The results of the 2017 City of Greater Geelong Council elections have been declared, with Greens candidate Sarah Mansfield being聽elected in Brownbill Ward.
Mansfield won聽more than 17% of the primary vote. Her聽election was aided by a strong preference flow from residents who voted for Socialist Alliance (SA) candidates Sue Bull and Sarah Hathway.
Lidia Gunnai-Gunditj Thorpe is a聽Gunnai-Gunditjmara woman living on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne鈥檚 north and the Greens candidate聽in the November 18 byelection for the Victorian state seat of Northcote.
Comfortably held by Labor since it was created in 1927, the seat of Northcote has seen a surge in support for the Greens in recent years. Some polls are indicating that Thorpe is on track to take the seat with a primary vote of about 40%.
Fluctuating poll results indicate that the imminent Queensland election is an open contest between the Annastacia Palaszczuk Labor government and the Liberal National Party (LNP) opposition. Strong campaigns by the Greens and One Nation could also see newcomers into the state parliament from both left and right.
There was a 6% swing against the Liberal Party in the Inner West Council (IWC) election in Sydney on September 9.
This was a common pattern, reflected in other local elections also conducted then for councils that were forcibly amalgamated by the NSW Liberal government last year.
IWC is the product of the forced amalgamation of the former Ashfield, Marrickville and Leichhardt Council.
In the lead up to the September 9 election for the forcibly amalgamated Inner West Council, Labor candidates are feeling the pressure of strong community opposition to the multi-billion-dollar WestConnex motorway tunnel.
NSW GREENS SENATOR聽told the ABC鈥檚 Insiders program on July 2 that, globally, mass movements are on the rise and that she could see a change in how politics works. She also said that parliament was 鈥渋mportant to me, but it is not the main game鈥.
91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 SUSAN PRICE聽caught up with Senator Rhiannon at the Students of Sustainability conference in Newcastle on July 4 and asked her about politics today.聽
Members of the Australian Young Greens (AYG) met in Canberra over January 27 to 29 for their annual conference which included Senator Lee Rhiannon addressing the climate emergency and the need for a just transition.
AYG members also elected a national leadership, headed by co-conveners Axeris Sondyre and Robyn Lewis.
The conference took place as rumblings about the direction of the Australian Greens increased following the emergence of an anti-capitalist tendency called 鈥淟eft Renewal鈥 which was condemned by the party's leader, Richard Di Natale.
So the Greens鈥 electoral support has stalled at about聽10% and the leadership of Richard di Natale is being questioned. This 鈥渄ire鈥 situation, according to Bob Brown and others, is the result of the 鈥渨recking鈥 presence in the Greens鈥 ranks of leftish Senator Lee Rhiannon and the founding of Left Renewal by radical Young Greens in NSW.
鈥淩ichard Di Natale, I am a member of Left Renewal and I hope you can hear this because the Greens are my party too,鈥 a woman said to great applause at a meeting of (LR) on January 25.
More than 100 people, including from Newcastle and Wollongong, came to the first public meeting of LR, an anti-capitalist grouping within The Greens, to hear about its aims and objectives.
Cuts to the age pension, legislated in 2015, have begun. The main change is to the assets test taper rate.
For every additional $1000 in assets, pensioners now lose $78 a year (raised from $39). Previously, a homeowner couple with $1,178,000 in assets would have qualified for a part pension. This upper limit has dropped to $816,000. (These figures do not include the family home.)
Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale expressed his strong support for the embattled Peoples鈥 Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey at a Kurdish solidarity meeting at the Victorian Trades Hall on November 17.
The left-wing party has a strong base among Australia's oppressed Kurdish community. Di Natale condemned the current crackdown by the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo臒an. The HDP鈥檚 joint leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, have been arrested along with a number of the party鈥檚 MPs.
Results in the October 22 Victorian local council elections were mixed.
The Greens won big increases in representation in Melbourne鈥檚 inner city councils, the two socialist councillors retained their positions, but racists retained their positions on a couple of councils.
The Greens stood more candidates than in previous council elections. They retained 13 of their 16 council seats and won an extra 16 council seats.