The leader the Greens desperately need JAMES NORMANOctober 29, 2009 -
6:39AM
In the past year, the Greens have experienced one of their most
politically frustrating and ineffectual periods in the party's short
history.

Never before has there been such a need for a progressive,
environmentally serious political party to influence the Federal
Parliament, but time and time again, the Greens have been outflanked by
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his determination that he will not be
seen to deal directly with greenies.

Throughout the Howard years, particularly around the Iraq War and
throughout the Tampa affair, the Greens seemed to have secured their
place as the third force in Australian politics. But how times have
changed.

The memory of John Howard siding with the Tasmanian forest workers in
Hobart in 2004 and going on to win that election has been branded into
Rudd's mind. The Prime Minister is too politically astute to make
the mistake Latham made as party leader – to allow the ALP to be
seen as siding with the Greens over the interests of everyday working
Australians.

But fast forward to 2009 and we have a situation where a vast majority
of the electorate is asking in increasingly shrill tones that Australia
take more ambitious and swifter action on climate change. Yet by virtue
of Rudd striking the balance between ambitious rhetoric but weak
tangible climate policy, the Greens have been effectively marginalised
and silenced by refusing to support the Rudd Government's climate
pollution reduction scheme legislation.

The Greens simply don't have the numbers in the Senate to be able
to force the government's hand on climate policy at this time. They
are politically impotent and gutted. So the Greens are reduced to
languishing in Canberra issuing daily press releases that fail to rate
a mention in the national debate.

Greens climate change leader Christine Milne is undoubtedly as
well-informed and articulate as anyone in the Australian climate
debate. Yet she has thus far been unable to garner anything like the
media profile required to be an effective agent of change in the tense
political circus that has played out around climate change policy in
Australia.

She has simply not cut through to mainstream Australia or been able to
translate the Greens thorough and science-based climate policies to the
broad Australian voting public.

The is where Clive Hamilton could step in. Although his chances of
winning Higgins (Peter Costello's former seat) must be counted as
narrow, his entry into national politics in highly significant.

Like Peter Singer before him (who co-wrote the original Greens
Manifesto with Bob Brown in the '80s), Clive Hamilton brings with
him a deeply rooted intellectual capacity and moral authority that the
Greens are so desperately needing at this time.

Given Bob Brown, the stalwart of the party, is turning 65 this
December; it is no secret that the Greens need to prepare for the likely
exit of Brown from political scene perhaps as soon as the next federal
election.

If the ``doctors wives'' phenomenon has any legitimacy as a
way to bring about upsets in byelections, the seat of Higgins is surely
plum acreage for the Greens.

For the party to win a House of Representatives seat with a candidate
of the intellectual vigor and public profile of Hamilton would
significantly shift the political paradigm at a time when the public
are growing weary of Rudd's all-huff-but-no-puff approach to the
climate change debate in Australia.

The voters in Higgins would be doing the Australian parliament and
voters a great service by putting a candidate like Hamilton into office
at this time. In his public writing, Hamilton recently advocated
non-violent direct action at coal-fired power stations as an effective
response to slow government action on climate.

If there was ever a time for a Greens candidate who could bring
intellectual clarity and decisive leadership to the climate change
debate in the Australian parliament, now is the time. And Clive
Hamilton is the right man to do it.

James Norman is a Melbourne writer and author of the book Bob Brown
Gentle Revolutionary, published by Allen & Unwin.




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From Crikey of 28th October, 2009...





Hamilton: Why I am standing for the Greens in Higgins

TUESDAY 27 OCTOBER 2008

Crikey regular Clive Hamilton explains why he is running in the Higgins
by-election as a candidate for the Greens (we have also offered space
to the Liberal candidate, Kelly O'Dwyer):

I decided to become the Greens candidate for the Higgins by-election
because I am scared. With the climate scientists ringing the alarm
bells at a deafening volume, and the crucial Copenhagen climate
conference in December, it is time for us to act and act decisively on
global warming.

Those of us willing to heed the alarm bells and understand what is at
stake, watch in dismay as the government and the opposition in federal
Parliament squabble over who can do less to tackle this fearsome threat
to our future.

Adelaide's water has dried up; the Great Barrier Reef can no longer
be salvaged; the February inferno killed 200 Australians after a fierce
heat-wave.

What will it take for our leaders to wake up? There is nothing more
important. The climate scientists say we have at most a few years to
get it right. By 2020 it will be too late. Allowing the coal industry
to expand is criminally irresponsible.

Yet, in the two main parties the choice is between the weak and the
pathetic. We desperately need the leadership that the main parties seem
incapable of giving, and it is only the Greens that can provide it.

So we have reached a political turning point. We Australians must
decided whether we are going to be world leaders or world laggards;
whether we are going to listen to the climate scientists and take
urgent action, or listen instead to the fossil fuel lobbyists and
climate sceptics whose voices currently dominate in Canberra.

I can write books and articles, and I can speak out. But if I can do
more, then I am obliged to do so, otherwise I will not be able to look
my children in the eye.

I am not from Higgins, but I have been selected by the local Greens to
be their candidate. In this moment of our history, we are asking the
voters of Higgins to think of themselves not as residents of Prahran or
Glen Iris or Camberwell or Malvern; we are asking them to think of
themselves as Australians.

We are asking the voters of Higgins to send an unambiguous message to
the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. And that message is this:
"We are seriously worried about the changing climate that
jeopardises our future and that of our children. Stop pretending to
take warming seriously. Listen to the warnings of the scientists and
take decisive action, now."

Asylum seekers ...

Although for me the dominant issue is climate change, it is not the
only one. I expect that the voters of Higgins are uncomfortable with
the escalating rhetoric over asylum seekers.

The Sri Lankan asylum seekers are reluctant refugees. They do not want
to leave their homeland; they are fleeing persecution. In their
situation, we would do the same.

We have to decide whether we are a nation that accepts our legal and
humanitarian obligations to the persecuted, or a nation of fearful
people who would turn away those asking for our help.

Through their incontinent language, Prime Minister Rudd and Opposition
leader Turnbull have stirred the ghost of Pauline Hansen, who now
stalks the corridors of Parliament House.

There are many on the back benches of both parties who must be appalled
by this turn of events, yet only the Greens have taken a principled
position.

With only a cigarette paper separating the main parties on all of the
important issues, they must resort to spin to create the impression of
difference. We need an alternative because the system is rotten.

Now it imperils our very future. Global events have converged and it is
now or never to get climate policy right.

The political system has failed. It has responded to the climate crisis
with a mixture of denial, spin and capitulation to commercial
interests. The answer is not to abandon democracy, but to reclaim and
reinvigorate it. And that is why I am running for the Greens in
Higgins.




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