Richard Di Natale’s former chief of staff has launched legal action against the New South Wales Greens in a dramatic escalation of factional infighting over her bid to secure a seat in state parliament.
Cate Faehrmann, who left Di Natale’s office last week, is vying to take the soon-to-be-vacant seat of Mehreen Faruqi in the NSW legislative council.
But Faehrmann, who until recently was a Victorian Green, is being barred from contention, due to rules restricting the immediate transfer of individual members between states.
Faehrmann has been a member of the Victorian Greens since mid-2015, although she previously held a seat in NSW parliament between September 2010 and June 2013, and joined Greens NSW in January 2004.
The NSW party has decided that, because she is transferring from the Victorian party, she must serve a three-month period as a provisional member, starting at 5 February this year. The NSW Greens constitution bars provisional members from standing for preselection.
The rules effectively make it impossible for her to contest the preselection, which has nomination cut-off date of 10 April.
Faehrmann sought legal advice, which said the provisional period did not apply to her. She sent the legal advice to the NSW Greens but the position did not change.
This week, Faehrmann launched action in the NSW supreme court, seeking an urgent hearing to decide on her eligibility.
“I would have much preferred that this had been resolved without the need to go to court,” Faehrmann told Guardian Australia. “It’s an unnecessary distraction at a time when we should be focusing 100% of our efforts on the upcoming federal and state elections.”
The move is a continuation of infighting within the Greens, which has included highly public and damaging stoushes between the federal Greens senator Lee Rhiannon and the NSW upper house MP Jeremy Buckingham. Rhiannon recently backed a complaint designed to oust Buckingham from the party over criticism of her on the ABC’s Four Corners but the move was eventually thwarted.
Tensions also arose when Rhiannon lost the top spot on the Greens NSW Senate ticket to Faruqi. Rhiannon lost a preselection battle with Faruqi after a string of Greens, including Di Natale, Nick McKim and the former leaders Christine Milne and Bob Brown, criticised her.
Faehrmann’s legal advice says transferring members are entitled to full membership. It says the NSW rules on three-month provisional members only apply to new members from the date they first pay their fees.
But it understood that the NSW party believes she should be subject to the same provisional period that has been applied to other transferring members.
The issue is understood to have been debated by the state delegates council last month, but there was no support for a proposal to allow transferring members to by-pass the provisional period.
It is understood that there was also no support for an amendment stating that transferring members not be allowed to bypass the period.
A proposal to get legal advice on the matter was also not supported.
Last week, however, the Lower North Shore Greens agreed that Faehrmann be named as a full member of their local group.
It told Faehrmann: “The group holds the view that: ‘After decades of service to our party we believe it unreasonable for her to be denied full membership. To do so risks bringing further unwanted negative publicity to the Greens NSW.’”
