History of the Australian Greens
This information is taken from the web-site of the Australian Greens
In 1984 the fiery parliamentarian and champion
of the West German Greens, Petra Kelly, made
her second visit to Australia. She urged that the
various Greens in Australia develop a national
identity. Partly as a result of this, just after
Christmas of the same year, 50 Greens activists
gathered in Tasmania to organise a national conference.
This ultimately led to the 'Getting Together' conference at
Sydney University during Easter 1986. Over 500 people
attended. The diversity of interests led to a lively debate
about the road ahead; in fact the diversity was large enough
to block that road. 'Getting Together' decided against
establishing an Australian Greens party. It took six years to
overcome that decision.
Although the Sydney Greens became the first nationally
registered Greens party, in 1983, and state Greens parties
had also formed in Queensland in 1985 and South Australian
in 1989, the Tasmanian Greens were the old hands of the
Greens movement in Australia, with the advantage of five
seats in their state parliament. They were rapidly evolving a
structure for governing themselves, with both local groups
and state meetings, formal membership of the party,
members involved in policy development and a regular
newsletter, the Daily Planet. The feeling was growing that the
time for a national organisation could be ripe.
In 1992 the New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmanian
Greens representatives agreed to join the three state Greens
parties to form a national greens party.
On Sunday 30 August 1992 in Lavender Bay, North Sydney,
Greens from Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania,
with observers from Victoria, the ACT and Western Australia,
held a press conference to announce the formation of the
Australian Greens.
Currently the only state not a member of the confederation of
the Australian Greens are The Greens (Western Australia).
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