Greens ‘fixated’ on Gaza, not rates, in local government

Grassroots Greens have berated fellow local candidates with pro-Palestine abuse and reignited culture wars amid a ‘complete fixation on Gaza’, ahead of upcoming council elections.

Greens have reignited a culture war at a local level. Anthony Albanese’s Marrickville office, which was shut for months and tagged with Hamas symbols. Picture: Damian Shaw

Grassroots Greens have berated fellow local candidates with pro-Palestine abuse and reignited culture wars amid a “complete fixation on Gaza”, offering voters “rates, roads and revolution” ahead of upcoming council elections.

The Greens, whose local government representation has been a bedrock of its support and candidate springboard, has “become more extreme” at some councils and those where it has exercised power have been described as “failed experiments”.

In 2011, Greens-heavy Marrickville Council – now amalgamated into Sydney’s Inner West Council – adopted but later rescinded a Boycott, Divest, Sanction policy against Israel.

At Inner West’s final meeting before NSW’s September local elections, Greens councillors are set to bring another BDS motion and organised a chamber rally, described as a “campaign ploy” by council insiders.

“They’ve never deviated from that path, they’ve become more extreme,” one source with knowledge of the situation said.

Council staff have said it would likely have legal and budgetary implications, given that potentially affected contracts are only a few years old.

The Greens have five members on the 15-person council, which has a 8-7 Labor majority, but only one Greens councillor remains on September’s ticket.

The new candidates are younger, more radical, and eager to turn the chamber into a bear pit.

In May, as her “first action as a Greens council candidate”, Izabella Antoniou travelled to European parliament to lambaste German European Greens co-leader Terry Reintke for “complicity” on Palestine.

“For anyone who feels (council) is supposed to just concern itself with rates, roads and rubbish, I say the local is always global,” Ms Antoniou said.

“Long live the Intifada.”

Another candidate, Flynn Franklin-Baker, spammed one Labor councillor’s Instagram with “blood on your hands” comments.

Olivia Barlow, another party candidate, has led chants at the encampment outside Anthony Albanese’s electorate office, which was shut for months due to safety concerns.

She has called Israel a “violent settler-colonial project” while promising to “unf. k your future”.

At November’s council meeting, about 50 activists descended on the chamber to support an unsuccessful Greens ceasefire motion, including Ms Barlow.

Greens candidate Izabella Antoniou protests against fellow German Greens at the European Parliament.

Greens candidate Oliva Barlow speaks at the pro-Palestine encampment rally at Anthony Albanese's office.

Activists called Labor councillors “baby killers” and “Nazis”, and shouted that they had “blood on their hands”, with eyewitnesses saying Ms Barlow was “shouting and berating”. However, it is not suggested she called anyone a “baby killer” or “Nazi”.

“They’re not interested in improving life for ratepayers,” a state political source reflected.

August’s BDS protest is supported by Greens councillor Dylan Griffiths, who told a May council meeting that a two-state solution was “more unsustainable and impossible”.

In December, Greens councillor Marghanita da Cruz voted down a motion that supported a ceasefire, condemned Hamas’s October 7 attacks and called for a release of hostages. She said then it was impossible to condemn October 7 “without full context” and that hostages were a negotiation tool for “desperate people”.

Left activists have created fake election material targeting Labor councillor Chloe Smith and, in April, the Greens ran a workshop to unlock the “radical potential of council”.

Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne declined to comment on the Greens or its candidates, but said he hoped rhetoric would be “turned down”.

Greens councillor Marghanita da Cruz.

“We want the council to keep delivering the services local people depend on, not to become a platform for radical political causes,” he said.

NSW opposition local government spokeswoman Wendy Tuckerman said Greens councillors showed “more interest in foreign affairs” than the community.

In Woollahra and Waverley, Greens have councillors boycotted and voted against motions condemning Hamas’s attacks, while Byron Shire passed a BDS motion co-introduced by Greens councillors.

Cutting their teeth before running for state or federal parliament has become a rite of passage for the Greens’ next generation.

Former Greens Yarra mayor and councillor Amanda Stone. Picture: AAP

Former Greens councillor Anab Mohamud, who now sits as an independent.

University of Sydney politics expert Stewart Jackson said council support was its “bedrock” and springboard, and translating wins from local to state or national was a “real positive” for the party.

When they’ve been given the keys to local power, or enough councillors to hold sway, the party has failed to master its machinery.

In Victoria, Yarra became Australia’s only Greens majority council at the most recent local elections in 2020, winning five of the nine positions. It lasted until former mayor Gabrielle de Vietri resigned to successfully run for state parliament in 2022.

In 2023, Anab Mohamud and former Yarra mayor Amanda Stone quit the party. Ms Stone is understood to have grown concerned with the direction of the branch, whose final straw came when a colleague reduced the number of monthly meetings without notice. Yarra insiders claimed the Greens project was a “failed experiment”.