The faction war that cost Christine Milne her job

Without any warning, Bob Brown announced at the begging of April 2012 his resignation as Greens leader. In very similar way and without any warning, Christine Milne tendered her resignation as Greens leader. In addition to the total secrecy and lack of any warning, both leaders resigned months before Federal election.

Then the Greens officials want you to think that this is normal procedure within normal mainstream political party.

What the Greens officials are keen to hide from everyone, including the party ordinary members, is the factional war that was brewing for the last 2 decades inside the party.

Before exploring the reality of what happened today, I need to dissect the reality of power balance inside the Greens party.

The Greens party was established more than 40 years ago by socially conservative environmentalists who cared principally about the attack on our ecological system. The first generation of Greens activists and later on politicians were pure environmentalists who did not care for one second about any of the social-justice issues.

These environmentalists could not achieve much in term of convincing voters to vote for them. Until 2000, the support for the Greens party was less than 2.5% nationally. Without the high support in Tasmania and WA, this popularity indeed was less than 1.5%.

The Greens membership changed slightly after 2 major national and international events:
1- The collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw large numbers of Australian communists lost their platform and direction. They thought that the Greens party is the best for them to prolong their political activities and ambitions for political careers. This is where Lee Rhiannon, Sylvia Hale and others came from.
2- The start of collapse of the Australian Democrats after their hold of “balance of power” during Howard conservative government. Again, the Greens party was the only established party during this period, so it attracted the majority of members and supporters of the Democrats.
3- In addition to the above, the Labor continued in very aggressive way to creep towards the right which convinced many progressive people to join and vote for the Greens, after they lost any hope from Labor.

So the Greens membership comprised mesh-mash of all kind of people feeling hopelessness: hopelessness after the collapse of Soviet Union, hopelessness of the Democrats, hopelessness from Labor and new migrants who arrived to this country and faced by hopeless political system.

It is very safe to claim that the Greens party flourished on hopelessness. Apart from environmentalists, no Greens party member joined or voted for the Greens because they genuinely believe in the Greens platform or genuinity.

Such atmosphere of total hopelessness of political system resulted in the Greens party to rise on the hands of pure opportunists and political careerists, who has no ideology of principles.

This is why you can see all the contradictions and extreme inside the Greens party: Islamophobes and anti-religions atheists defending ISIS and Muslims, white racists defending multiculturalism, Masonic rich defending and representing the poor, Zionists claim to support Palestinian rights and racists who never met Non-English speaking migrant call for refugees rights.

This cocktail of paradoxes resulted in extreme factions fighting each other silently behind closed doors. And this is why resignation of leaders came with no warnings. Election of new leaders happens suddenly. Criticism is not allowed. No public understanding of what is happening inside the party. The party in fact is living behind “iron curtain” of total secrecy.

This is why the few comments by Chris Harris recently was found to be even shocking, by public and by ordinary members of the Greens. And this is why Chris Harris used my earlier description of what is happening inside the Greens to be similar to Animal Farm.
The Greens factions are:
1- Environmental faction: losing grip of power inside the Greens and this is why we saw Bob and Christine enforced to resign.
2- Ex-Stalinist opportunists: and these are fading too. Sylvia Hale gone, and soon Lee Rhiannon will follow.
3- Pure opportunist political careerists: and this is the majority inside the Greens now. They have no principles and no ethics. Most important for them is to win votes and continue their career. These are the majority of Greens politicians and officials.

The fight between factions started by Lee Rhiannon ex-Stalinists faction. They conducted vicious attacks on environmentalists to destabilise their historical grip on power inside the party. For Lee Rhiannon faction this was the only way to pave the road for change of leadership to their benefit. In doing this, they recruited and counted on pure opportunist careerists. These in turn, used the fight between the two factions to climb to top jobs, as a compromise between the two powerful established factions.

This is why Chris Harris and other “old guards” who joined the Greens for some kind of principles or agenda wrote very pessimistic posts about the result of the factions’ war.

Chris Harris admits (and agreed with my writings on the issue for the last ten years) that the Greens party is in fact a “Party about Nothing”.

The sacking of Christine Milne is the last straw of environmentalists reign on power inside the Greens....

Welcome to total opportunist Greens party.... No principles and no ethics... No agendas and no defined platforms.

Final note here: the Greens party is extremely lucky (for the hundred time in the last two decades). Despite the total chaos inside the Greens party and the exposure of its opportunism and lack of principles, there is no alternative party to inherit the votes of disgruntled progressive people of Australia. This is why it seems that the Greens will continue to get around %8 of the votes, until new progressive alternative political party formed.