History of the Australian Greens
[2] 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 House of Assembly as an Australian Democrat.
[5] The title "The Greens" had been first registered in Sydney in the 1980s by what The Monthly Magazine described as "a band of inner-city radicals committed to resident action, nuclear disarmament and urban environmental causes, such as stopping expressways and preserving parklands".
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".
[12] In Tasmania, Christine Milne only narrowly gained her Senate seat before a Family First candidate, despite obtaining almost the full required quota of primary votes.
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".
[16] 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 federal election.
[23][24] Other Greens Senate candidates were Larissa Waters (Qld), Richard Di Natale (Vic), Scott Ludlam (WA), Sarah Hanson-Young (SA) and Kerrie Tucker (ACT).
In the 2008 Australian Capital Territory election, conducted under the Hare-Clark system of proportional representation, the Greens doubled their vote to around 15%, going from one to four seats in the 17-member unicameral parliament, giving them the balance of power.
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.
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".
Frank Brennan responded in an essay by saying that while some Greens might be anti-Christian, others like Lin Hatfield Dodds "have given distinguished public service in their churches for decades."
[46] On 24 February 2011, 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[47] The carbon price 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.
[50] The view of Deputy leader Christine Milne, that the Greens "want to make sure that [they] protect civilians wherever [they] can... to ensur[e] that we will save lives...", is commensurate with this position.
[1] Soon after, however, their motion was backed by the Marrickville Council – resulting in a "boycott [against] all goods made in Israel and any sporting, academic, government or cultural exchanges".
[53] Local Labor MP Anthony Albanese called the move "misguided", sparking media interest and inciting anger among many Jewish Australians.
"[56] 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 abattoirs.
[68] In a 19 February address to the National Press Club in Canberra, Christine Milne announced that the Federal Greens alliance with the Labor Party was "effectively over".
Nevertheless, Milne promised to continue to guarantee confidence and supply to the Labor government on the floor of Parliament, so as not to "advance the interests" of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
[80] In September 2013, it was reported that six senior Greens' staffers had resigned including Chief of Staff, Ben Oquist, who claimed there were, "fundamental differences of opinion on strategy".
[71] At the 2014 Western Australian Senate election the Greens won in excess of a quota with the primary vote increasing from 9.5 to 15.6 percent, re-electing Scott Ludlam.
The result was seen as disappointing, and caused internal divisions to flare up, with former Federal Leader Bob Brown calling upon Senator Lee Rhiannon to resign, citing the "need for renewal".
The faction's existence is supported by Senator Lee Rhiannon and State MP David Shoebridge, however party leader Richard Di Natale has publicly criticised the grouping saying its manifesto was "ridiculous" and its members should consider leaving the Greens.
Subsequently, Adam Bandt and Rachel Siewert were named as temporary co-deputy leaders until the arrival of Ludlam and Waters' replacements in Canberra.
[94] Faruqi had a 25-year career working as a professional engineer and academic, and had previously served in the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2013 to 2018, before assuming her new position in the Federal Parliament.
[103] Prominent barrister Julian Burnside, who stood for Kooyong, came close to unseating treasurer and deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg, falling short by 5.7% in the two-party preferred vote.
[108] Di Natale attributed this rise in membership as "clearly a response to the election", continuing that, "For a lot of people the way to respond to what was for many of them a devastating result, was to actually take some action.
Several Liberal-National MPs and media outlets pushed a conspiracy started by Barnaby Joyce blaming the party for contributing to the fires, falsely claiming that the Greens' policies had prevented hazard reduction and back-burning.
[109] Furthermore, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack described those concerned about the link between climate change and bushfires "raving inner-city lunatics".
[111] According to Greg Mullins, former Fire and Rescue Commissioner, "Blaming 'greenies' for stopping these important measures is a familiar, populist, but basically untrue claim.
