Founding fathers turn on urban Greens

TWO founding fathers of the Greens say the split between the old-school environmentalists and the new generation urban activists could destabilise the party.

TWO founding fathers of the Greens say the split between the old-school environmentalists and the new generation of ideologically driven urban activists now swelling the parliamentary ranks could destabilise the party and alienate voters.

The man who gave up his seat in the Tasmanian parliament 29 years ago to launch Bob Brown's political career, Norm Sanders, said the Greens had "lost the plot" by shifting away from their core business of the environment.

And Queenslander Drew Hutton, who co-founded the party in 1992 with Senator Brown, hit out at the "ludicrous" decision by the NSW division of the Greens to thumb its nose at federal policy and back an international trade boycott of Israel in the recent state election campaign.

"I just shake my head in wonder at why a state-based party would go into an election pushing out front of a federal issue that the state party has no reason to be concerned with," said Mr Hutton, 64. "Why would you be profiling issues above environmental issues at this particular time? . . . I don't think it helps to alienate significant groups inside the NSW voting public."

Mr Sanders, 78, said scathingly that the Greens were now "concerned with everything except the environment".

"You hear them going on about the tax system, same-sex marriage, adoption, all these social equity issues, but they don't talk about the environment much," he said. The concerns of two such experienced and respected figures in the green movement will intensify the values debate that was kicked off by the actions of NSW Greens figures Fiona Byrne, a suburban mayor in Sydney who stood unsuccessfully at last month's state election, and senator-elect Lee Rhiannon in backing the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.

While Senator Brown, the party's veteran leader, has tried to distance himself and the federal Greens from the BDS push, yesterday he supported West Australian senator Scott Ludlam in advocating a ban on any arms sales to Israel, as part of a halt to Australian military exports.

The Australian revealed yesterday that Senator Ludlam and South Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young had previously supported calls for Australian sanctions against Israel, widening the party's exposure on the issue.

They will be joined in parliament from July 1 by four senators elected at last year's federal ballot, taking the Greens' numbers to nine in the upper house and securing the balance of power there. Adam Bandt, who became the first Greens MP to be elected to the House of Representatives at a general election, will push the Greens partyroom into double figures.

Mr Sanders was elected to the Tasmanian parliament in 1980 and resigned in 1982 to make way for the future senator Brown, giving him his start in politics.

Mr Sanders said Senator Hanson-Young, 29, a former campaign manager for human rights group Amnesty International, who challenged Christine Milne for the Greens deputy leadership after the federal election in August, personified the contemporary Greens. "That Sarah Hanson-Young, she's on television and radio all the time, but I've never heard her talking about the environment," Mr Sanders said, speaking from his home near Byron Bay in northern NSW.

"All those social issues they're on about, that's what the ALP's for. Even the Liberal Party can handle some of them. The Greens have lost the plot, and who's looking after the environment?"

Brisbane-based Mr Hutton is still on the front line of environmental activism, having been arrested recently while protesting against coal-seam mining on the Darling Downs, west of the Queensland capital. He stood unsuccessfully for the Senate three times and is now an organiser for the environment group Friends of the Earth.

Mr Hutton said there had always been "tension in the Greens between those who come from a Left background, and those who come from a green background". Describing the furore over the BDS as "mildly destabilising", he said the key role of the Greens

was to address environmental issues "in a way that none of the other parties is prepared to do".

"I would be the last person to say non-environmental issues aren't important, because for the past 40 years I have been involved in a whole lot of issues - the democratic movement in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen days, Aboriginal issues and so on - so I am not just a pure greenie," Mr Hutton said. "But there is no doubt in my mind that the key issues today, and the reason we formed a green party, was that we've reached a time when if we don't take determined and far-sighted decisions on the environment, then the whole planet is going to be in trouble."

But he said the tensions with the "hard Left" of the Greens would subside. "In time, that strong left-wing element will diminish, because the people coming in are wanting us to be in government and they are wanting us to be in policymaking positions," Mr Hutton said.

Both veterans praised Senator Brown's leadership. "Bob and Christine are the only ones who've been on the barricades," Mr Sanders said. "They're the only activists in the Greens. I don't know where the rest come from."

Additional reporting: Jared Owens