Australian Greens
Encyclopedia
The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, is an Australian green
political party.
The party was formed in 1992; however, its origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia
and the formation of the United Tasmania Group
(UTG), the first Green party in the world, which first ran candidates in the 1972 Tasmanian state election
. Co-ordination between green groups peaked in the 1980s with various environmental protests including one of the most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history against the proposed damming of the Franklin River
and the subsequent flooding of Lake Pedder. Key people involved in these campaigns included current leader Bob Brown
and Christine Milne
who went on to contest and win seats in the Tasmanian Parliament and eventually form the Tasmanian Greens
.
Through national organisation and affiliations the Greens have grown rapidly in power and scope. The party's policies have broadened from environmentalism
to include policies aligned with the philosophies of grassroots democracy
, social justice
, conservation, and the peace movement
.
Today the Australian Greens have nine Senators
and one member in the lower house of the Parliament of Australia
, 24 elected representatives in State and Territory Parliaments, more than 100 local councillors and close to 10,000 party members.
At the 2010 federal election the Greens received a four percent swing to finish with 13 percent of the vote (more than 1.6 million votes) in the Senate, a first for any Australian minor party. The Senate vote throughout the states was between 10 to 20 percent. The Greens won a seat in each of the six states at the election, again a first for any Australian minor party, which brought the party to a total of nine Senators from July 2011 and gave the Greens the sole balance of power
in the Senate. The Greens also won their first House of Representatives
seat at a general election, the seat of Melbourne
with candidate Adam Bandt
. A crossbencher in the first hung parliament
since the 1940 federal election
, he is one of four crossbenchers providing confidence and supply
to the Gillard
Labor
minority government
.
The Australian Greens are part of the global "Green politics
" movement. The Charter of the Australian Greens identifies the following as being the four key pillars underlining the party's policy: "social justice
", "sustainability
", "grassroots democracy
" and "peace and non-violence". Major policy initiatives of recent years have also included taxation reform, review of the American alliance
, and a relaxation of drug laws and implementation of harm minimisation in relation to drug use.
Infrastructure:
Foreign Policy:
Bioethics and Family Policy:
Taxation:
Immigration:
Law reform:
Indigenous Affairs:
, was founded in 1972 to oppose the construction of new dams to flood Lake Pedder
. The campaign failed to prevent the flooding of Lake Pedder and the party failed to gain political representation. One of the party’s candidates was Bob Brown
, then a doctor in Launceston
.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, a public campaign to prevent the construction of the Franklin Dam
in Tasmania saw environmentalist and activist Norm Sanders
elected to the Tasmanian Parliament
as an Australian Democrat
. Brown, then director of the Wilderness Society, contested the election as an independent, but failed to win a seat.
In 1982 Norm Sanders resigned from Parliament, and Brown was elected to replace him on a countback
During her 1984 visit to Australia, West German Greens parliamentarian Petra Kelly
urged that the various Greens groups in Australia develop a national identity. Partly as a result of this, 50 Greens activists gathered in Tasmania in December to organise a national conference.
The Green movement gained their first federal parliamentary representative when Senator Josephine Vallentine of Western Australia, who had been elected in 1984 for the Nuclear Disarmament Party
and later sat as an independent, was part of the formation of and joined Greens (WA), a party formed within the state boundaries of Western Australia, and not affiliated to the Australian Greens at that time.
In 1992, representatives from around the nation gathered in North Sydney and agreed to form the Australian Greens, although the state Greens parties, particularly in Western Australia, retained their separate identities for a period. Brown resigned from the Tasmanian Parliament in 1993, and in 1996 he was elected as a Senator for Tasmania, the first elected as an Australian Greens candidate.
Initially the most successful Greens group during this period was Greens (WA), at that time still a separate organisation from the Australian Greens. Vallentine was succeeded by Christabel Chamarette
in 1992, and she was joined by Dee Margetts
in 1993. But Chamarette was defeated in 1996. Margetts opposed the industrial relations reform agenda of the Howard Government
. Following the 'Cavalcade to Canberra' protest of 19 August 1996, in which 2000 breakaway civilians rioted in and around Parliament House
, Margetts told the Senate that "the Greens WA do not associate ourselves with the violent action" and that while "there are obviously some in the Greens movement who have differing opinions about that" she personally did not think there was "any justification for the use of violence to the extent that we saw". Margetts lost her seat in the 1998 federal election, leaving Brown as the sole Australian Greens Senator.
election"), Brown was re-elected as a Senator for Tasmania, and a second Greens Senator, Kerry Nettle
, was elected in New South Wales. The Greens opposed the government's policy on asylum seekers, and opposed the bipartisan offers of support to the US alliance
and Afghanistan War
by the Howard Government
and Beazley Opposition
in the aftermath of the 11 September Terrorist Attacks, describing the Afghanistan commitment as "war mongering". This contributed to a rise in support for the Greens from disaffected Labor voters. This played an important role in defining the Greens as more than just a single-issue environmental party. In 2002 the Greens won a House of Representatives
seat for the first time when Michael Organ
won the Cunningham
by-election
.
In the lead up to the Iraq War, in September 2002, Bob Brown said that the Greens would oppose military action in Iraq regardless of the position of the United Nations Security Council
and said that any conflict would be "a vengeance for the S11 attack that's involved here as well as the American corporations wanting to get their hands on the Iraqi oil" and that if Saddam Hussein "does have weapons of mass destruction, the attack might be the thing that gets him to use them", so it would be better to "resolv[e] the Palestinian crisis, which could lead—open up a real avenue to peace in the Middle East, and neutralise Saddam Hussein by doing it".
in Tasmania and Rachel Siewert
in Western Australia, taking the total to four. However, the success of the Howard Government in winning a majority in the Senate meant that the Greens' influence on legislation decreased. Michael Organ
was defeated by Labor in Cunningham.
Additionally, in the 2004 election there was an intense media campaign from the socially conservative Family First Party
, including a television advertisement labelling the Greens the "Extreme Greens". Competitive preferencing strategies prompted by the nature of Senate balloting (see Australian electoral system
) saw the Australian Labor Party and the Democrats rank Family First higher than the Greens on their Senate tickets, resulting in the Greens losing preferences they would normally have received from the two parties. Consequently, although outpolling Family First by a ratio of more than four to one first-preference votes, Victorian Family First candidate Steve Fielding
was elected on preferences over the Australian Greens' David Risstrom
, an unintended consequence of these strategies. In Tasmania, Christine Milne only narrowly gained her Senate seat before a Family First candidate, despite nearly obtaining the full required quota of primary votes. It was only the high incidence of "below the line" voting in Tasmania that negated the effect of the preference swap deal between Labor and Family First.
The Australian Greens fielded candidates in every House of Representatives seat in Australia, and for all state and territory Senate positions.
Many lower income safe Labor seats in deprived areas usually poll very small primary votes for the Greens. From 1997–2003 in Western Australia, the majority of Greens WA seats were held in rural and remote seats (Mining, Pastoral, South-West).
In 2005, the Greens' Lee Rhiannon
lobbied the Vatican
to reject Australian Cardinal George Pell
as a candidate for the Papacy on the basis of his support for conservative Catholic moral doctrine. In 2007, Rhiannon referred remarks made by Pell opposing embryonic stem cell
research to the New South Wales parliamentary privileges committee for allegedly being in "contempt of parliament". Pell was cleared of the charge and described the move as a "clumsy attempt to curb religious freedom and freedom of speech".
The Australian Greens primary vote has generally continued to grow with their primary vote increasing by 4.1 percentage points in the 2006 election in South Australia, 1.2 points in the 2006 election in Queensland, and 0.7 points in the 2007 election in New South Wales.
The results for the 2006 election in Victoria, were mixed, with an improved vote for the Greens in the lower house, but a fall in their upper house vote.
Against this upward trend was a swing of 1.5 points away from the Greens in the 2006 election in Tasmania.
On 31 August 2004, the Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun
published a page three story by journalist Gerard McManus entitled "Greens back illegal drugs" in the lead up to the 2004 Australian election. In response to the article Brown lodged a complaint with the Australian Press Council
. After the election, the Press Council upheld Brown's complaint. An appeal by the Herald Sun was dismissed and it was ordered to publish the Press Council’s adjudication.
(22.7% of primary votes), Sydney
(20.7%), Grayndler
(18.7%), Denison
(18.6%) and Batman
(17.2%). Strong votes were also recorded in Liberal
-held city based seats such as Higgins
(10.8%), Kooyong
(11.8%) Curtin
(13.4%) and Wentworth
(15.0%). The primary vote for the Greens in suburban and regional areas was generally smaller.
The Greens increased their national vote by 1.38 points to 9.04 percent at the 2007 federal election, with a net increase of one Senator to a total of five. Senators Bob Brown
(Tas) and Kerry Nettle
(NSW) were up for re-election, Brown was re-elected, but Nettle was unsuccessful, becoming the first and only Australian Greens Senator to lose their seat. Elected at the 2001 federal election on a primary vote of 4.36 percent in New South Wales with One Nation and micro-party preference flows, she failed to gain re-election in 2007 due to preferences, despite an increase in the New South Wales Green primary vote to 8.43 percent.
Other Greens Senate candidates were Larissa Waters
(Qld), Richard Di Natale
(Vic), Scott Ludlam
(WA), Sarah Hanson-Young
(SA) and Kerrie Tucker
(ACT). Ludlam and Hanson-Young were elected and took up office on 26 August 2008 when all senators elected on 24 November 2007 were sworn in.
This was also the first general election for the Greens in which a lower house seat went "maverick". In the Division of Melbourne
, the Greens polled 22.80 percent of the primary vote, overtaking the Liberals on preferences, finishing on a two-party-preferred
figure of 45.29 percent against Labor.
An extensive campaign was undertaken in the ACT, in an attempt to end coalition control of the Senate immediately after the election, as territory Senators take their place at this time as opposed to their state counterparts on the next 1 July. The ACT elects two seats with terms (in parallel with those of the House of Representatives), so a larger quota than normal is required for election. Despite a swing of 5.1 points to the Greens, on 21.5 percent, their best result in any state or territory, the party fell significantly short of the required quota.
At the 2008 Northern Territory election
, the Greens ran in six of the 25 seats in the unicameral parliament, averaging 16 percent of the vote but won no seats. At the 2008 Western Australian election
, the Greens won 11–12 percent of the statewide vote in both the lower and upper houses, with four of 36 seats in the latter, an increase of two.
In the 2008 Australian Capital Territory election
, conducted under the Hare-Clark system of proportional representation
, the Greens doubled their vote to around 15 percent, going from one to four seats in the 17-member unicameral parliament, giving them the balance of power
. After almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to allow Labor to form a minority government
. The Greens hold the post of Speaker in the ACT Legislative Assembly, the first for a Green party in Australia.
In November 2008, Senator Christine Milne
was elected Deputy Leader. The ballot was also contested by Senator Rachel Siewert
.
In May 2009, the Greens won their second ever single-member electorate, with Adele Carles
winning the Fremantle by-election
for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
. The seat had been held by the Labor Party since 1924. It is the first time the Greens have outpolled the Labor Party on the primary vote in any Labor-held seat.
In December 2009, the Greens received over 30 percent of the primary vote in the federal Higgins by-election
in Victoria, in the absence of a Labor candidate. It is the highest primary vote recorded by the Greens in a Liberal-held lower house seat.
