Queensland_Greens

Queensland Greens

Queensland Greens

Political party in Australia


The Queensland Greens is a Green party in Queensland, Australia, and a state member of the Australian Greens. The party is currently represented in all three levels of government, by Larissa Waters and Penny Allman-Payne in the federal Senate; Stephen Bates, Max Chandler-Mather, and Elizabeth Watson-Brown in the House of Representatives; Michael Berkman and Amy MacMahon in the state Legislative Assembly; and Trina Massey and Seal Chong Wah in Brisbane City Council.

Quick Facts Convenor, Founded ...

History

The Greens were first founded in Queensland as the Brisbane Green Party in 1984, contesting four wards and for mayor in the 1985 Brisbane City Council elections. Following the collapse of the Brisbane Greens in 1986, the party began to re-form as the Queensland Greens under a national initiative, today's Australian Greens.[4] The Queensland Greens were officially founded as a political party on 22 September 1991 as part of the national Greens alliance.[5]

Federal Parliament

Queensland Greens co-founder Drew Hutton ran in the 1993, 1998 and 2004 federal elections as the party's lead Senate candidate.[6] In 2004 the party received 5.4 per cent of the Senate vote, with Hutton narrowly losing the race for the final two Senate seats to Coalition candidates Barnaby Joyce and Russell Trood.[7] This gave the Howard government a Senate majority and control of both parliamentary houses.

The party's Senate vote continued to grow in subsequent elections, reaching a high-water mark of 12.76 per cent at the 2010 federal election, which resulted in Larissa Waters becoming the first Greens representative elected to office in Queensland. Waters was re-elected to a three-year term in the 2016 election, but resigned in 2017 after discovering she held dual Canadian citizenship. The High Court ruled that her election was therefore invalid, and appointed Andrew Bartlett, convenor of the Queensland Greens and former leader of the Australian Democrats, as her successor in the Senate.[8] A year later, Bartlett resigned his Senate seat to run for the lower house seat of Brisbane, allowing Waters to return as a Senator. While Waters was re-elected to the Senate in the 2019 election,[9] Bartlett was unsuccessful in Brisbane, despite gaining a 3 per cent swing towards him.[10]

The 2022 election was a major success for the Queensland Greens, as they went from having no federal lower house representatives to three, with Max Chandler-Mather winning in Griffith,[11] Elizabeth Watson-Brown in Ryan,[12] and Stephen Bates in Brisbane.[13] In addition, Waters was joined by a second Queensland Greens Senator, Penny Allman-Payne. This string of victories was dubbed a "Greenslide" by federal party leader Adam Bandt,[14] while some media commentators nicknamed the state "Greensland" in their coverage of the results.[15][16]

Queensland Parliament

The Queensland Greens have received steadily increasing support in state elections, increasing their vote from 2.5 per cent at the 2001 election to 9 per cent in the 2020 election.[17]

The party gained its first state parliamentary representative in 2008 when the Member for Indooroopilly, Ronan Lee, defected to the Greens from the Labor Party. Lee ascribed his move to the Greens to his dissatisfaction with the Bligh government's environmental policies.[18] Responding to Lee's change of party, Labor's Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Andrew McNamara rejected his claims, calling the Bligh government "the greenest government that this state has ever had".[19] Australian Greens leader Bob Brown praised Lee's decision saying, "Ronan Lee's move will give the Queensland Parliament a strong and intelligent Greens advocate to lead debate on the best social and economic way forward in an age of environmental and economic crisis... Now there will be a responsible voice free to challenge those old Labor and National-Liberal policies which, for example threaten the death of the Great Barrier Reef and tens of thousands of jobs dependent on it within a generation".[20] However, Lee lost his seat to LNP candidate Scott Emerson at the 2009 election.[21]

In the 2017 state election, the Queensland Greens achieved their first ever state electoral victory. Following the abolition of the seats of Mt Coot-tha and Indooroopilly, environmental lawyer Michael Berkman narrowly won the newly-formed seat of Maiwar from the shadow treasurer Scott Emerson, a former cabinet member in the Newman government, who had defeated Ronan Lee in Indooroopilly eight years earlier.[22]

