By Frank Noakes
PERTH — Raised in the small rural town of Beverley, 100 kilometres north-east of here, Australia's first elected "peace politician" came from anything but a radical background.
In fact, for Jo Vallentine, Brides of Christ cut pretty close to the bone. "It was like my growing up years, having lived at a Catholic boarding school, attending mass daily for six years." Like many others of her generation, the young Jo Vallentine would grow to reject the hypocrisy of the rigid Catholic Church hierarchy, but carry with her a concern for social justice.
In 1963-64, Vallentine spent a year in Illinois on an American Field Service scholarship. It was a period of great change in the US, and played an important role in her politicisation.
Vallentine's next major political experience came after completing a course at Graylands Teachers' College and spending two years as a chalkie. In 1969 she went travelling and for the first time confronted face to face mass poverty and pollution in the developing countries. "It was here that I came up against the whole thing of the Catholic Church. So I walked away from the church and began questioning the whole establishment system I'd grown up with."
Vallentine went on to complete her BA and Diploma of Education, marry Peter Fry in 1972 and fit in a second period of world travel. At UWA, she studied Aboriginal issues and discovered that " the Third World isn't just out there — it's here too."
Future generations
The decision to have children motivated her to become involved in community politics. The fourth of five daughters herself, Vallentine was concerned about bringing children into "an already overcrowded world" and decided that at the same time she must be politically active. She insists that being a good mother and a political activist are complementary: "I'm doing what I'm doing for my children and other generations".
In 1978, at the time of the birth of the first of her two daughters, Vallentine got involved with Campaign Against Nuclear Energy and Campaign to Save Native Forests. Later her lounge room was to become a regular meeting place, with the Aboriginal Treaty Support Group being formed there.
Commenting on influences on her life, Vallentine raised one figure which people east of the rabbit-proof fence might find incongruous — "Charlie Court". Liberal premier during the '70s, Sir Charles Court was every bit as reactionary as Bjelke-Petersen, but with less empty space between the ears. Court wanted Western Australia to have the first nuclear power station in Australia. Vallentine was action, "So Charlie Court did the trick for me".
Other major political influences on her life have been Gandhi and Martin Luther King, with their dedication to non-violence and persistence in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
While being a proponent of non-violence, Vallentine doesn't preach to people struggling for social change in the Third World. "I would never criticise people in El Salvador or in South Africa or in the Philippines for doing what they think they've got to do to get the basic democratic rights that we take for granted. Far be it from me to criticise people who are confronted by something much more difficult than I've ever been confronted with. So I wouldn't be critical, but then I wouldn't actually join in."
Parliament
Elected in 1984 as senator for the newly formed Nuclear Disarmament Party, Vallentine was a lone voice in parliament, the Democrats in those days being less progressive than today.
But from meditating on the parliamentary lawn, being ejected from the Senate chamber, to being arrested yet again and jailed at Pine Gap, she has remained an activist. She resisted the pressures to conform, withstanding the relative isolation in parliament and the lampooning from the big business media. That's a lesson for those who will follow in her footsteps.
Although the Antarctic Treaty "is not signed, sealed and delivered for all time", it is a victory that Vallentine points to in a parliamentary innings that she readily admits has not seen many runs on the board in terms of government policy.
"I enjoyed some of the debates in parliament with people like Kim Beazley and quite enjoyed getting up the nostrils of people like that. Being a bit of a thorn in the side of the Labor Party also gave some satisfaction."
Vallentine's advice to future Green politicians is always to keep the issues in mind. It is fine to try to use the system, and the tag "Senator" opens up opportunities and platforms, but "You can easily get in there and get so involved as to be diverted from community activity".
Vallentine had to work hard to get on the high-powered Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence Committee. On the committee of 30, she was the only woman, which she says was a challenge in itself. She was able to raise questions like the environment, social justice and human rights on a committee that traditionally has seen trade as its overriding concern.
On the problematic question of the role of parliament in green politics, Vallentine pointed to the West German situation, where there were and are major divisions on whether to go into alliances and take r remain independent. "Such an issue can cause tremendous tension in the party, which on the one hand can be creative but on the other can be undermining, disempowering and devouring", Vallentine says. Feeling that it is a very difficult question to solve in the abstract, she stressed that it is very important to get people into local, state and federal government.
What of the West German Green notion of parliamentarians serving only two years before rotating the position? Vallentine believes the principle of rotation is sound, but that two years is too short, stating that it takes one year to learn the ropes. Her seven years were too long, but she wanted to win the seat for the fledgling Greens WA and hand it over, which she has now done.
Vallentine plans to help the new senator for a while and then make a clean break and renew her energies.
National party
On a possible merger between the greens and the Australian Democrats, she says, " I don't think so in the short term. The greens have got to get their act together first, and that's so far away. How can the Democrats merge with something that actually doesn't exist? It's got a be an entity in itself."
What of the possibility of a national green party? "I've really been wanting the greens to get together nationally, but I don't know now, having seen some of the old arguments surface again. I just don't know whether it's better for groups to keep doing their own thing and keeping up their own strengths, rather than trying to get everyone together.
"If, for example, you looked at a Democrat-green merger, you're going to have Democrats saying 'Those greens are too radical, I'm not going to have anything to do with them', and you're going to get some greens saying 'No, the Democrats are too conservative and we don't want anything to do with them' — you're going to lose a lot of people at both ends. Sure, you might have a strong amalgam in the middle.
"I don't really know if that's better than the Democrats still being there, doing their thing, and the greens and others doing their thing distinctly, but cooperating at election time. If we could do that, I think that might be better, because it would mean less internal wrangles. The internal wrangles over who can be part of this and whether everyone has been part of the decision making process or not, just stops people being effective, and it's a recipe for nothing happening.
"So I just don't see a national greens coming together right away. I wish it would, but wishing is not enough ... if people really aren't prepared to make the compromises, then I think we keep working in our own groups, and if we really could cooperate at election time and not run candidates against each other and really work together, maybe that's the best we can hope for."
Eastern Europe
On the international scene, Vallentine says "It saddens me that people in the eastern Europe and the Soviet Union want to emulate us. But some of the women know that's not the way to go — that market economy means unemployment.
She believes our responsibility is to show people there that all is not well in the West.
"Even if they could emulate the US economy, they've got to know that there is great poverty in that country; they've got to be made aware of that."
Vallentine believes that everything is political. For relaxation, she enjoys the theatre, but admits to going to plays with a political dimension. Her children are her "non-political" pursuit, but then her political activity is for them too.
Jo Vallentine will always remain an activist; her ambition is still to be active as a "little old lady". We are sure to hear much more from this outspoken campaigner.