In the lead up to the 2010 Australian federal election, the Australian Christian Lobby
and Catholic Archbishop of Sydney criticised Greens policies as "anti-Christian". In an 8 August opinion article for Sydney's Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Cardinal Archbishop George Pell
wrote that the Greens were hostile to the family, opposed to religious schools, had pressured against Catholic management of Calvary Hospital in Canberra and said the party contained Stalinists and a wing who were "watermelons" -"green on the outside, red on the inside" whose policies were "impractical and expensive, which will not help the poor". In response to the article, Senator Bob Brown said Pell was "bearing false witness" and that the Greens were in fact "much closer to mainstream Christian thinking than Cardinal Pell". Jesuit human rights lawyer Fr. Frank Brennan responded in an essay by saying that that while some Greens might be anti-Christian, others like Lin Hatfield Dodds
"have given distinguished public service in their churches for decades." On some policy issues, wrote Brennan, "the Greens have a more Christian message than the major parties", while on issues such as abortion, stem cell research, same sex marriage and funding for church schools, the Party would never be able to "carry the day given that policy changes in these areas will occur only if they are supported by a majority from both major political parties".
, the Greens won 21.6 percent of the primary vote amongst the five multi-member electorates, resulting in the Greens winning five of twenty-five seats in the lower house
and holding the balance of power. With Labor and the Liberals winning ten seats each, the Greens backed a Labor minority government. Tasmanian Greens Leader Nick McKim was appointed to the new Labor-Green cabinet, making him the first Green Minister in Australia.
At the August 2010 federal election the Greens received a four percent swing to finish with 13 percent of the vote (more than 1.6 million votes) in the Senate, a first for any Australian minor party. The Senate vote throughout the states was between 10 to 20 percent. The Greens won a seat in each of the six states at the election, again a first for any Australian minor party, bringing the party to a total of nine Senators from July 2011, and will hold the sole balance of power
in the Senate. Senators elected in 2010 (with new Senators taking their place from July 2011) are Lee Rhiannon
in New South Wales, Richard Di Natale
in Victoria, Larissa Waters
in Queensland, Rachel Siewert
in Western Australia, Penny Wright
in South Australia and Christine Milne
in Tasmania. Incumbents Scott Ludlum in Western Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young
in South Australia and Bob Brown
in Tasmania were not due for re-election. The Greens also won their first House of Representatives
seat at a general election, the seat of Melbourne
with candidate Adam Bandt
, who is a crossbencher in the first hung parliament
since the 1940 federal election
. Almost two weeks after the election, Bandt and the Greens agreed to support a Gillard
Labor
minority government
on confidence and supply
votes. Labor was returned to government with the additional support of three independent crossbenchers.
The Election resulted in a hung parliament
. Six crossbench MPs
held the balance of power
. The Greens signed a formal agreement with the Australian Labor Party
involving consultation in relation to policy and support in the House of representatives in relation to confidence and supply
and three of the independents declared their support for Labor on confidence and supply, allowing Gillard and Labor to remain in power with a 76-74 minority government.
In the 2010 Victorian State Election
, the Liberal party preferenced the ALP ahead of the Greens. The Greens primary vote increased slightly overall from 10.04% 10.6% of the overall vote, but the party did not win any lower house seats. Federal Greens leader Bob Brown
said of the result that it was positive but that: "The Liberals' preferencing to Labor means that instead of there being three Greens in the new parliament there won't be".
In February 2010, the Greens endorsed the controversial decision of the Gillard Labor Government
to reverse its 2010 Election promise not to introduce a carbon tax
as a means of addressing Australia's contribution to carbon emissions. On 24 February 2010, in a joint press conference of the "Climate Change Committee" - comprising the government, Greens and two independent MPs - Prime Minister Gillard announced a plan to legislate for the introduction of a fixed price to be imposed on "carbon pollution" from 1 July 2012 The carbon tax would be placed for three to five years before a full emissions trading scheme is implemented, under a blueprint agreed by a multi-party parliamentary committee. Key issues remained to be negotiated between the Government and the cross-benches, including compensation arrangements for households and businesses, the carbon price level, the emissions reduction target and whether or not to include fuel in the tax. Committee member and Greens deputy leader Christine Milne
said that this was happening because:
The Greens supported the United States led military intervention in Libya
. Deputy Leader Milne
said the Greens believed "in peace and non-violence" but supported this armed intervention.
The Greens NSW State Conference prior to the 2011 NSW State Election
adopted of a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
campaign against Israel
. In support of the statement, Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon said it was "motivated by the universal principles of freedom, justice and equal rights". Following the election, Bob Brown said that he had conveyed his disapproval of this policy emphasis to Rhiannon.
Amidst ongoing debate over taxation, industry policy and climate change, Leader Bob Brown began to refer to sections within the Australian media expressing criticism of Greens policies or candidates as the "hate media", singling out the Murdoch Press
in particular.
Outlining his industry and climate policies on ABC's 7:30 Program in May 2011, Bob Brown voiced support for a reduction in subsidies to fossil fuel industries, the implementation of a price on carbon; a higher level of profit tax on the mining industry and a phasing out of Australia's coal export industry, saying: "The world is going to do that because it is causing massive economic damage down the line through the impact of climate change."
In 2011, The Greens called for the permanent closure of Australia's live export meat industry, following revelations of mistreatment of Australian cattle in some Indonesian abbatoirs.
organised with separately registered state parties signing up to a national constitution, yet retaining considerable policy-making and organisational autonomy from the centre. The national decision-making body of the Australian Greens is the National Council, consisting of delegates from each member body (a state or territory Greens party). The National Council arrives at decisions by consensus. There is no formal executive of the national party. However, there is an Australian Greens Coordinating Group (AGCG) composed of national office bearers including the National Convenor, Secretary, Treasurer, and delegates from each State and Territory. There is also a Public Officer, a Party Agent and a Registered Officer.
A variety of working groups have been established by the National Council, which are directly accessible to all Greens members. Working groups perform an advisory function by developing policy, reviewing or developing the party structure, or by performing other tasks assigned by the National Council.
All policies originating from this structure are subject to ratification by the members of the Australian Greens.
On Saturday 12 November 2005 at the national conference in Hobart
the Australian Greens abandoned their long-standing tradition of having no official leader and approved a process whereby a parliamentary leader could be elected by the Greens Parliamentary Party Room. On Monday 28 November 2005, Bob Brown – who had long been regarded as de facto leader by many inside the party, and most people outside the party – was elected unopposed as the Parliamentary Party Leader.
In 2008, Christine Milne was elected by the Australian Greens Party Room as Deputy Parliamentary Party Leader.
, The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace
, all of whom claim to be non-partisan. However, it is common for the media to report the activities of such groups and those of The Greens under the general category of "greens". During elections, there is sometimes competition between The Greens and one or more of these groups negotiating "greens preferences" with other parties. The Greens preference negotiation objectives are to attempt to get Greens Senators elected, and to get policy outcomes on issues like Tasmanian forests, though these objectives may be to a greater or lesser extent in conflict and the Greens more often direct preferences to Labor than the Liberals, but it is claimed that this did not affect federal election outcomes in 2001 and 2004.
in the Tasmanian Parliament and have signed a formal agreement with the minority Gillard Labor Government
in the Federal Australian Parliament. Generally the Greens preference Labor ahead of the Coalition at elections.
Many Labor supporters and trade unionists see the Greens' policies as destructive of employment in industries like mining and forestry. The forestry industry has been a particular target of environmental campaigns and the Forestry Division of the CFMEU have actively campaigned against the Greens. Left-wing trade unionists and some members of Labor's Left faction sympathise with the Greens' social policies and often identify more readily with the Greens than with the Labor Right
. Some unionists, such as NTEU
and AMWU members have run for State or Federal parliament for the Greens. South Australian Labor MP, Kris Hanna
, defected to the Australian Greens in 2003 (before leaving the Greens in 2006, and being re-elected as an independent in the 2006 South Australian election. In 2008, Queensland Labor MP Ronan Lee
defected to the Greens, becoming the first ever Greens MP in the unicameral Queensland parliament. He said he made the decision after the Queensland government had "failed to act" against climate change.
However, these Green sympathies are not universal within Labor's Left and the two groups often find themselves competing in elections, making the Greens' growing popularity a threat to Labor. In 2002, Labor front bencher and prominent Left member Lindsay Tanner
wrote "The emergence of the Greens... is already hurting the ALP's ability to attract new members amongst young people." During the 2004 campaign, Tanner's own seat of Melbourne
in Victoria was thought to be under serious threat by the Greens and he described Greens policies as "mad". In the end, Tanner held the seat comfortably on primary votes (51.78%, +4.35-point swing). He did not stand for election at the 2010 election and his seat was won by the Greens.
In the 2006 Victorian state election, there was increased bitterness between Labor and the Greens. Labor direct-mailed a letter from Peter Garrett
to voters in its threatened inner-Melbourne seats claiming that the Greens were preferencing the Liberal Party, in spite of Greens preferences being either for Labor or being open." Following the election, The Age's Paul Austin wrote "Labor's campaign manager, state secretary Stephen Newnham, reckons he knows why the Greens' support fell away in the last days of the campaign. He has told cabinet and caucus members it was because of Labor's loud assertions that the Greens had done a secret preferences deal with the Liberals".
In April 2007, The Age
reported that the Victorian Greens had published a poem titled The Battle of Jeff's Shed, by Mike Puleston, describing ALP officials and volunteers who scrutinised vote counting after the state election as "the Labor Panzers and their hardened SS troops – SS stood for Sturm Scrutineers". The poem described the final vote count at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, which finished about 4am on 14 December and resulted in the election of three Greens MLCs. Labor directed preferences in the upper house to the DLP
above the Greens, which resulted in their preferences indirectly electing Peter Kavanagh
from DLP in Western Victoria Region.
Prior to the 2010 Federal Election, the Electrical Trades Union
's Victorian branch donated $325,000 to the Greens' Victorian campaign - the largest political donation ever directed to the Party up to that time.
In March 2011, division emerged within the Labor Party over Prime Minister Gillard's initial support for a Greens proposal to remove the commonwealth veto over Territory legislation. Joe de Bruyn
, head of the Shop, Distributors and Allied Employees Association, said "Everybody in the federal parliament knows that this is simply a way of letting the territories into euthanasia
or whatever else they want to do". Anti-euthanasia Labor senators called on Gillard to overturn Labor's support for the Greens plan and press reports said some Labor senators had complained that the issue had not been discussed in Cabinet. Prime Minister Gillard said that no caucus members had raised concerns with her over the influence of the Greens over Labor policy. Amidst suggestions that Labor was "too close" to the Greens, Prime Minister Gillard said in March: "The Greens are not a party of government and have no tradition of striking the balance required to deliver major reform".
or Nationals
in Australian elections. The Coalition has however directed strategic preferences to the Greens over Labor in the past, as in the Division of Melbourne
, where Adam Bandt
was elected at the 2010 Australian Federal Election with Liberal Preferences. At the 2010 Victorian State Election, the Liberals put their preference for the Greens below the Labor Party.
During the 2004 federal election the Australian Greens were branded as "environmental extremists" and "fascists" by some members of the Liberal-National Coalition Government. John Anderson
described the Greens as 'watermelons', being "green on the outside and red on the inside". John Howard
, while Australian Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, stated that "The Greens are not just about the environment. They have a whole lot of other very, very kooky policies in relation to things like drugs and all of that sort of stuff".
Former Federal Conservation Minister Eric Abetz
criticised Australian Greens Senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle
for spending most of their time on non-environmental issues.
