palestine.

However, the Greens policy remains clearly to the left of the ALP, by Greenland's account.

“The industrial relations policy adopted at the conference – based on informal reports - upholds the right to strike and pattern bargaining, supports the lifting of restrictions on solidarity industrial action, calls for portable long-service leave and a shorter working week, a better deal for apprentices and insists on the right of workers to have a voice in setting their own hours and work arrangements in order to get a better life-work balance.

“The economics policy also calls for – thanks to the NSW delegation’s advocacy - democratic control of the economy and public ownership of natural monopolies and essential public services. How much of this has been diluted and contradicted by illusions about markets, corporations and tax reforms, that have also been added, is the subject for another analysis.”

It is clear that there is great pressure on the Greens to sell its soul to the rich and powerful 1% that rule society. All of us who are committed to the real change that is needed to build an ecologically sustainable and socially just future have a real stake in this struggle in the Greens.

Green Left Weekly needs your support to campaign against this insidious intervention by the 1% and their agents, but also tell the truth about how the Greens politicians are standing up to this pressure.

Please donate to the GLW fighting fund at greenleft.org.au. Direct deposits can also be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).