The new hard-left faction inside the Greens is holding a meeting on “the future of the left” in the party as factional turmoil continues to plague the organisation.
Left Renewal, whose members are openly antagonistic towards the federal leader, Richard Di Natale, will hold the “open discussion” in Sydney’s Redfern town hall on 25 January.
A mixture of Greens members and members of explicit socialist parties have sent RSVPs, including Hall Greenland, a past convenor of the NSW Greens and 2013 candidate for Grayndler, Astrid O’Neill, a close ally of Senator Lee Rhiannon and member of the NSW Greens committee of management, Rachel Evans, a prominent member of Socialist Alliance, and Tom Raue, a staffer to the NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge.
Bruce Knobloch, a NSW Greens delegate to the Australian Greens national council, has indicated interest in the meeting.
A Facebook post publicising the event says topics they hope to discuss include:
- Why should anti-authoritarian leftists be involved in parliamentary politics?
- Class politics of the Greens
- What do leftwing Greens look like, and what have the Greens failed to do so far?
- The Greens as a “party of protest” and/or a “party of government”
- Accountability and binding of Greens MPs
Left Renewal’s stated aim is to bind its members in a formal faction system, which is something the Greens have publicly rejected in the past. It also wants to bring about the end of capitalism.
Its manifesto says bureaucracy can function as a “mediator” to suppress radical change, so it supports rank-and-file control of the Greens. “Change can only come from below, not from bureaucratic declaration and mediation,” the manifesto says.
The planned meeting comes after Geoff Ash, a registered officer of the NSW Greens and long-term partner of Rhiannon, publicly attacked the federal party and defended Left Renewal last month.
He warned that the emergence of Left Renewal may provide a “wake-up call” for the party, particularly its “dominant right grouping” that he says has vilified some left NSW figures.
Rhiannon has traditionally drawn support from the left of the party. Ash says he is not a member of the faction.
“It is not at all surprising that Left Renewal has formed and I think there are at least several key reasons for it,” Ash wrote last month.
“Not only is our suite of economic justice policies underdeveloped, some existing positions are soft (eg the Australian Greens axing a moderate policy of inheritance tax on wealthy estates in 2012; continued government funding of private schools, accepting corporate donations).”
Di Natale has said if members of Left Renewal are unhappy with Greens policies they should “consider finding a new political home”.
Last month Knobloch put out a call on Facebook for more “democratic lefties” to join the Greens after the loss of the left’s candidates in New South Wales preselections, where Dawn Walker and the former military intelligence officer and Lock the Gate co-founder Justin Field were chosen as replacements for NSW upper-house positions.
“The Greens NSW have been in the media a lot this week, with a preselection mired in controversy and a tight count … and with a Left Renewal ‘faction’ declaring itself against capitalism, to the ire of present and past federal parliamentary leaders,” Knobloch wrote.
“I encourage more democratic lefties to join and help drive our future. No one else can do it.”