In 2011, Liberal Shadow Cabinet frontbencher Kevin Andrews
published a critique of the Greens policy agenda for Quadrant Magazine in which he wrote that the Greens' "objective involves a radical transformation of the culture that underpins Western civilisation" and that their agenda would threaten the "Judeo-Christian
/Enlightenment
synthesis that upholds the individual" as well as "the economic system that has resulted in the creation of wealth and prosperity for the most people in human history."
television advertisements in 2004, Country Alliance
also ran television advertisements in the lead up to the 2006 Victorian state election claiming that the Greens policies were "extreme".
The Greens have voiced opposition and even organised protests against the One Nation Party
(an anti-immigration, economically protectionist Party which enjoyed significant publicity in the 1998 Federal Election).
have different electoral systems
, some of which allow the Greens to gain representation. In New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia, the Greens hold seats in the Legislative Councils (upper houses), which are elected by proportional representation
. The Greens also have four seats in the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly
. In Queensland and the Northern Territory
, their unicameral parliaments have made it difficult for the Greens to gain representation.
The Greens' most important area of state political activity has been in Tasmania, which is the only state where the lower house of the state parliament is elected by proportional representation. In Tasmania, the Greens have been represented in the House of Assembly
from 1983, initially as Green Independents, and from the early 1990s as an established party. At the 1989 state election, the Liberal Party won 17 seats to Labor's 13 and the Greens' 5. The Greens agreed to support a minority Labor government in exchange for a number of policy commitments. In 1992 the agreement broke down over the issue of employment in the forestry industry, and the premier, Michael Field
, called an early state election which the Liberals won. Later, Labor and the Liberals combined to reduce the size of the Assembly from 35 to 25, thus raising the quota for election. At the 1998 election the Greens won only one seat, despite their vote only falling slightly, mainly due to the new electoral system. They recovered in the 2002 election when they won four seats. All four seats were retained in the 2006 election. After gaining 5 seats in the 2010 election
, in April 2010 Nick McKim became the first Green Minister in Australia.
In the 2011 NSW State election
, the Greens claimed their first lower-house seat in the district of Balmain
.
Senators Vallentine, Chamarette and Margetts were all elected as Greens (WA)
senators and served their terms before the Greens WA affiliated to the Australian Greens, meaning that they were not considered to be Australian Greens senators at the time.
Queensland
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
political party.
The party was formed in 1992; however, its origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia
Environmental Movement in Australia
Beginning as a conservation movement, the environmental movement in Australia was the first in the world to become a political movement and Australia was home to the world's first Green Party....
and the formation of the United Tasmania Group
United Tasmania Group
The United Tasmania Group is generally acknowledged as the world's first Green party. The party was formed on 23 March 1972, during a meeting of the Lake Pedder Action Group at the Hobart town hall in order to field political candidates in the April 1972 state election. They received 3.9% of the...
(UTG), the first Green party in the world, which first ran candidates in the 1972 Tasmanian state election
Tasmanian state election, 1972
Elections for the Tasmanian House of Assembly were held on 22 April 1972. The one-term Liberal government of Premier Angus Bethune had collapsed following the withdrawal of support by Kevin Lyons...
. Co-ordination between green groups peaked in the 1980s with various environmental protests including one of the most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history against the proposed damming of the Franklin River
Franklin Dam
The Franklin Dam or Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, Australia, that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history.The dam was...
and the subsequent flooding of Lake Pedder. Key people involved in these campaigns included current leader Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
and Christine Milne
Christine Milne
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
who went on to contest and win seats in the Tasmanian Parliament and eventually form the Tasmanian Greens
Tasmanian Greens
The Tasmanian Greens are a political party in Australia which developed from numerous environmental campaigns in Tasmania, including the flooding of Lake Pedder and the Franklin Dam campaign...
.
Through national organisation and affiliations the Greens have grown rapidly in power and scope. The party's policies have broadened from environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
to include policies aligned with the philosophies of grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity....
, social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
, conservation, and the peace movement
Peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...
.
Today the Australian Greens have nine Senators
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
and one member in the lower house of the Parliament of Australia
Parliament of Australia
The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...
, 24 elected representatives in State and Territory Parliaments, more than 100 local councillors and close to 10,000 party members.
At the 2010 federal election the Greens received a four percent swing to finish with 13 percent of the vote (more than 1.6 million votes) in the Senate, a first for any Australian minor party. The Senate vote throughout the states was between 10 to 20 percent. The Greens won a seat in each of the six states at the election, again a first for any Australian minor party, which brought the party to a total of nine Senators from July 2011 and gave the Greens the sole balance of power
Balance of power (parliament)
In parliamentary politics, the term balance of power sometimes describes the pragmatic mechanism exercised by a minor political party or other grouping whose guaranteed support may enable an otherwise minority government to obtain and hold office...
in the Senate. The Greens also won their first House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
seat at a general election, the seat of Melbourne
Division of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
with candidate Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt
Adam Paul Bandt is an Australian politician and former industrial lawyer. Bandt was elected to the Australian House of Representatives in the 2010 Australian federal election for the Division of Melbourne...
. A crossbencher in the first hung parliament
Hung parliament
In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...
since the 1940 federal election
Australian federal election, 1940
Federal elections were held in Australia on 21 September 1940. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...
, he is one of four crossbenchers providing confidence and supply
Confidence and supply
In a parliamentary democracy confidence and supply are required for a government to hold power. A confidence and supply agreement is an agreement that a minor party or independent member of parliament will support the government in motions of confidence and appropriation votes by voting in favour...
to the Gillard
Julia Gillard
Julia Eileen Gillard is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia, in office since June 2010.Gillard was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and migrated with her family to Adelaide, Australia in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982 Gillard moved...
Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
.
Political ideology
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
" movement. The Charter of the Australian Greens identifies the following as being the four key pillars underlining the party's policy: "social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
", "sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
", "grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity....
" and "peace and non-violence". Major policy initiatives of recent years have also included taxation reform, review of the American alliance
ANZUS
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty is the military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area, though today the treaty is understood to relate to attacks...
, and a relaxation of drug laws and implementation of harm minimisation in relation to drug use.
Recent policy positions
Energy:- promotion of renewable energyRenewable energy commercializationRenewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, include biomass, hydroelectricity, geothermal power and heat...
and energy efficiencyEfficient energy useEfficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature... - opposition to uranium mining and nuclear powerAnti-nuclear movement in AustraliaNuclear testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear energy have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history...
and opposition to construction of new hydro-electric dams for energy production. - preparation for peak oilPeak oilPeak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, projected reserves and the combined production rate of a field...
- promotion of a "sustainable" approach to water managementWater managementWater management is the activity of planning, developing, distributing and managing the optimum use of water resources. In an ideal world. water management planning has regard to all the competing demands for water and seeks to allocate water on an equitable basis to satisfy all uses and demands...
Infrastructure:
- public transport expansion
- opposition to construction of dams for water supply
- construction of a high speed rail link between SydneySydneySydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and MelbourneMelbourneMelbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
Foreign Policy:
- Abolition of the existing World Trade Organisation
- ending Australia's Defence Treaty with the United StatesANZUSThe Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty is the military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area, though today the treaty is understood to relate to attacks...
unless it can be brought into line with Party views on Australia's national interest - in 1991, opposition to the Gulf WarGulf WarThe Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, and in 2003, the Iraq War; and continued opposition to the Afghanistan WarWar in Afghanistan (2001–present)The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
. - support for independence movements around the world, including in PalestineState of PalestinePalestine , officially declared as the State of Palestine , is a state that was proclaimed in exile in Algiers on 15 November 1988, when the Palestine Liberation Organization's National Council adopted the unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Independence...
, TibetTibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
and West Papua - in 1999, support for armed intervention in East Timor
- support for human rightsHuman rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
in countries such as ChinaPeople's Republic of ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and Burma
Bioethics and Family Policy:
- qualified support for voluntary euthanasiaEuthanasiaEuthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
- support for same-sex marriageSame-sex marriageSame-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
- free gender reassignment surgery for those born with an "intersexIntersexIntersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
condition"
Taxation:
- 2010 Australian Federal Election: advocated an increase in the company tax rate to 33% and an increase in the Gillard GovernmentGillard GovernmentThe Gillard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia, which is led by the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard became Prime Minister on the 24th of June 2010 after challenging her predecessor, Kevin Rudd for the position of leader of the parliamentary...
's Mineral Resource Rent Tax; a new top marginal tax rate of 50%; the reintroduction of estate dutiesInheritance taxAn inheritance tax or estate tax is a levy paid by a person who inherits money or property or a tax on the estate of a person who has died...
; a "Tobin taxTobin taxA Tobin tax, suggested by Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin, was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another...
" on foreign currency transactions; that family trusts be taxed as "companies"; the introduction of road congestion charges; and elimination of fringe benefit tax concessions for cars - 1998 Australian Federal Election: opposition to the introduction of a Goods & Services TaxGoods and Services Tax (Australia)The GST is a broad sales tax of 10% on most goods and services transactions in Australia. It is a value added tax, not a sales tax, in that it is refunded to all parties in the chain of production other than the final consumer....
(during the Australian federal election, 2001 indicated that they would oppose the Labor PartyAustralian Labor PartyThe Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
proposal to remove the GST from gas and electricity bills) - Support the abolition of the 30% private healthcare rebate, so as to increase funding for public healthcare
Immigration:
- support for refugees and opposition to mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
- support a low population in Australia
Law reform:
- Review relationship between the exclusive ownership of property and exclusive use of its resources
- regulated use of cannabis for medical purposes
- support trials of state-supplied heroin on prescription
Indigenous Affairs:
- Supported National Apology to the Stolen Generations
- Opposed Northern Territory National Emergency ResponseNorthern Territory National Emergency ResponseThe Northern Territory National Emergency Response was a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007 to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern...
- Support the Queensland Wild Rivers Legislation (a Cape YorkCape York PeninsulaCape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...
conservation initiative, opposed by Noel Pearson)
Origins
The Australian Greens party in eastern Australia emerged out of environmental campaigns in the state of Tasmania. The precursor to the Tasmanian Greens (the earliest existent member of the federation of parties that is the Australian Greens), the United Tasmania GroupUnited Tasmania Group
The United Tasmania Group is generally acknowledged as the world's first Green party. The party was formed on 23 March 1972, during a meeting of the Lake Pedder Action Group at the Hobart town hall in order to field political candidates in the April 1972 state election. They received 3.9% of the...
, was founded in 1972 to oppose the construction of new dams to flood Lake Pedder
Lake Pedder
Lake Pedder was once a natural lake, located in the southwest of Tasmania, Australia but the name is now used in an official sense to refer to the much larger artificial impoundment and diversion lake formed when the original lake was expanded by damming in 1972 by the Hydro Electric Commission of...
. The campaign failed to prevent the flooding of Lake Pedder and the party failed to gain political representation. One of the party’s candidates was Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
, then a doctor in Launceston
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, a public campaign to prevent the construction of the Franklin Dam
Franklin Dam
The Franklin Dam or Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, Australia, that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history.The dam was...
in Tasmania saw environmentalist and activist Norm Sanders
Norm Sanders
Norman Karl Sanders is an Australian former politician, representing the Australian Democrats in the Tasmanian House of Assembly from 1980 to 1982 and the Australian Senate from 1985 to 1990.-Early life:...
elected to the Tasmanian Parliament
Parliament of Tasmania
The Parliament of Tasmania consists of the Tasmanian Legislative Council, Tasmanian House of Assembly and the Monarch represented by the Governor of Tasmania....
as an Australian Democrat
Australian Democrats
The Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...
