Recognising sovereignty, or corporate interests?
One of the core demands of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is for ‘Constitutional Recognition’, which has received backing from both Labor and Liberal parties (as well as from a range of mining corporations) in some form for the last 15 years. Its advocates are insistent on the momentum this reform would create and argue that without it, any progress on Indigenous justice would falter and stagnate. These arguments have not gone without opposition. Lidia Thorpe, Jenny Munro, Ken Canning, Lynda June-Coe and other grassroots militants led a walk-out of the convention at Uluru criticising both the process of drafting the Statement, and the content itself. The reasons for their dissent are outlined in detail in the main article of this bulletin.
For daring to dissent to the hallowed Statement from the Heart, these activists have been subject to severe pressure, with many of the attacks on Lidia Thorpe playing out in the corporate media. Media attention has focused on her critique of Recognition and the Uluru dialogues, her support for Black Lives Matter, and her labelling of the Queen as a coloniser. The attacks were on an almost weekly basis and range from complaints about her being impolite in meetings, attempts to link her to child pornography and bestiality, to accusations she is attempting to lead a Marxist-Leninist uprising, and now how her love life makes her corrupt and unfit for politics.
That she may be rude or not, or that she has dated a former bikie, is entirely besides the point. There is a consistent history of left-wing political representatives experiencing consistent character assassination in the media, such as Lee Rhiannon in NSW and the UK’s Jeremy Corbyn being targeted for supporting Palestine. Many people in parliament are rude, but apart from cases of the most severe corruption these are not genuine issues of interest to anyone and should not be taken seriously. These attacks are a cynical attempt to force the Greens to concede on every anti-racist principle that is meaningful, and unfortunately they’re working.
The recent history of the ‘Blairite’ problem within the Greens
The rats in the ranks of the Greens enable this problem. The Greens have a progressive base with a lot of sympathy from white collar workers and university students, but a small yet sizable chunk of their bureaucracy are right-wing shills from the middle class. This is a common problem for parliamentary parties that rely upon working class support: the bureaucrats in control have an interest in ‘being in the know’ and develop increasingly different interests to their base.
The Australian Greens, despite their pillar of grassroots democracy, are not inherently more exempt from this problem than the Labor party from whom much of their membership defected. The repeated pre-selection of Lee Rhiannon to Legislative Councillor and then Senator was an example of how the membership of the NSW Greens was supportive of someone with socialist ideas, but her time in parliament saw her consistently undermined by ‘insiders’ from the party who would falsify and leak stories about her to the corporate media. Lee Rhiannon would later refuse to breach member policy when other Greens MPs sought a deal with the Liberals that would undermine public school funding, and was functionally frozen out of the Greens party room. One of the ‘insiders’ involved, such as former staffer Cate Faehrmann, has since returned to being a parliamentarian after suing her party into giving her a seat.
The Victorian Greens, despite their membership generally being to the right of the NSW branch, had a similar dynamic around refugee advocate, HSU member, and former candidate for Cooper, Alex Bhathal. Bhathal represented her local branch for over a decade as the candidate, and doubled the Greens vote share in the area over the course of her campaigning. This would come to an end with the 2018 by-election, which was understood by much of the Labor membership as a poll on support for the Stop Adani campaign, where Greens local councillors pro-actively undermined her campaign and leaked to the media whenever possible to discredit Bhathal who went on to lose the by-election. These gutter bureaucrats – well known in the local community for supporting privatisation on council – actively preferred the election of a Labor member who would support Adani and refugee detention over someone in the left of the party and have not been subject to any discipline from the party leadership to this day. Since that time the most significant reforms pursued by the leadership of the state branch have been to reduce member participation.
The same issues play a role in Thorpe’s current predicament despite the massive support she received in her own pre-selection ballot, and her prosecution of member written policy regarding the Statement of the Heart. The corporate press consistently cite ‘disgruntled ex-staffers’ concerned about Lidia’s temperament, ‘Greens party sources’ concerned about her position on Constitutional Recognition, and now concerns from staff about conflicts of interest arising from Thorpe formerly having a brief casual relationship with an ex-bikie she met at a refugee rally. These attacks have now seen Greens parliamentary leader, Adam Bandt, demote her from her leadership position while conservative figures like Marcia Langton and Jacinta Price demand she resign from parliament entirely.
Since that time many grassroots members of the party have joined the hashtag campaign #IassociatewithLidia, and a minority of elected officials made statements of support. Brisbane councillor Jono Sriranganathan in particular argued that the party needed to “stop letting Sky News and the major parties call the shots” and support Lidia from attack. But a grassroots member response needs to do more than that, since any defence of Thorpe cannot be defined by defending her person or work. A strategy of arguing that white people should not put arguments, and simply listen to groups like Blak Greens won’t work either. It needs to be about convincingly winning the debate against the existing Voice proposals and confronting the right wing basis that gives confidence to Voice advocates in and outside the party to undermine criticism of Constitutional Recognition whether from Lidia or anyone else.
These ‘bad apples’ within the Greens do need to be challenged openly by members if the shadow boxing in the media is to end, but while there are definitely bad faith actors within the party this problem is also not going to go away if one set of trouble makers is given the boot. The Greens rank and file is full of public sector workers in schools and hospitals who are being pushed to the brink and students who are living off welfare in mould-addled share houses, but this material experience is nothing like that of a political bureaucrat. It matters that some political bureaucrats are more or less progressive than others, but most often their loyalty is to the system they desire to manage regardless of whether their affiliation is Labor, Greens, or even Socialist. The state continually creates more ‘bad apples’ even out of some of the most honest representatives.
