Environment

STALINIST: Greens Higgins candidate selected by unelected six-person panel

The Australian Greens political party suspended their normal preselection procedures for a secretive panel of six who chose their controversial Higgins candidate Clive Hamilton according to a well-regarded political analyst Tim Andrews.

His investigations into the scandal have revealed:

[The preselection panel comprised] a mere 6 members. Only two of them were locals. Again, six people, of whom only two were local. The panel included [Senator Bob] Brown devotee Sue Plowright (Head Office State Convenor for the Greens) & Sue Pennicuik, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council…

Andrews claims that local Greens political party members are less than impressed, saying they had no idea of Hamilton’s views on issues like internet censorship.

He explains that the secret panel interviewed the two candidates, with Hamilton chatting away with them for one hour and a quarter. He found out the following day he’d unsurprisingly got the nod.

Andrews suspects the office of Greens political party leader Bob Brown was trying to coerce a result.

ONE-MAN RULE IN THE GREENS PARTY
A Liberal insider familiar with the matter has told VEXNEWS there are fewer than one hundred members of the party in Higgins and that the normal postal vote preselection process could have been fast-tracked to ten days to ensure they had sufficient time for a candidate but also maintained their commitment to letting members decide. They told VEXNEWS on strict condition of anonymity:

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of this happening in the Greens. The urgency of the by-election probably demanded it but I suspect it had more to do with a desire to ensure Clive Hamilton was the candidate no matter what and that’s not right. But equally I wouldn’t presume he wouldn’t have been chosen and I wouldn’t presume his views are as controversial in the Greens as you say they are.”

“Their process certainly doesn’t compare favourably with the grass-roots membership contest that Kelly O’Dwyer won against Andrew Abercrombie. It’s funny they are so sanctimonious yet guilty of exactly the same rorts they are quick to accuse the major parties of doing.”

HYPROCRITE
We won’t rehash Hamilton’s extremist views on a variety of issues, including his recent pronouncement that climate change “deniers” are worse than Holocaust deniers but we recall his words on the democratic process and wonder just how the undemocratically imposed candidate reconciles his activities with his rhetoric [pdf]:

The Howard Government exercises unprecedented power in this country. It is unaffected by many of the checks and balances that have traditionally constrained executive power and has shown itself willing to use its power ruthlessly. We desperately need those checks and balances to be strengthened…

Hamilton of course doesn’t want the Greens party leader Bob Brown’s executive power checked. It got him what he wanted. And in the end that’s a particularly troubling aspect of their party, they pretend to be what they are not, they are not a principle-driven party, they are in the business of getting votes. And practitioners within it are not the starry-eyed idealists they want us to think they are. They are number-crunchers, schemers and manipulators, to the same if not greater extent than can be found in other parties.

If the Greens party was truly honest and transparent with its voters about its real nature and its real agenda (an ultra-left one cloaked in environmental rhetoric) it would have fewer votes but a lot more credibility and a lot more chance of surviving the retirement of their “face” Bob Brown. If they don’t, their exposure as a fraud is inevitable and they will face the same fate as the all but defunct Australian Democrats.

© 2009 VEXNEWS 2010©.