. Brown, then director of the Wilderness Society, contested the election as an independent, but failed to win a seat.
In 1982 Norm Sanders resigned from Parliament, and Brown was elected to replace him on a countback
During her 1984 visit to Australia, West German Greens parliamentarian Petra Kelly
Petra Kelly
Petra Karin Kelly was a German politician and activist. She was instrumental in founding the German Green Party, the first Green party to rise to prominence worldwide.- Early life :...
urged that the various Greens groups in Australia develop a national identity. Partly as a result of this, 50 Greens activists gathered in Tasmania in December to organise a national conference.
The Green movement gained their first federal parliamentary representative when Senator Josephine Vallentine of Western Australia, who had been elected in 1984 for the Nuclear Disarmament Party
Nuclear Disarmament Party
The Nuclear Disarmament Party was a political party in Australia. The party was formed in 1984 and enjoyed considerable initial success.-Foundation, the 1984 election, and the split:...
and later sat as an independent, was part of the formation of and joined Greens (WA), a party formed within the state boundaries of Western Australia, and not affiliated to the Australian Greens at that time.
In 1992, representatives from around the nation gathered in North Sydney and agreed to form the Australian Greens, although the state Greens parties, particularly in Western Australia, retained their separate identities for a period. Brown resigned from the Tasmanian Parliament in 1993, and in 1996 he was elected as a Senator for Tasmania, the first elected as an Australian Greens candidate.
Initially the most successful Greens group during this period was Greens (WA), at that time still a separate organisation from the Australian Greens. Vallentine was succeeded by Christabel Chamarette
Christabel Chamarette
Christabel Marguerite Alain Chamarette, sometimes Christabel Bridge was a Greens Western Australia Senator for Western Australia from 1992 to 1996.-Personal life:...
in 1992, and she was joined by Dee Margetts
Dee Margetts
Diane Elizabeth Margetts was an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Senate from 1993 to 1999 and a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 2001 to 2005, representing the Greens Western Australia....
in 1993. But Chamarette was defeated in 1996. Margetts opposed the industrial relations reform agenda of the Howard Government
Howard Government
The Howard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Howard. It was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, which won a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives at four successive elections. The Howard Government...
. Following the 'Cavalcade to Canberra' protest of 19 August 1996, in which 2000 breakaway civilians rioted in and around Parliament House
1996 Parliament House Riot
The 1996 Parliament House Riot involved a physical attack on Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, on 19 August 1996, when protesters broke away from a rally organised by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and sought to force their way into the national Parliament of Australia, causing...
, Margetts told the Senate that "the Greens WA do not associate ourselves with the violent action" and that while "there are obviously some in the Greens movement who have differing opinions about that" she personally did not think there was "any justification for the use of violence to the extent that we saw". Margetts lost her seat in the 1998 federal election, leaving Brown as the sole Australian Greens Senator.
2001 election onward
In the 2001 federal election (the "TampaMV Tampa
MV Tampa is a roll-on/roll-off container ship completed in 1984 by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. in South Korea for the Norway based firm, Wilhelmsen Lines Shipowning.-Tampa affair:...
election"), Brown was re-elected as a Senator for Tasmania, and a second Greens Senator, Kerry Nettle
Kerry Nettle
Kerry Michelle Nettle is a former Australian Senator and member of the Australian Greens in New South Wales. Elected at the 2001 federal election on a primary vote of 4.36 percent with One Nation and micro-party preferences, she failed to gain re-election at the 2007 federal election, despite an...
, was elected in New South Wales. The Greens opposed the government's policy on asylum seekers, and opposed the bipartisan offers of support to the US alliance
ANZUS
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty is the military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area, though today the treaty is understood to relate to attacks...
and Afghanistan War
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
by the Howard Government
Howard Government
The Howard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Howard. It was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, which won a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives at four successive elections. The Howard Government...
and Beazley Opposition
Kim Beazley
In the October 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister....
in the aftermath of the 11 September Terrorist Attacks, describing the Afghanistan commitment as "war mongering". This contributed to a rise in support for the Greens from disaffected Labor voters. This played an important role in defining the Greens as more than just a single-issue environmental party. In 2002 the Greens won a House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
seat for the first time when Michael Organ
Michael Organ
Michael Keith Organ is an Australian politician. He was an Australian Greens member of the Australian House of Representatives between 2002 and 2004, representing the Division of Cunningham, New South Wales...
won the Cunningham
Division of Cunningham
The Division of Cunningham is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1949 and is named for Allan Cunningham, a 19th century explorer of New South Wales and Queensland. It is located on the coast of New South Wales between southern Sydney and Wollongong, and...
by-election
Cunningham by-election, 2002
The 2002 Cunningham by-election was held in the Australian electorate of Cunningham in New South Wales on 19 October 2002. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of the sitting member, the Australian Labor Party's Stephen Martin on 16 August 2002...
.
In the lead up to the Iraq War, in September 2002, Bob Brown said that the Greens would oppose military action in Iraq regardless of the position of the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
and said that any conflict would be "a vengeance for the S11 attack that's involved here as well as the American corporations wanting to get their hands on the Iraqi oil" and that if Saddam Hussein "does have weapons of mass destruction, the attack might be the thing that gets him to use them", so it would be better to "resolv[e] the Palestinian crisis, which could lead—open up a real avenue to peace in the Middle East, and neutralise Saddam Hussein by doing it".
2004 election onward
In the 2004 federal election, the Greens' primary vote rose by 2.3 percentage points to 7.2%. This won them two additional Senate seats, taken by Christine MilneChristine Milne
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
in Tasmania and Rachel Siewert
Rachel Siewert
Rachel Mary Siewert is an Australian Greens politician who was elected to represent Western Australia in the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election....
in Western Australia, taking the total to four. However, the success of the Howard Government in winning a majority in the Senate meant that the Greens' influence on legislation decreased. Michael Organ
Michael Organ
Michael Keith Organ is an Australian politician. He was an Australian Greens member of the Australian House of Representatives between 2002 and 2004, representing the Division of Cunningham, New South Wales...
was defeated by Labor in Cunningham.
Additionally, in the 2004 election there was an intense media campaign from the socially conservative Family First Party
Family First Party
The Family First Party is a socially conservative minor political party in Australia. It has two members in the South Australian Legislative Council...
, including a television advertisement labelling the Greens the "Extreme Greens". Competitive preferencing strategies prompted by the nature of Senate balloting (see Australian electoral system
Australian electoral system
The Australian electoral system has evolved over nearly 150 years of continuous democratic government, and has a number of distinctive features including compulsory voting, preferential voting and the use of proportional voting to elect the upper house, the Australian Senate.- Compulsory voting...
) saw the Australian Labor Party and the Democrats rank Family First higher than the Greens on their Senate tickets, resulting in the Greens losing preferences they would normally have received from the two parties. Consequently, although outpolling Family First by a ratio of more than four to one first-preference votes, Victorian Family First candidate Steve Fielding
Steve Fielding
Steven "Steve" Fielding , was a Senator representing the state of Victoria and the federal parliamentary leader of the Family First Party in Australia. Elected to the Senate at the 2004 federal election on two percent of the Victorian vote, he failed to gain re-election at the 2010 federal election...
was elected on preferences over the Australian Greens' David Risstrom
David Risstrom
David Risstrom is a Melbourne barrister, a former Melbourne City Councillor, and a former Australian Greens candidate for the Australian Senate....
, an unintended consequence of these strategies. In Tasmania, Christine Milne only narrowly gained her Senate seat before a Family First candidate, despite nearly obtaining the full required quota of primary votes. It was only the high incidence of "below the line" voting in Tasmania that negated the effect of the preference swap deal between Labor and Family First.
The Australian Greens fielded candidates in every House of Representatives seat in Australia, and for all state and territory Senate positions.
Many lower income safe Labor seats in deprived areas usually poll very small primary votes for the Greens. From 1997–2003 in Western Australia, the majority of Greens WA seats were held in rural and remote seats (Mining, Pastoral, South-West).
In 2005, the Greens' Lee Rhiannon
Lee Rhiannon
Lee Rhiannon , an Australian politician, is a Senator for New South Wales, elected at the 2010 federal election, representing the Australian Greens...
lobbied the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
to reject Australian Cardinal George Pell
George Pell
George Pell AC is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth and current Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne...
as a candidate for the Papacy on the basis of his support for conservative Catholic moral doctrine. In 2007, Rhiannon referred remarks made by Pell opposing embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst, an early-stage embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells...
research to the New South Wales parliamentary privileges committee for allegedly being in "contempt of parliament". Pell was cleared of the charge and described the move as a "clumsy attempt to curb religious freedom and freedom of speech".
The Australian Greens primary vote has generally continued to grow with their primary vote increasing by 4.1 percentage points in the 2006 election in South Australia, 1.2 points in the 2006 election in Queensland, and 0.7 points in the 2007 election in New South Wales.
The results for the 2006 election in Victoria, were mixed, with an improved vote for the Greens in the lower house, but a fall in their upper house vote.
Against this upward trend was a swing of 1.5 points away from the Greens in the 2006 election in Tasmania.
On 31 August 2004, the Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
published a page three story by journalist Gerard McManus entitled "Greens back illegal drugs" in the lead up to the 2004 Australian election. In response to the article Brown lodged a complaint with the Australian Press Council
Australian Press Council
The Australian Press Council is the self-regulatory body of the Australian print media. It was established in 1976 and is a private organisation. Its aims are to help preserve the traditional freedom of the press within Australia and to ensure that the free press acts responsibly and ethically...
. After the election, the Press Council upheld Brown's complaint. An appeal by the Herald Sun was dismissed and it was ordered to publish the Press Council’s adjudication.
2007 election onward
As in previous years, the Greens vote was strongest in inner-city seats, including MelbourneDivision of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
(22.7% of primary votes), Sydney
Division of Sydney
The Division of Sydney is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. It is located around the central city area of Sydney, and includes many inner suburbs such as Darlinghurst, Surry Hills, Ultimo, Redfern, Camperdown, Glebe, Annandale, Balmain, Potts Point and the Sydney...
(20.7%), Grayndler
Division of Grayndler
The Division of Grayndler is an Australian Electoral Division in inner Metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales. It is one of Australia's smallest electorates, located in the inner-southern Sydney metropolitan area, including parts of the inner-west...
(18.7%), Denison
Division of Denison
The Division of Denison is anAustralian Electoral Division in Tasmania.The division was created in 1903 and is named for Sir William Denison, who was Lt-Governor of Van Diemens Land 1847-55...
(18.6%) and Batman
Division of Batman
The Division of Batman is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division was created in 1906 , and is named after John Batman, one of the founders of the city of Melbourne. When it was created it covered the inner suburbs of Carlton and Fitzroy, but successive boundary changes have...
(17.2%). Strong votes were also recorded in Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
-held city based seats such as Higgins
Division of Higgins
The Division of Higgins is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria.The division was created in 1949 and is named after Justice H. B. Higgins , who was a Victorian Member of the legislative assembly , president of the Carlton Football Club , Australian Member of Parliament , and justice of the...
(10.8%), Kooyong
Division of Kooyong
The Division of Kooyong is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Victoria. It is located in the inner eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and encompasses the suburbs of Kew, Hawthorn, Hawthorn East, Balwyn, Canterbury, Camberwell and Surrey Hills. The Division was proclaimed in 1900, and was...
