Geoff Dowsett, Member of Hornsby Kuringai Greens has questioned the Greens NSW Senate pre-selection candidates and provides the following graphics to put Australia's population growth into political and demographic perspective.
The only political party that provides an alternative to business as usual is the Sustainable Population Party.
Comments
William (not verified)
Tue, 2015-07-14 11:13
Permalink
SPP is not SPA
DennisK (not verified)
Tue, 2015-07-14 15:16
Permalink
This is the Greens party I have in mid
Sheila Newman
Tue, 2015-07-14 22:40
Permalink
'Branding' of political parties causes this confusion
The problem is that the Green brand reads 'Green', so people think they are 'Green', i.e. ecological. Similarly the Labor brand reads 'Labor' so people think it is for the workers and the less well-heeled. And for some the Liberal brand means 'liberal', i.e. not overtaxing, not over-regulating, but acting fairly and giving citizens their dignity.
We have to stop believing in brands and remember that appearances are deceptive.
I could be wrong on some of these details, but this is how I read the Greens policies and philosophies generally. Although they seem to want to preserve some aspects of our environment, like forests, with the other hand, they give away our power to do so by failing to represent our rights to say no to more building permits at local level and no to more invited economic immigrants than we can cope with.
As you say, it seems that the Greens are a 'progressive' party, which doesn't mean that they are scientific and democratic. It means that they buy the whole box and dice of material progress. They believe the usual ideology about how population growth brings more material wealth and that overpopulation can be cured by 'development' - the same 'development' that the World Bank believes in. The Greens also seem to believe in social justice and equity, but this still involves 'development', which means disempowering locals, making everyone dependent on a market and adapting local environments and biodiversity to the needs of the market.
Their version of preserving the environment seems to be preserving breathable air and clean water, planning for bicycles and public transport, allowing some personal vegetable gardens. It doesn't mean allowing indigenous peoples to preserve their indigenous ways of living and keeping their territory for themselves. It doesn't mean allowing Australians to exercise sovereignty and control over their housing, land, resources and ammenity. It's basically an economic view of the world, not an ecological one.
And, social justice doesn't mean democratic and equitable sharing of wealth within a democratic polity controlled by its citizens who have civil rights. On the face of it, for the Greens it means opening borders to the world's poor in the belief that, after development occurs over there, and redevelopment occurs over here, we will all live modestly, with light footprints. However that model doesn't safeguard our rights; it says that we have to trust power elites to allocate us a sufficiency. And that model doesn't protect 'them over there' from poverty either, because the Greens don't protest against the wars that our economies rely on to generate cheap goods and labour, but which also generate refugees.
And, since most immigrants to Australia are actually quite wealthy, not asylum seekers or refugees, it really means allowing any number of people from all over the world to come in here if they have money to invest and buy land, water, power and any resource, with no Australian citizen having ability to limit the impacts, in terms of inflation of prices and overuse of ammenities, natural and built.
It's really hard to tell whether the Greens are quite cynically ensconced in a niche in the mainstream system, or whether they simply believe the general sales-talk of the major power elites - i.e. 'progress' and 'development' facilitated by a world economy.
The more I think about it, the more it looks to me as if the Greens' working philosophy is just a rehash of the Christian dogma that the meek shall inherit the world and find their reward in heaven, but, in the meantime, they should shut up and let the real people (the economist priests and the power elite they work for) just get on with it.
DennisK (not verified)
Wed, 2015-07-15 12:25
Permalink
The Greens were originally Green
Add comment