This brief history first appeared on the website of the Australian Greens in the late 1990s.

The precise date of the post is not known.

History 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. [Read more…]