In the 2020 state election, the Greens gained an additional seat in parliament, bringing their total to two. While Berkman retained his seat of Maiwar, Amy MacMahon won the seat of South Brisbane from Labor's former deputy premier Jackie Trad. The Greens also had significant success in Cooper, with candidate Katinka Winston-Allom receiving 30 per cent of first preference votes, but losing to Labor's Jonty Bush after preferences were allocated.[23]

Local government

Greens candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan (then known as Sri) was elected to represent The Gabba Ward in Brisbane City Council at the March 2016 local government elections. He achieved a primary vote of 31.72%, a positive swing of approximately 13.8%. Sriranganathan finished in second place behind LNP candidate Sean Jacobs, but was able to win on mostly Labor preferences.[24] Sriranganathan is the first Greens candidate to win a seat in local government anywhere in Queensland.[25]

At the 2020 Brisbane City Council election, the Greens were the only party to have a swing in their favour, at 3.3%. Jonathan Sriranganathan retained his ward with a 12.4% swing in primary vote and an overall two-party preferred vote of 65.5%. The Greens additionally entered the two-party preferred vote in 4 other wards where the party came close to unseating the Liberal candidates, including Central (45.2%), Paddington (49.6%), Pullenvale (40.6%) and Walter Taylor (47.7%). 21 out of the 26 wards registered swings towards the Greens.[26]

Queensland Young Greens

Queensland Young Greens logo

The Queensland Young Greens are the youth wing of the Queensland Greens and is open to all members under the age of 31 across the state of Queensland.[27] The Young Greens' main focus is on election campaigning, skills training, policy development, and hosting a number of different social events.[28] The youth wing maintains a grassroots approach in organising members.[29] The youth wing also shares the same policies as the Queensland Greens based around the four guiding principles of non-violence, social justice, grass-roots democracy and ecological sustainability.[30][31]

Electoral history

Queensland

More information Election, Legislative Assembly of Queensland ...

Federal

More information Election, Votes ...

Parliamentarians

Federal Parliament

House of Representatives

Current

Senate

Current
Former

State Parliament

Current

Former

  1. Lee sat from 2001 to 2008 as a Labor Party MP before defecting to the Greens.

Councillors

Brisbane City Council

Current

Former


References

  1. "QLD Office Bearers and Party Contacts". Queensland Greens. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  2. Raue, Tom (29 May 2018). "Is there a future for the left in the Greens?". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  3. McLoughlin, Liam. "Progressive Populism Has Transformed Australia Before — It Could Do It Again". Jacobin Magazine. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  4. "Queensland Greens — About Us". Greens.org.au. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  5. Ludlow, Mark (12 October 2004). "Senate favourite heads for high ground". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  6. "2004 Federal Election. Senate - QLD Results". ABC News (Australia). Archived from the original on 4 June 2022. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  7. , Brisbane, QLD - Tally Room, Australian Electoral Commission.
  8. {{Cite news |date=2022-05-21 |title='Planet Greensland': Greens win in Ryan shakes up Queensland's electoral map |language=en-AU |work=[[ABC News {Australia)]] |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-21/qld-federal-election-greens-brisbane-ryan-griffith/101088054 |access-date=2022-08-03}}
  9. Atfield, Cameron (27 May 2022). "'Greensland' shocked the nation, but it was a long time coming". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  10. Marszalek, Jessica (7 October 2008). "Greens MP says he's forcing govt change". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  11. "Green Lee's defection 'self-serving'". ABC News. 6 October 2008. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  12. "Ronan Lee is Queensland's first Greens MP". greensmps.org.au. 5 October 2008. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  13. "Greens claim first ever seat win at a Queensland election citing nationwide swing". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 7 December 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  14. McKenna, Kate; Dasey, Jason (2 November 2020). "Queensland election results reveal the winners and losers in 2020". ABC News. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  15. "Greens win first Queensland local government seat". abc.net.au. 23 March 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
  16. "Queensland Greens". Qld.greens.org.au. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
  17. "Young Greens Australia". Greens.org.au. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
  18. "Just Rights QLD". Justrightqld.org. Archived from the original on 22 May 2010. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
  19. "Queensland Greens Policies". Retrieved 23 April 2011.
  20. "Australian Politics". Australianpolitics.com. Retrieved 23 April 2011.



Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Queensland_Greens, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.