(11.8%) Curtin
Division of Curtin
The Division of Curtin is an Australian Electoral Division in Western Australia. The division was created in 1949 and is named for John Curtin, who was Prime Minister of Australia 1941-45. It is located in the wealthy beachside suburbs of Perth, including Claremont, Cottesloe, Mosman Park,...
(13.4%) and Wentworth
Division of Wentworth
The Division of Wentworth is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of New South Wales. It was proclaimed in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. The Division is named after William Charles Wentworth , a noted Australian explorer and statesman...
(15.0%). The primary vote for the Greens in suburban and regional areas was generally smaller.
The Greens increased their national vote by 1.38 points to 9.04 percent at the 2007 federal election, with a net increase of one Senator to a total of five. Senators Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
(Tas) and Kerry Nettle
Kerry Nettle
Kerry Michelle Nettle is a former Australian Senator and member of the Australian Greens in New South Wales. Elected at the 2001 federal election on a primary vote of 4.36 percent with One Nation and micro-party preferences, she failed to gain re-election at the 2007 federal election, despite an...
(NSW) were up for re-election, Brown was re-elected, but Nettle was unsuccessful, becoming the first and only Australian Greens Senator to lose their seat. Elected at the 2001 federal election on a primary vote of 4.36 percent in New South Wales with One Nation and micro-party preference flows, she failed to gain re-election in 2007 due to preferences, despite an increase in the New South Wales Green primary vote to 8.43 percent.
Other Greens Senate candidates were Larissa Waters
Larissa Waters
Larissa Joy Waters is an Australian Greens Senator for Queensland.Waters was born in Winnipeg, Canada, grew up in Brisbane and lives in Bardon with her partner and their young daughter...
(Qld), Richard Di Natale
Richard Di Natale
Richard Di Natale is an Australian politician and member of the Victorian Greens. Di Natale was elected to the Australian Senate in the 2010 Australian federal election...
(Vic), Scott Ludlam
Scott Ludlam
Scott Ludlam is an Australian politician and Greens member of the Australian Senate since July 2008, representing the state of Western Australia....
(WA), Sarah Hanson-Young
Sarah Hanson-Young
Sarah Coral Hanson-Young is an Australian politician. She has been a Greens member of the Australian Senate since July 2008, representing the state of South Australia. she is the youngest person ever elected to the Australian Senate....
(SA) and Kerrie Tucker
Kerrie Tucker
Kerrie Robyn Tucker , former Australian politician, environmental and human rights activist, was a member of the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the multi-member electorate of Molonglo for the ACT Greens between 1995 and 2001...
(ACT). Ludlam and Hanson-Young were elected and took up office on 26 August 2008 when all senators elected on 24 November 2007 were sworn in.
This was also the first general election for the Greens in which a lower house seat went "maverick". In the Division of Melbourne
Division of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
, the Greens polled 22.80 percent of the primary vote, overtaking the Liberals on preferences, finishing on a two-party-preferred
Two-party-preferred vote
In politics, the two-party-preferred vote , or two-candidate-preferred vote , in an election or opinion poll uses preferential voting to express the electoral result after the distribution of preferences...
figure of 45.29 percent against Labor.
An extensive campaign was undertaken in the ACT, in an attempt to end coalition control of the Senate immediately after the election, as territory Senators take their place at this time as opposed to their state counterparts on the next 1 July. The ACT elects two seats with terms (in parallel with those of the House of Representatives), so a larger quota than normal is required for election. Despite a swing of 5.1 points to the Greens, on 21.5 percent, their best result in any state or territory, the party fell significantly short of the required quota.
At the 2008 Northern Territory election
Northern Territory general election, 2008
General elections were held in the Northern Territory of Australia on 9 August 2008. 23 of the 25 seats in the Legislative Assembly were contested; two safe Labor seats were uncontested...
, the Greens ran in six of the 25 seats in the unicameral parliament, averaging 16 percent of the vote but won no seats. At the 2008 Western Australian election
Western Australian state election, 2008
A general election was held in the state of Western Australia on Saturday 6 September 2008 to elect 59 members to the Legislative Assembly and 36 members to the Legislative Council...
, the Greens won 11–12 percent of the statewide vote in both the lower and upper houses, with four of 36 seats in the latter, an increase of two.
In the 2008 Australian Capital Territory election
Australian Capital Territory general election, 2008
Elections to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly were held on Saturday, 18 October 2008. The incumbent Labor Party, led by Jon Stanhope, was challenged by the Liberal Party, led by Zed Seselja. Candidates were elected to fill three multi-member electorates using a single...
, conducted under the Hare-Clark system of proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
, the Greens doubled their vote to around 15 percent, going from one to four seats in the 17-member unicameral parliament, giving them the balance of power
Balance of power (parliament)
In parliamentary politics, the term balance of power sometimes describes the pragmatic mechanism exercised by a minor political party or other grouping whose guaranteed support may enable an otherwise minority government to obtain and hold office...
. After almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to allow Labor to form a minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
. The Greens hold the post of Speaker in the ACT Legislative Assembly, the first for a Green party in Australia.
In November 2008, Senator Christine Milne
Christine Milne
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
was elected Deputy Leader. The ballot was also contested by Senator Rachel Siewert
Rachel Siewert
Rachel Mary Siewert is an Australian Greens politician who was elected to represent Western Australia in the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election....
.
In May 2009, the Greens won their second ever single-member electorate, with Adele Carles
Adele Carles
Adele Simone Carles is an Australian politician. She has been a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since May 2009, representing the electorate of Fremantle. Initially elected as a Greens WA member, she resigned from the party on 6 May 2010 to sit as an independent...
winning the Fremantle by-election
Fremantle state by-election, 2009
A by-election was held in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly district of Fremantle on 16 May 2009. It was triggered by the resignation of sitting member Jim McGinty.The Labor Party was defending a seat that they had held continuously since 1924...
for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly
Western Australian Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of parliament in the Australian state of Western Australia. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Perth....
. The seat had been held by the Labor Party since 1924. It is the first time the Greens have outpolled the Labor Party on the primary vote in any Labor-held seat.
In December 2009, the Greens received over 30 percent of the primary vote in the federal Higgins by-election
Higgins by-election, 2009
A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Higgins on 5 December 2009. This was triggered as a result of the resignation of former Treasurer and former Liberal Party deputy leader Peter Costello...
in Victoria, in the absence of a Labor candidate. It is the highest primary vote recorded by the Greens in a Liberal-held lower house seat.
In the lead up to the 2010 Australian federal election, the Australian Christian Lobby
Australian Christian Lobby
The Australian Christian Lobby is a Christian political lobby group having a head office in Canberra and branches in six Australian states and territories. Its motto is "Voice for values". Its managing director is Jim Wallace AM....
and Catholic Archbishop of Sydney criticised Greens policies as "anti-Christian". In an 8 August opinion article for Sydney's Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Cardinal Archbishop George Pell
George Pell
George Pell AC is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth and current Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne...
wrote that the Greens were hostile to the family, opposed to religious schools, had pressured against Catholic management of Calvary Hospital in Canberra and said the party contained Stalinists and a wing who were "watermelons" -"green on the outside, red on the inside" whose policies were "impractical and expensive, which will not help the poor". In response to the article, Senator Bob Brown said Pell was "bearing false witness" and that the Greens were in fact "much closer to mainstream Christian thinking than Cardinal Pell". Jesuit human rights lawyer Fr. Frank Brennan responded in an essay by saying that that while some Greens might be anti-Christian, others like Lin Hatfield Dodds
Lin Hatfield Dodds
Lin Hatfield Dodds , Australian social activist and former Churchill Fellow, was an unsuccessful candidate for political office for the Australian Senate representing the Australian Capital Territory at the 2010 federal election, for the Australian Greens.-Early life and background:Hatfield Dodds...
"have given distinguished public service in their churches for decades." On some policy issues, wrote Brennan, "the Greens have a more Christian message than the major parties", while on issues such as abortion, stem cell research, same sex marriage and funding for church schools, the Party would never be able to "carry the day given that policy changes in these areas will occur only if they are supported by a majority from both major political parties".
2010 election onward
At the March 2010 Tasmanian state electionTasmanian state election, 2010
The 2010 Tasmanian state election was held on 20 March 2010 to elect members to the Tasmanian House of Assembly. The 12-year incumbent Labor government, led by Premier of Tasmania David Bartlett, won a fourth consecutive term against the Liberal opposition, led by Will Hodgman, after Labor formed a...
, the Greens won 21.6 percent of the primary vote amongst the five multi-member electorates, resulting in the Greens winning five of twenty-five seats in the lower house
Tasmanian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council or Upper House...
and holding the balance of power. With Labor and the Liberals winning ten seats each, the Greens backed a Labor minority government. Tasmanian Greens Leader Nick McKim was appointed to the new Labor-Green cabinet, making him the first Green Minister in Australia.
Election Results Senate – National
|
At the August 2010 federal election the Greens received a four percent swing to finish with 13 percent of the vote (more than 1.6 million votes) in the Senate, a first for any Australian minor party. The Senate vote throughout the states was between 10 to 20 percent. The Greens won a seat in each of the six states at the election, again a first for any Australian minor party, bringing the party to a total of nine Senators from July 2011, and will hold the sole balance of power
Balance of power (parliament)
In parliamentary politics, the term balance of power sometimes describes the pragmatic mechanism exercised by a minor political party or other grouping whose guaranteed support may enable an otherwise minority government to obtain and hold office...
in the Senate. Senators elected in 2010 (with new Senators taking their place from July 2011) are Lee Rhiannon
Lee Rhiannon
Lee Rhiannon , an Australian politician, is a Senator for New South Wales, elected at the 2010 federal election, representing the Australian Greens...
in New South Wales, Richard Di Natale
Richard Di Natale
Richard Di Natale is an Australian politician and member of the Victorian Greens. Di Natale was elected to the Australian Senate in the 2010 Australian federal election...
in Victoria, Larissa Waters
Larissa Waters
Larissa Joy Waters is an Australian Greens Senator for Queensland.Waters was born in Winnipeg, Canada, grew up in Brisbane and lives in Bardon with her partner and their young daughter...
in Queensland, Rachel Siewert
Rachel Siewert
Rachel Mary Siewert is an Australian Greens politician who was elected to represent Western Australia in the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election....
in Western Australia, Penny Wright
Penny Wright
Penelope Lesley "Penny" Wright is an Australian Greens senator for South Australia, first elected at the 2010 election.-Early life:...
in South Australia and Christine Milne
Christine Milne
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
in Tasmania. Incumbents Scott Ludlum in Western Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young
Sarah Hanson-Young
Sarah Coral Hanson-Young is an Australian politician. She has been a Greens member of the Australian Senate since July 2008, representing the state of South Australia. she is the youngest person ever elected to the Australian Senate....
in South Australia and Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
in Tasmania were not due for re-election. The Greens also won their first House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
seat at a general election, the seat of Melbourne
Division of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
with candidate Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt
Adam Paul Bandt is an Australian politician and former industrial lawyer. Bandt was elected to the Australian House of Representatives in the 2010 Australian federal election for the Division of Melbourne...
, who is a crossbencher in the first hung parliament
Hung parliament
In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...
since the 1940 federal election
Australian federal election, 1940
Federal elections were held in Australia on 21 September 1940. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...
. Almost two weeks after the election, Bandt and the Greens agreed to support a Gillard
Julia Gillard
Julia Eileen Gillard is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia, in office since June 2010.Gillard was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and migrated with her family to Adelaide, Australia in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982 Gillard moved...
Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
on confidence and supply
Confidence and supply
In a parliamentary democracy confidence and supply are required for a government to hold power. A confidence and supply agreement is an agreement that a minor party or independent member of parliament will support the government in motions of confidence and appropriation votes by voting in favour...
votes. Labor was returned to government with the additional support of three independent crossbenchers.
The Election resulted in a hung parliament
Hung parliament
In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...
. Six crossbench MPs
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
held the balance of power
Balance of power (parliament)
In parliamentary politics, the term balance of power sometimes describes the pragmatic mechanism exercised by a minor political party or other grouping whose guaranteed support may enable an otherwise minority government to obtain and hold office...
. The Greens signed a formal agreement with the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
involving consultation in relation to policy and support in the House of representatives in relation to confidence and supply
Confidence and supply
In a parliamentary democracy confidence and supply are required for a government to hold power. A confidence and supply agreement is an agreement that a minor party or independent member of parliament will support the government in motions of confidence and appropriation votes by voting in favour...
and three of the independents declared their support for Labor on confidence and supply, allowing Gillard and Labor to remain in power with a 76-74 minority government.
In the 2010 Victorian State Election
Victorian state election, 2010
The 2010 Victorian state election was held on 27 November. The incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party government, led by John Brumby, was defeated by the centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition, led by Ted Baillieu....
, the Liberal party preferenced the ALP ahead of the Greens. The Greens primary vote increased slightly overall from 10.04% 10.6% of the overall vote, but the party did not win any lower house seats. Federal Greens leader Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
said of the result that it was positive but that: "The Liberals' preferencing to Labor means that instead of there being three Greens in the new parliament there won't be".
In February 2010, the Greens endorsed the controversial decision of the Gillard Labor Government
Gillard Government
The Gillard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia, which is led by the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard became Prime Minister on the 24th of June 2010 after challenging her predecessor, Kevin Rudd for the position of leader of the parliamentary...
to reverse its 2010 Election promise not to introduce a carbon tax
Carbon tax
A carbon tax is an environmental tax levied on the carbon content of fuels. It is a form of carbon pricing. Carbon is present in every hydrocarbon fuel and is released as carbon dioxide when they are burnt. In contrast, non-combustion energy sources—wind, sunlight, hydropower, and nuclear—do not...
as a means of addressing Australia's contribution to carbon emissions. On 24 February 2010, in a joint press conference of the "Climate Change Committee" - comprising the government, Greens and two independent MPs - Prime Minister Gillard announced a plan to legislate for the introduction of a fixed price to be imposed on "carbon pollution" from 1 July 2012 The carbon tax would be placed for three to five years before a full emissions trading scheme is implemented, under a blueprint agreed by a multi-party parliamentary committee. Key issues remained to be negotiated between the Government and the cross-benches, including compensation arrangements for households and businesses, the carbon price level, the emissions reduction target and whether or not to include fuel in the tax. Committee member and Greens deputy leader Christine Milne
Christine Milne
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
said that this was happening because:
The Greens supported the United States led military intervention in Libya
2011 military intervention in Libya
On 19 March 2011, a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to events during the 2011 Libyan civil war...
. Deputy Leader Milne
Christine Milne
Christine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
said the Greens believed "in peace and non-violence" but supported this armed intervention.
The Greens NSW State Conference prior to the 2011 NSW State Election
New South Wales state election, 2011
Elections to the 55th Parliament of New South Wales were held on Saturday, 26 March 2011. The 16-year incumbent Australian Labor Party government led by Premier Kristina Keneally was defeated in a landslide by the Liberal-National coalition opposition led by Barry O'Farrell.New South Wales has...
adopted of a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions refers to a campaign first initiated on 9 July 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause ".....
campaign against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. In support of the statement, Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon said it was "motivated by the universal principles of freedom, justice and equal rights". Following the election, Bob Brown said that he had conveyed his disapproval of this policy emphasis to Rhiannon.
Amidst ongoing debate over taxation, industry policy and climate change, Leader Bob Brown began to refer to sections within the Australian media expressing criticism of Greens policies or candidates as the "hate media", singling out the Murdoch Press
News Limited
News Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The publicly listed company's interests span newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, Pay TV, National Rugby League, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television production trading assets.News Limited...
in particular.
Outlining his industry and climate policies on ABC's 7:30 Program in May 2011, Bob Brown voiced support for a reduction in subsidies to fossil fuel industries, the implementation of a price on carbon; a higher level of profit tax on the mining industry and a phasing out of Australia's coal export industry, saying: "The world is going to do that because it is causing massive economic damage down the line through the impact of climate change."
In 2011, The Greens called for the permanent closure of Australia's live export meat industry, following revelations of mistreatment of Australian cattle in some Indonesian abbatoirs.
Structure
The Australian Greens, like all Australian political parties, are federallyFederalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
organised with separately registered state parties signing up to a national constitution, yet retaining considerable policy-making and organisational autonomy from the centre. The national decision-making body of the Australian Greens is the National Council, consisting of delegates from each member body (a state or territory Greens party). The National Council arrives at decisions by consensus. There is no formal executive of the national party. However, there is an Australian Greens Coordinating Group (AGCG) composed of national office bearers including the National Convenor, Secretary, Treasurer, and delegates from each State and Territory. There is also a Public Officer, a Party Agent and a Registered Officer.
A variety of working groups have been established by the National Council, which are directly accessible to all Greens members. Working groups perform an advisory function by developing policy, reviewing or developing the party structure, or by performing other tasks assigned by the National Council.
All policies originating from this structure are subject to ratification by the members of the Australian Greens.
On Saturday 12 November 2005 at the national conference in Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
the Australian Greens abandoned their long-standing tradition of having no official leader and approved a process whereby a parliamentary leader could be elected by the Greens Parliamentary Party Room. On Monday 28 November 2005, Bob Brown – who had long been regarded as de facto leader by many inside the party, and most people outside the party – was elected unopposed as the Parliamentary Party Leader.
In 2008, Christine Milne was elected by the Australian Greens Party Room as Deputy Parliamentary Party Leader.
Interactions with other political groups
The Greens do not have formal links to environmental organisations commonly labelled by the media as "green groups" such as the Australian Conservation FoundationAustralian Conservation Foundation
The Australian Conservation Foundation is an Australian non-profit, community-based environmental organisation focused on advocacy, policy research and community outreach.-History:...
, The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
, all of whom claim to be non-partisan. However, it is common for the media to report the activities of such groups and those of The Greens under the general category of "greens". During elections, there is sometimes competition between The Greens and one or more of these groups negotiating "greens preferences" with other parties. The Greens preference negotiation objectives are to attempt to get Greens Senators elected, and to get policy outcomes on issues like Tasmanian forests, though these objectives may be to a greater or lesser extent in conflict and the Greens more often direct preferences to Labor than the Liberals, but it is claimed that this did not affect federal election outcomes in 2001 and 2004.
Labor Party and unions
The Greens are in a formal alliance with the Australian Labor PartyAustralian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
in the Tasmanian Parliament and have signed a formal agreement with the minority Gillard Labor Government
Gillard Government
The Gillard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia, which is led by the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard became Prime Minister on the 24th of June 2010 after challenging her predecessor, Kevin Rudd for the position of leader of the parliamentary...
in the Federal Australian Parliament. Generally the Greens preference Labor ahead of the Coalition at elections.
Many Labor supporters and trade unionists see the Greens' policies as destructive of employment in industries like mining and forestry. The forestry industry has been a particular target of environmental campaigns and the Forestry Division of the CFMEU have actively campaigned against the Greens. Left-wing trade unionists and some members of Labor's Left faction sympathise with the Greens' social policies and often identify more readily with the Greens than with the Labor Right
Labor Right
The Labor Right, or Labor Unity in some State branches, or Centre Unity in NSW, is the organised faction of the Australian Labor Party that tends to be more economically liberal and socially conservative than Labor Left....
. Some unionists, such as NTEU
National Tertiary Education Union
The National Tertiary Education Union is an Australian trade union for all higher education and university employees. It is an industry union and the only union working exclusively in the Australian university sector.-About the NTEU:...
and AMWU members have run for State or Federal parliament for the Greens. South Australian Labor MP, Kris Hanna
Kris Hanna
Kris Hanna was an Australian politician, and member for Mitchell in the South Australian House of Assembly from 1997 until 2010. Originally elected as a Labor member, Hanna defected to the SA Greens in 2003 before becoming an independent in 2006....
, defected to the Australian Greens in 2003 (before leaving the Greens in 2006, and being re-elected as an independent in the 2006 South Australian election. In 2008, Queensland Labor MP Ronan Lee
Ronan Lee
Ronan Lee is an Irish-Australian political advisor and former Greens member of the Queensland State Parliament. Lee represented the seat of Indooroopilly since he was first elected as an Australian Labor Party member in 2001. Lee joined the Queensland Greens in 2008 citing the Bligh Government's...
defected to the Greens, becoming the first ever Greens MP in the unicameral Queensland parliament. He said he made the decision after the Queensland government had "failed to act" against climate change.
However, these Green sympathies are not universal within Labor's Left and the two groups often find themselves competing in elections, making the Greens' growing popularity a threat to Labor. In 2002, Labor front bencher and prominent Left member Lindsay Tanner
Lindsay Tanner
Lindsay James Tanner is a former Australian member of the House of Representatives representing the Division of Melbourne, Victoria, for the Australian Labor Party, having first won the seat at the 1993 federal election. He was a member of the Australian Government from 3 December 2007, serving as...
wrote "The emergence of the Greens... is already hurting the ALP's ability to attract new members amongst young people." During the 2004 campaign, Tanner's own seat of Melbourne
Division of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
in Victoria was thought to be under serious threat by the Greens and he described Greens policies as "mad". In the end, Tanner held the seat comfortably on primary votes (51.78%, +4.35-point swing). He did not stand for election at the 2010 election and his seat was won by the Greens.
In the 2006 Victorian state election, there was increased bitterness between Labor and the Greens. Labor direct-mailed a letter from Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett
Peter Robert Garrett, AM, MP , is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and politician.Garrett was lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil from 1973 until its disbanding in 2002...
to voters in its threatened inner-Melbourne seats claiming that the Greens were preferencing the Liberal Party, in spite of Greens preferences being either for Labor or being open." Following the election, The Age's Paul Austin wrote "Labor's campaign manager, state secretary Stephen Newnham, reckons he knows why the Greens' support fell away in the last days of the campaign. He has told cabinet and caucus members it was because of Labor's loud assertions that the Greens had done a secret preferences deal with the Liberals".
In April 2007, The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
reported that the Victorian Greens had published a poem titled The Battle of Jeff's Shed, by Mike Puleston, describing ALP officials and volunteers who scrutinised vote counting after the state election as "the Labor Panzers and their hardened SS troops – SS stood for Sturm Scrutineers". The poem described the final vote count at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, which finished about 4am on 14 December and resulted in the election of three Greens MLCs. Labor directed preferences in the upper house to the DLP
Democratic Labor Party
The Democratic Labor Party is a political party in Australia that espouses social conservatism and opposes neo-liberalism. The first "DLP" Senator in decades, party vice-president John Madigan was elected to the Australian Senate with 2.3 percent of the primary vote in Victoria at the 2010 federal...
above the Greens, which resulted in their preferences indirectly electing Peter Kavanagh
Peter Kavanagh (Australian politician)
Peter Kavanagh , Australian politician, is a former member of the Victorian Legislative Council representing the Democratic Labor Party .Kavanagh was born into a family with a long connection with the DLP...
from DLP in Western Victoria Region.