How to fight, and how to fail
The Greens are a progressive force in the political sphere, but their strategy isolates them from the forces that are required to actually force the capitalists to make real concessions. This serves to explain why they – and other electoral projects – struggle to deliver on their promises.
The first major surrender of the Greens in this term of parliament was on Labor’s target of 43% net emissions, which did not include any measures of enforcement to limit the extraction and exports of coal and gas that will prevent even this meagre target from being reached. The Greens took a more progressive position of 75% to the election, and promptly found themselves isolated as the environmental NGOS and ‘climate independents’ supported Labor’s measures, while organisations like School Strike for Climate decided to cease mobilising. Most Greens members opposed the 43% target, but despite internal dissent the Greens MPs ended up voting to greenwash Labor’s legislation while offering the rank and file of the party the weird excuse that they’d somehow ‘Dutton-proofed’ the 43% target.
The vote by Greens MPs may well have been different if members had been more clearly organised against the bureaucracy (and they should be), but even had members forced the Greens’ vote to shift this would not have been sufficient to win better targets. A handful of Greens parliamentarians does not make a mass movement. The only way that there would’ve been the muscle to impose the positions that Greens’ voters support is if actions like the climate strikes had continued, and grown. It is vital to continue organising against the Labor government in our workplaces and on the streets to squeeze concessions out of Albanese, otherwise Greens members should expect their representatives to say decent things but fall on their swords again and again and again.
The same is true in the fight for land rights, the fight to defund the police and let children out of prisons, and Blak rights more broadly. Not only are the consistent attacks on Thorpe not really about her tone, her relationships, or some conspiracy theory about a Marxist-Leninist uprising, they’re also not really about her as an individual. They’re an attack on the idea of Blak sovereignty over this and made possible by drawing the debate of racial justice away from the sites of struggle like the massive Black Lives Matters protests we’ve seen in recent years into debates over Constitutional Recognition. This is why it’s important to repudiate the attacks on Thorpe without hesitation as racist. However, how to best do this is a tough question.
It is of course shameful that Adam Bandt accepted Thorpe’s resignation as Deputy Leader, and Greens’ party insiders who have undermined Thorpe should be openly condemned and confronted as racist rats, but this is not enough. The best possible result of only doing that would be the Greens voting in a more principled way and would lessen the legitimacy of the racism, but it would not itself change the balance of forces. It also would not avert the inevitable attacks on Lynda-June Coe should she be successfully elected in NSW next year as the NSW Greens have their own rats in the ranks. The strongest challenge to this kind of racist culture war, and the only way to win it, is by getting behind the mass movements that can intimidate the state regardless of which political party claims to run it.
Blak struggle is workers struggle: Saying no to Recognition, and yes to a real voice
There is a long history of militant Blak struggle from the first moment of invasion through today, and it is important for all workers to unite in support of this struggle whether they support the Greens, the Labor party, or are entirely unaligned. These struggles are not only the right thing to do, but are inspiring and in the interests of the working class as a whole to support and agitate for.
Blak voices have made themselves heard loud and clear on Constitutional Recognition. As a proposal it was utterly discredited, and is counterposed to the principle of “sovereignty never ceded.” Linking this proposal to the Voice does not change that. This is why it is vital to argue for truth before treaties, as proposed by the delegates who walked out from the Statement from the Heart convention. A part of hearing this truth means listening to Blak voices now – rather than after a referendum – such as the Gomeroi people who have had a 98% nation vote against Santos fracking their land, and the Alawa elders whose opposition to fracking by Origin has been silenced. Part of hearing this truth is actually acting upon what has been learned from the stories already submitted to endless inquiry attempts about Blak deaths in custody, and the recommendations from the Royal Commission that the government has ignored even during the time of ATSIC.
These are truths that we can act upon, and doing so would be for the good of all. There is no justification for undermining Blak sovereignty by fracking the Pilliga or Beetaloo, and as a society we have the means to shift to 100% publicly owned renewable energy which in the process would create jobs and reduce emissions. There is also no justification for protecting the police at the expense of Blak lives, as there is evidence that defunding and disarming the police and re-directing that to social services actually serves to reduce acts like domestic violence. But neither of these truths are ones that we should expect the ruling class to hear from Albanese’s Voice, let alone be acted upon.
Another part of hearing this truth is acknowledging that if Blak voices have made themselves loud and clear on Constitutional Recognition, then we must oppose a referendum that is not required for a Voice process and further silences the Blak voices that Albanese and his corporate mates are already ignoring. Instead of a referendum seeking support from the majority settler population, it is up to Blak peoples to establish their own stance on what their Voice should look like through discussions between different nations free from state or corporate interference. This means a left wing support for a Voice and self-determination does not require supporting this referendum going ahead. It may even mean the opposite.
Recent Blak-led protests have featured prominent activists like Lizzie Jarret explicitly arguing for a No campaign, and depending on the details of this Voice proposal there may need to be a left wing campaign arguing for No to Constitutional Recognition, and yes to a real vision of truth, treaty, and voice that stands for land rights and against police power. If Blak comrades lead a No campaign, then we need to be prepared to march shoulder to shoulder with them and make sure their voices are not drowned out by either the mining corporations backing Yes or One Nation bigots backing No. This may well be unpopular with white moderates, but they are not the ones who should call the shots on questions of solidarity nor should this fact dissuade people from listening to the arguments of Blak militants.
But whether it comes to a No campaign, or changing the process before it comes to that, it will require a frank and open position that we support the existing demands of Blak peoples and their rejection of the constitution and processes of Recognition in favour of Truth. A united front behind this perspective is what it will take to not only end the culture war against Lidia Thorpe, but fight for Blak liberation on the streets and in our workplaces.