International News

Australia

The Greens have hit a new poll high of 8% in today's Morgan poll following a record 7% in last week's Australian Newspoll.

"This is an encouraging increase on top of our record November 10 result where we doubled our ‘98 vote," Greens Senator Bob Brown said.

"On these figures we would have 4 to 5 Senate seats.

"The Greens are the new dynamic progressive force in Australian politics. We are set to increase our representation further in the coming South Australian state election where we have a strong chance of winning a seat in the upper house.

"The poll also bodes well for the Greens in Tasmania where an election is expected in February," Senator Brown said.

Canada

Toronto - December 3, 2001. The Green Party congratulates Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberal Party for their electoral reform referendum proposal.

Greens believe Ontario should adopt proportional representation so that no future government is able to govern without the support of the majority of Ontario's voters. Not since 1943 has Ontario had a government elected by the majority of votes cast.

"The saddest symptom of our present system is strategic voting," says Green Party of Ontario leader Frank de Jong. "Voters are forced to compensate for the failings of the electoral system by voting for a party they don't believe in. What could be more tragic?"

Ontario's antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system creates artificial majorities. After receiving only 45% in both the 1995 and 1999 elections, the Harris Conservatives fraudulently claimed the mandate to introduce the socially and ecologically regressive Common Sense Revolution (While Greens supported the CSR goal of eliminating the fiscal deficit, we proposed alternatives to accomplishing this that would not have deepened Ontario's social and environmental debt).

According to Doug Woodard, GPo spokesperson on Electoral Reform, "The present electoral system marginalizes small parties with geographically dispersed support, and prevents them from breaking through into electoral respectability. The major parties don't even have an incentive to "steal" from their platforms."

New Zealand

"The Green Party has achieved much in its first two years in Parliament," Co-leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons said today, "but what we do in the next year will establish us firmly and permanently as the third force in Parliament.

"We celebrate the second anniversary of our entry into Parliament on December 7, with two years of success behind us and a year of opportunity ahead.

"Our presence in Parliament has given us the opportunity to better work for those who now feel left out of politics, disgusted by the extremism of the right and alienated by the cynical centrism of the Government," she said.

"We are getting lots of messages of support from voters who see us as a party of principle, rather than a party of expediency," said Co-leader, Rod Donald.

"The party has never been better placed to face the challenge of an election year. Membership has more than doubled since 1999, as our message reaches out to embrace a wider and wider constituency."

Mr Donald pointed to a number of high points over the last two years, including the passage of two bills initiated by the Greens, the adoption of two Green budget packages, a number of select committee inquiries and a range of amendments to legislation.

Party members and supporters around the country are celebrating "Green Day" with a number of events, including a get together Saturday night at the "Green Capital" – tiny Pokororo Hall in the Motueka River valley.

On election night, 1999, the Greens won the Pokororo polling booth with 41% of the vote, the highest percentage of Green Party votes cast anywhere in the country.

"Green Day" functions are being held around New Zealand but the Pokororo party will take pride of place, with a major speech by Rod Donald, followed by an evening of celebration.

Greens Officers and Activists Visit Europe, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Meeting with European Green officials to coordinate efforts on global warming, defending the rights of children, the War in Afghanistan, and democratic globalization

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Officers of the Green Party of the United States have just returned from meetings in Europe with legislators and other officials who are members of various European Green Parties. Meanwhile, Green activist Medea Benjamin, founder of the non-profit organization Global Exchange and 2000 Green Party candidate for U.S. Senator from California, and three other women from Global Exchange recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Thursday, December 6, they released a report describing their findings and offering recommendations to the Bush Administration about how to alleviate the suffering of Afghanistan's civilian population ("Reconstructing Afghanistan: Statement by Global Exchange Women's Delegation to the Region"). http://www.globalexchange.org/sep-tember11/gx120501.html.

"The U.S. bombing has created a whole new class of refugees, most of whom are not receiving any kind of aid," said Ms. Benjamin. "The U.S. therefore has an tremendous responsibility to ensure that the refugees we have created do not die from lack of food. We need U.N. peace-keepers in Afghanistan now to get food to people. The U.S. must today end its resistance to an international peacekeeping force. It is unconscionable for the U.S. to frustrate humanitarian efforts."

The contingent from Global Exchange has been working closely with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), Afghan Womens Mission, Afghan Womens Council, and Afghan Womens Network, all of which have demanded that women be included in the plans for reconstructing Afghanistan and in the Bonn talks on establishing a new Afghan government.

Annie Goeke, chair of the International Committee of the Green Party of the United States, Tom Sevigny, a member of the party's national Steering Committee, and Green Party Political Coordinator Dean Myerson met last week with Belgian Green Party Minister Jean Marc Nollet, a United Nations representative, to discuss Children's Rights and a campaign to protest the U.S.'s refusal to sign on to the Child Rights International Treaty. They also discussed strategies to address global warming and control carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) emissions with Olivier Deleuze, chair of the European Parliament.

"Green Parties on both sides of the Atlantic have continued to develop and meetings during this visit promise to move our cooperation to a new level of practical coordination to build the Green Party globally and get real results on Green issues," commented Myerson.

"We emphasized to European Greens that they are in a position to embarrass U.S. government officials for their inaction or bad policies, and that our own experience in the U.S. political system can help them do so, thus getting more results on many issues of common concern. This is the next step for the Earth's only global political party to combine the leverage of European Greens in governmental positions with our new-found growth and impact to affect U.S. policies in a way not expected by the elites in the U.S."

Goeke, Sevigny, and Myerson spoke at a public forum attended by officials from the European Federation of Green Parties (EFGP) in the Maison des Femmes, discussing the U.S. Green Party's goals and clarifying the party's position on the War in Afghanistan: disagreement with the German Greens' decision under the leadership of Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to support the U.S.'s unilaterally conducted military strikes; calling for an international court to try the criminals behind the September 11 attacks in accord with international law; demand for representation from Afghan women's organizations in the Bonn talks.

They later met Arnold Cassola, Secretary General for EFGP, and officials from the European Parliament Green Group and from the Heinrich Boell Foundation, which supports and coordinates the Green movement in Germany. Greens in Europe and the U.S. plan to participate in the 2nd World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from January 31 to February 5, 2002. About 100,000 people attended the first WSF in 2001, an initiative of international NGOs that presented a democratic alternative to the Globalization Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Tom Sevigny represented the U.S. Green Party in Budapest at the European Federation of Green Parties Council meeting on international security; Annie Goeke attended the World Citizen's Assembly conference in Lille.