Prior to the 2010 Federal Election, the Electrical Trades Union
Electrical Trades Union of Australia
The Electrical Trades Union of Australia is a trade union in Australia which has a history stretching back over 100 years. In its modern form the ETU is a division of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union , although it is possibly the most well known of the three divisions...
's Victorian branch donated $325,000 to the Greens' Victorian campaign - the largest political donation ever directed to the Party up to that time.
In March 2011, division emerged within the Labor Party over Prime Minister Gillard's initial support for a Greens proposal to remove the commonwealth veto over Territory legislation. Joe de Bruyn
Joe de Bruyn
Joe de Bruyn , is an Australian trade union official. He is currently National Secretary and Treasurer of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association , a Vice-President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and a member of the National Executive of the Australian Labor Party .De...
, head of the Shop, Distributors and Allied Employees Association, said "Everybody in the federal parliament knows that this is simply a way of letting the territories into euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
or whatever else they want to do". Anti-euthanasia Labor senators called on Gillard to overturn Labor's support for the Greens plan and press reports said some Labor senators had complained that the issue had not been discussed in Cabinet. Prime Minister Gillard said that no caucus members had raised concerns with her over the influence of the Greens over Labor policy. Amidst suggestions that Labor was "too close" to the Greens, Prime Minister Gillard said in March: "The Greens are not a party of government and have no tradition of striking the balance required to deliver major reform".
The Coalition
Relations between the Greens and the Liberal-National Coalition are generally poor and the Greens usually preference the Labor Party ahead of the LiberalsLiberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
or Nationals
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
in Australian elections. The Coalition has however directed strategic preferences to the Greens over Labor in the past, as in the Division of Melbourne
Division of Melbourne
The Division of Melbourne is an Australian Electoral Division of Victoria. It is represented by Adam Bandt of the Australian Greens.Created at Federation in 1900 the division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election...
, where Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt
Adam Paul Bandt is an Australian politician and former industrial lawyer. Bandt was elected to the Australian House of Representatives in the 2010 Australian federal election for the Division of Melbourne...
was elected at the 2010 Australian Federal Election with Liberal Preferences. At the 2010 Victorian State Election, the Liberals put their preference for the Greens below the Labor Party.
During the 2004 federal election the Australian Greens were branded as "environmental extremists" and "fascists" by some members of the Liberal-National Coalition Government. John Anderson
John Anderson (Australian politician)
John Duncan Anderson AO is a former Australian politician. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Leader of the rural-based National Party of Australia from July 1999 to July 2005.-Early years:...
described the Greens as 'watermelons', being "green on the outside and red on the inside". John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
, while Australian Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, stated that "The Greens are not just about the environment. They have a whole lot of other very, very kooky policies in relation to things like drugs and all of that sort of stuff".
Former Federal Conservation Minister Eric Abetz
Eric Abetz
Eric Abetz , has been a Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate since February 1994, representing the state of Tasmania. He is currently Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. He was educated at the University of Tasmania and was a barrister and solicitor before entering politics...
criticised Australian Greens Senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle
Kerry Nettle
Kerry Michelle Nettle is a former Australian Senator and member of the Australian Greens in New South Wales. Elected at the 2001 federal election on a primary vote of 4.36 percent with One Nation and micro-party preferences, she failed to gain re-election at the 2007 federal election, despite an...
for spending most of their time on non-environmental issues.
In 2011, Liberal Shadow Cabinet frontbencher Kevin Andrews
Kevin Andrews (Australian politician)
Kevin James Andrews is an Australian politician and member of the Liberal Party of Australia. He is a member of the House of Representatives and was Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in the Howard Government, having previously been Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations from 7...
published a critique of the Greens policy agenda for Quadrant Magazine in which he wrote that the Greens' "objective involves a radical transformation of the culture that underpins Western civilisation" and that their agenda would threaten the "Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
/Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
synthesis that upholds the individual" as well as "the economic system that has resulted in the creation of wealth and prosperity for the most people in human history."
Other minor parties
In a similar vein to the Family FirstFamily First Party
The Family First Party is a socially conservative minor political party in Australia. It has two members in the South Australian Legislative Council...
television advertisements in 2004, Country Alliance
Country Alliance
The Country Alliance is a minor political party in the state of Victoria, Australia with a focus on "anti-green but pro-environment" policies.-Founding:...
also ran television advertisements in the lead up to the 2006 Victorian state election claiming that the Greens policies were "extreme".
The Greens have voiced opposition and even organised protests against the One Nation Party
One Nation Party
One Nation is a far-right and nationalist political party in Australia. It gained 22% of the vote translating to 11 of 89 seats in Queensland's unicameral legislative assembly at the 1998 state election and made major inroads into the vote of the existing parties...
(an anti-immigration, economically protectionist Party which enjoyed significant publicity in the 1998 Federal Election).
Greens Federal Leaders
- Shown by default in chronological order of leadership
Year Name Term in office Period Time in office 2005 Bob Brown Bob BrownRobert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...28 November 2005 – present Incumbent
Greens Federal Deputy Leaders
- Shown in chronological order of leadership
Year Name Notes 2008 Christine Milne Christine MilneChristine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...Incumbent
State and territory politics
The various Australian states and territoriesStates and territories of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a union of six states and various territories. The Australian mainland is made up of five states and three territories, with the sixth state of Tasmania being made up of islands. In addition there are six island territories, known as external territories, and a...
have different electoral systems
Electoral systems of the Australian states and territories
The legislatures of the Australian states and territories all follow the Westminster model described in the Australian electoral system. When the Australian colonies were granted responsible government in the nineteenth century, their constitutions provided for legislative assemblies elected by...
, some of which allow the Greens to gain representation. In New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia, the Greens hold seats in the Legislative Councils (upper houses), which are elected by proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
. The Greens also have four seats in the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly
Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly
The Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the Australian Capital Territory...
. In Queensland and the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
, their unicameral parliaments have made it difficult for the Greens to gain representation.
The Greens' most important area of state political activity has been in Tasmania, which is the only state where the lower house of the state parliament is elected by proportional representation. In Tasmania, the Greens have been represented in the House of Assembly
Tasmanian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council or Upper House...
from 1983, initially as Green Independents, and from the early 1990s as an established party. At the 1989 state election, the Liberal Party won 17 seats to Labor's 13 and the Greens' 5. The Greens agreed to support a minority Labor government in exchange for a number of policy commitments. In 1992 the agreement broke down over the issue of employment in the forestry industry, and the premier, Michael Field
Michael Field (Australian politician)
Michael Walter Field, AC was Tasmanian Labor leader from 1988 until his retirement in 1996, and was the Premier of Tasmania between 1989 and 1992...
, called an early state election which the Liberals won. Later, Labor and the Liberals combined to reduce the size of the Assembly from 35 to 25, thus raising the quota for election. At the 1998 election the Greens won only one seat, despite their vote only falling slightly, mainly due to the new electoral system. They recovered in the 2002 election when they won four seats. All four seats were retained in the 2006 election. After gaining 5 seats in the 2010 election
Tasmanian state election, 2010
The 2010 Tasmanian state election was held on 20 March 2010 to elect members to the Tasmanian House of Assembly. The 12-year incumbent Labor government, led by Premier of Tasmania David Bartlett, won a fourth consecutive term against the Liberal opposition, led by Will Hodgman, after Labor formed a...
, in April 2010 Nick McKim became the first Green Minister in Australia.
In the 2011 NSW State election
New South Wales state election, 2011
Elections to the 55th Parliament of New South Wales were held on Saturday, 26 March 2011. The 16-year incumbent Australian Labor Party government led by Premier Kristina Keneally was defeated in a landslide by the Liberal-National coalition opposition led by Barry O'Farrell.New South Wales has...
, the Greens claimed their first lower-house seat in the district of Balmain
Electoral district of Balmain
Balmain is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian state of New South Wales in Sydney's Inner West. It includes the suburbs and localities of Annandale, Balmain, Balmain East, Birchgrove, Forest Lodge, Glebe, Glebe Island, Haberfield, Leichhardt, Lilyfield, Rozelle,...
.
Former
- Senator Jo VallentineJo VallentineJosephine Vallentine is a peace activist and a former Australian Senator for Western Australia. Vallentine entered the Senate on 1 July 1985 after she had been elected as a member of the Nuclear Disarmament Party but she sat as an independent and then as a member of the Greens Western Australia...
, 1990–1992, Greens WA (originally elected in 1984 as Nuclear Disarmament PartyNuclear Disarmament PartyThe Nuclear Disarmament Party was a political party in Australia. The party was formed in 1984 and enjoyed considerable initial success.-Foundation, the 1984 election, and the split:...
) - Senator Christabel ChamaretteChristabel ChamaretteChristabel Marguerite Alain Chamarette, sometimes Christabel Bridge was a Greens Western Australia Senator for Western Australia from 1992 to 1996.-Personal life:...
, 1992–1996, Greens WA - Senator Dee MargettsDee MargettsDiane Elizabeth Margetts was an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Senate from 1993 to 1999 and a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 2001 to 2005, representing the Greens Western Australia....
, 1993–1999, Greens WA (defeated in 1998) - Michael OrganMichael OrganMichael Keith Organ is an Australian politician. He was an Australian Greens member of the Australian House of Representatives between 2002 and 2004, representing the Division of Cunningham, New South Wales...
MP for CunninghamDivision of CunninghamThe Division of Cunningham is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1949 and is named for Allan Cunningham, a 19th century explorer of New South Wales and Queensland. It is located on the coast of New South Wales between southern Sydney and Wollongong, and...
(NSW), 2002–2004 - Senator Kerry NettleKerry NettleKerry Michelle Nettle is a former Australian Senator and member of the Australian Greens in New South Wales. Elected at the 2001 federal election on a primary vote of 4.36 percent with One Nation and micro-party preferences, she failed to gain re-election at the 2007 federal election, despite an...
(NSW), 2002–2008 (elected in 2001, defeated in 2007)
Senators Vallentine, Chamarette and Margetts were all elected as Greens (WA)
Greens Western Australia
The Greens Western Australia is the state branch of the Australian Greens in Western Australia. The Greens WA was formed following the merger of the WA Greens and the Green Earth Alliance...
senators and served their terms before the Greens WA affiliated to the Australian Greens, meaning that they were not considered to be Australian Greens senators at the time.
Current
- John Kaye, 2007–present
- Cate FaehrmannCate FaehrmannCate Faehrmann is a Greens Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, environmental activist and former director of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW. She was also a board member of the progressive political organisation GetUp and the public interest environmental law firm, the...
, 2010–present - David ShoebridgeDavid ShoebridgeDavid Shoebridge is an Australian politician. He has been a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since September 2010, when he was appointed to replace outgoing MLC Sylvia Hale....
, 2010–present - Jan BarhamJan BarhamJan Barham is an Australian politician. She has been a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since the 2011 state election.As of 2011, Jan Barham's portfolio responsibilities within the Greens include: Family and Community Services, Aging, Disability Services, Aboriginal Affairs,...
, 2011–present - Jeremy BuckinghamJeremy BuckinghamJeremy Buckingham is an Australian politician. He has been a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since the 2011 state election....
, 2011–present - Jamie ParkerJamie Parker (politician)Jamie Thomas Parker MP, an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Balmain for the Greens since 2011...
