By Frank Noakes
The immediate sense one gets upon entering the office of new Greens (WA) Senator Christabel Chamarette is one of ease. There's a comfortable atmosphere that comes from people working well and confidently together.
Christabel Chamarette is characterised by her ability to weld together a harmonious team. She is quite unlike most politicians, even Green ones. Unassuming and willing to say "I don't know", she readily admits that she draws upon and encourages the contributions of others.
Christabel was born in India, of British and French ancestry. Her family moved to Australia after India's partition in 1948.
Schooled at Perth College, Christabel went on to study psychology at the University of Western Australia.
Experiences directly related to her studies began to make Christabel politically aware. In those days when doing a masters in clinical psychology, you were bonded to an arm of community service. For Christabel this was Fremantle Prison.
"That's actually what radicalised me, that experience, because my thinking was fairly conservative ... I had never met an Aboriginal person until I went to work in the prison and juvenile detention centres. It just exposed me to the inequities of the social system in such a way that I couldn't ignore it any more."
Christabel describes that penal system as evil. "Law doesn't ever deliver justice, all the law ever does is serve the society. And if the society is a society that values justice and fairness, then the laws can be fair and just; but if it's an oppressive society, then the laws are oppressive."
This experience had implications for Christabel's religious activity too. Recently, in the middle of an intense media campaign for more repressive legislation against juvenile offenders, Christabel, on behalf of the Anglican Church's social justice department, announced what became known as a "dob in a cop" phone-in. Perhaps one had to be living in Perth at the time to appreciate the courage involved in such an action.
Some people believe that mixing church and politics is wrong. But social concern and action are what the Christian message is really about, she believes.
A supporter of the ordination of women, and celebrating the recent victory in WA, she believes that ultimately the distinction between ordained and lay members has to be removed.
A year working in Bangladesh with a Christian group on community development projects, plus time working in mental hospitals and with handicapped children, have all helped shape Christabel's strong commitment to social justice.
In her first speech to parliament, Christabel quoted Ian Lowe, in
his Boyer lecture "Who's Paying the Driver?": "Economists tend to believe in markets because they think they are the most efficient means of allocating resources between competing interests. Whether this is true or not, even the most besotted admirer of markets would probably not claim that they contain any feature or mechanism which could promote equity, even in principle. Indeed there is a fundamental sense in which markets will always promote inequity ... allocation through a market means those who are rich will get what they want and those who are poor will miss out."
What are the main issues that Senator Chamarette will concentrate on?
"I am deeply committed to more grassroots representation and participation of communities in decision making. I think, of the four pillars [of Green philosophy] that's the one that's most important now because politics seems to have been swallowed up into this political machinery." Issues are raised not because of their true importance but because of their ability to help parties get elected.
In Green politics, she wants to see "the interrelationship between environmental issues and social equity stressed. Green politics is inextricably linked with justice in the whole world. We've got to talk about redistribution of wealth and resources in such a way that nobody suffers. And then, we can talk about caring for our environment in a responsible way. I don't put trees before people."
Christabel says that "The common thread that unites all those who come into the political arena as Greens, and which sets us apart from other political parties, is a profound conviction that the structures and old ways of addressing the problems will not be effective."
Green politics has hit a parliamentary impasse at the moment due in part to the recession, with jobs being counterposed to the environment. People know the issues are important, and that represents a big swing in consciousness, but in this period they are not yet convinced that the people talking about the issues can deliver. Some may see it as a luxury to vote Green.
Christabel says that Greens have to explain more clearly what they stand for, and can't afford to be seen as concerned only with environmental issues. She sees her election by the Greens (WA), given her background in the social justice field, as a recognition of this within the party. Diversity will be important if the Greens are to stay relevant.
On one plane, this period is one of consolidation. "At another level, the existing political parties are disintegrating and opportunities are opening up ... There are opportunities and we have to take them, or we'll lose valuable time.
"I actually get a little concerned that this process is going too fast, that the other political parties are disintegrating so quickly before the Greens are really ready to step in. But if we step in too quickly, we run the risk of getting coopted and becoming part of the same system. I really think we have to be a part of creating something new."
She describes the national Green process as "a bit like the mutton bird, struggling to take off. My conviction is that if the national Green movement is to have the strength that it needs to fill the job, then there has to be a process of democratic decisions right through each of the states in their own way, working out how to be Green, and then of uniting that.
"That can't happen easily; if it did it would be completely sus. We won't suddenly have a national Greens overnight, without the painful dialogue and arguments and debates and processes from state to state. I see that as being essential. We shouldn't try to impose a uniform solution on everybody."
Christabel favours "the model of a combined movement and political arm; that's what I see the Greens as having to offer the new political agenda. Without the movement there is a grave danger of cooption into the whole parliamentary process, and if a movement doesn't have a political arm that truly reflects it, then it will be impotent. So they complement each other."
What sort of change will the Greens bring about?
"I was going to say revolutionary change, but I prefer the term 'transformation', because transformation implies using what we've got in a radically new way ... turning the political arena upside down, so what ordinary people are saying has more value than what parliamentarians are saying.
"I don't go for the revisionist approach or trying to reform parliament from within. I believe that somehow what I have to do is be the subversive in the sense of bringing people back to a different agenda that's got its roots in the community rather than in the parliamentary system."