, 2011–present (Member for BalmainElectoral district of BalmainBalmain is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian state of New South Wales in Sydney's Inner West. It includes the suburbs and localities of Annandale, Balmain, Balmain East, Birchgrove, Forest Lodge, Glebe, Glebe Island, Haberfield, Leichhardt, Lilyfield, Rozelle,...
)
Former
- Ian CohenIan CohenIan Cohen is an Australian politician. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1995 to 2011, for The Greens...
, 1995–2011 - Lee RhiannonLee RhiannonLee Rhiannon , an Australian politician, is a Senator for New South Wales, elected at the 2010 federal election, representing the Australian Greens...
, 1999–2010 (resigned to stand for Federal Senate) - Sylvia HaleSylvia HaleSylvia Phyllis Hale is a social justice, community and environmental campaigner, and a former Australian politician. She was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2003 to 2010 for the Greens....
, 2003–2010
Victoria
- Greg BarberGreg BarberGreg Barber is an Australian politician, and Greens member of the Victorian Legislative Council.-Early career:Barber obtained a Masters in Business Administration from the Melbourne Business School and was a successful investor....
, 2006–present - Colleen HartlandColleen HartlandColleen Hartland is an Australian politician, and a Greens member of the Victorian Legislative Council.-Early career:...
, 2006–present - Sue PennicuikSue PennicuikSusan Margaret "Sue" Pennicuik is an Australian politician, and Greens member of the Victorian Legislative Council.-Early career:...
, 2006–present
Current
- Kim BoothKim BoothKim Dion Booth is an Australian politician. He is a Tasmanian Greens member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly representing the Bass electorate....
, 2002–present - Nick McKim, 2002–present
- Tim MorrisTim MorrisTimothy Bryce Morris is an Australian politician. He has been a Tasmanian Greens member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly since the 2002 election, representing the Lyons electorate....
, 2002–present - Cassy O'ConnorCassy O'ConnorCassandra Stanwell O'Connor is an Australian politician, who has been a Tasmanian Greens member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly since 2008, representing the electorate of Division of Denison....
, 2008–present - Paul O'HalloranPaul O'HalloranPaul O'Halloran is an Australian politician. He has been a Tasmanian Greens member for Division of Braddon in the Tasmanian House of Assembly since 2010...
, 2010–present
Former
- Bob BrownBob BrownRobert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
, 1983–1993 (later stood for Federal Senate in 1996) - Gerry BatesGerry BatesGerard Maxwell "Gerry" Bates is an Australian environmental lawyer and academic, and former politician.-Early life and education:Bates was born in Lancashire, England in 1950...
, 1986–1995 - Lance Armstrong, 1989–1996
- Di HollisterDi HollisterDianne Lesley "Di" Hollister is a former Australian politician.Born in Devonport, Tasmania, she started her career as a teacher....
, 1989–1998 - Christine MilneChristine MilneChristine Anne Milne is an Australian Senator and deputy leader of the Australian Greens.Christine Milne first came to public attention for her role in opposing the building of the Wesley Vale pulp mill near Bass Strait in North Western Tasmania on the basis of its allegedly harmful environmental...
, 1989–1998 (later stood for Federal Senate in 2004) - Peg PuttPeg PuttMargaret Ann Putt is a former Australian politician and parliamentary leader of the Tasmanian Greens. She first entered the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1993 after Bob Brown resigned and votes in the Hobart electorate of Denison were recounted...
, 1993–2008 - Mike Foley, 1995–1998
Former
- Kris HannaKris HannaKris Hanna was an Australian politician, and member for Mitchell in the South Australian House of Assembly from 1997 until 2010. Originally elected as a Labor member, Hanna defected to the SA Greens in 2003 before becoming an independent in 2006....
, 2003–2006 (Member for MitchellElectoral district of Mitchell (South Australia)Mitchell is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the state of South Australia. It was first created in 1969 and is named after philosopher Sir William Mitchell...
, quit party to sit as independent)
Current
- Giz WatsonGiz Watson-Biography:Watson was born in 1957 in Eastleigh, a town in Hampshire, England, and emigrated to Western Australia in September 1967, travelling extensively through the state. She studied environmental science at Murdoch University and, after leaving university to do voluntary work for a couple of...
, 1997–present - Robin ChappleRobin ChappleRobin Chapple is a Greens politician serving in the Western Australian Legislative Council. From 2001 to 2005 Chapple represented the Mining and Pastoral Region...
, 2001–2005, 2009–present - Lynn MacLarenLynn MacLarenLynn Ellen MacLaren is an Australian politician.On 15 February 2005, she was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Council as a Greens WA member for South Metropolitan Region, following Jim Scott's resignation to contest the lower house seat of Fremantle.MacLaren was defeated at the 2005...
, 2005, 2009–present - Alison XamonAlison Xamon-Early life:Xamon was born in Mundaring and later moved to eastern metropolitan Perth.Xamon studied law at Murdoch University and served as Education Vice President and then Guild President for the Murdoch University Student Guild....
, 2009–present
Former
- Jim Scott, 1993–2005
- Chrissy SharpChrissy Sharp-Early life:Born in London, Sharp completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours at the University of Sheffield, and a Master of Arts at the University of Kent...
, 1997–2005 - Dee MargettsDee MargettsDiane Elizabeth Margetts was an Australian politician. She was a member of the Australian Senate from 1993 to 1999 and a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 2001 to 2005, representing the Greens Western Australia....
, 2001–2005 - Paul LlewellynPaul LlewellynPaul Llewellyn is an Australian politician. Llewellyn graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Murdoch University in 1977, and a Masters in Natural Resource Management from the UWA school of Agricultural and Resource Economics in 1984. He has worked as an environmental planning and...
, 2005–2009 - Adele CarlesAdele CarlesAdele Simone Carles is an Australian politician. She has been a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since May 2009, representing the electorate of Fremantle. Initially elected as a Greens WA member, she resigned from the party on 6 May 2010 to sit as an independent...
, 2009–2010 (Member for FremantleElectoral district of FremantleFremantle is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Western Australia.The district is located in the inner south-west of Perth, centring on the port of Fremantle....
, quit the party on 6 May 2010 to sit as independent)
QueenslandQueensland GreensThe Queensland Greens is a Green party in the Australian state of Queensland, and a member of the federation of the Australian Greens. The party was founded in November 1991 and made its electoral debut at the 1993 federal election...
- Ronan LeeRonan LeeRonan Lee is an Irish-Australian political advisor and former Greens member of the Queensland State Parliament. Lee represented the seat of Indooroopilly since he was first elected as an Australian Labor Party member in 2001. Lee joined the Queensland Greens in 2008 citing the Bligh Government's...
, 2008–09 (Member for IndooroopillyElectoral district of IndooroopillyThe district of Indooroopilly is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland.The district is based in the western suburbs of Brisbane, and straddles both sides of the Brisbane River. It is named for the suburb of Indooroopilly and also includes the...
)
Current
- Amanda BresnanAmanda BresnanAmanda Bresnan is an Australian politician and a member of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly. Bresnan was elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly representing the electorate of Brindabella for the ACT Greens at the 2008 election-Early life and education:Amanda Bresnan was...
, 2008–present - Meredith HunterMeredith Hunter (Australian politician)Meredith Hunter , Australian politician, is a member of the multi-member unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the electorate of Ginninderra for the ACT Greens since 2008...
, 2008–present - Caroline Le CouteurCaroline Le CouteurCaroline Le Couteur , an Australian politician, was elected to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the electorate of Molonglo for the ACT Greens at the 2008 election- Life before election :...
, 2008–present - Shane RattenburyShane RattenburyShane Rattenbury , Australian politician and Speaker of the ACT Legislative Assembly, is a member of the multi-member unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the electorate of Molonglo for the ACT Greens since 2008...
, 2008–present
Former
- Lucy HorodnyLucy HorodnyLucy Alesia Horodny is an Australian politician and environmentalist.Horodny, who is of Ukrainian descent, first made her name as an activist for the Wilderness Society. She made a move into politics in 1995, when she ran as a Greens candidate for the Australian Capital Territory Legislative...
, 1995–1998 - Kerrie TuckerKerrie TuckerKerrie Robyn Tucker , former Australian politician, environmental and human rights activist, was a member of the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly representing the multi-member electorate of Molonglo for the ACT Greens between 1995 and 2001...
, 1995–2004 - Deb FoskeyDeb FoskeyDeb Foskey is a former Australian politician with the ACT Greens. She was elected to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly in the 2004 election for the electorate of Molonglo, in which she served until her retirement in 2008.-Early life:Foskey was born in rural East Gippsland,...
, 2004–2008
Other notable members
- Andrew BartlettAndrew BartlettAndrew John Julian Bartlett is an Australian politician. He was formerly an Australian Democrats member of the Australian Senate from 1997 to 2008, representing the state of Queensland. He was the leader of the Democrats from 2002 to 2004, and deputy leader from 2004 to 2008.-Early life and...
, former DemocratsAustralian DemocratsThe Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...
Senator for Queensland - Brian WaltersBrian WaltersBrian Walters SC is a prominent Melbourne barrister and human rights advocate. Brian was the Australian Greens candidate for the state seat of Melbourne in the 2010 Victorian state election.-Early career:...
SC, prominent Human Rights lawyer and candidate for the state seat of Melbourne at the 2010 Victorian Election - Chris HarrisChris Harris (New South Wales politician)Christopher David Harris is a Greens councillor on the City of Sydney Council. Cr Harris has commerce and law degrees from the University of New South Wales. Cr Harris was elected in 2004 and was the Greens first nominee for Lord Mayor....
, Greens Councillor for the City of SydneyCity of SydneyThe City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
. - Clive HamiltonClive HamiltonClive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is the Founder and former Executive Director of the The...
, Greens candidate for the Higgins by-election, 2009Higgins by-election, 2009A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Higgins on 5 December 2009. This was triggered as a result of the resignation of former Treasurer and former Liberal Party deputy leader Peter Costello... - Jean JenkinsJean JenkinsJean Alice Jenkins is an Australian educator in languages and served as an Australian Democrats senator for Western Australia from 1987 to 1990. She is also noted as an originator in Western Australia of NAATI-accredited level 2 courses in translation and interpreting, and as a campaigner for...
, former DemocratsAustralian DemocratsThe Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...
Senator for Western Australia - Janet PowellJanet PowellJanet Frances Powell in Nhill, Victoria, is an Australian politician.She was appointed a senator for Victoria, representing the Australian Democrats, upon the resignation of the party's founder, Don Chipp, in 1986. She was elected the following year. She became the third leader of the party, from...
, former DemocratsAustralian DemocratsThe Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...
Senator for Victoria - Kathleen MaltzahnKathleen MaltzahnKathleen Maltzahn is an author, women’s rights and anti-trafficking campaigner. She is a former councillor for the City of Yarra and was the Greens candidate for the state seat of Richmond in the 2010 Victorian state election....
, former Greens Councillor of the City of YarraCity of YarraThe City of Yarra is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia, located in the inner eastern and northern suburbs of Melbourne. It has an area of 19.5 square kilometres, and at the 2006 census it had a population of 69,330...
and candidate for the seat of Richmond at the 2010 Victorian Election - Peter SingerPeter SingerPeter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
, Greens candidate for the Kooyong by-election, 1994Kooyong by-election, 1994The 1994 Kooyong by-election was held in the Australian electorate of Kooyong in Victoria on 19 November 1994. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of the sitting member, the Liberal Party of Australia's Andrew Peacock on 16 August 1994...