Michael L,
What you say about the Greens is all true. there is a truth in the business world that in order to get to a cerain destination you really want, you can't just jump straight there. you have to put all your energies into 'irrelevant' steps one and two and three before final step four. That's where the greens are.

You will recall Bob Brown's remarks in Dick Smith's population presentation that he wanted all of us in the general population to demand loudly that we want a stable population. Then he can act.

So, you are a actually a very good green supporter. (grin)
Cheers

I too have found difficulty with the innocuous population policy of the Greens. However this is not an unusual position of many environment focussed organisations over the years. The Nature Conservation Council of NSW has torn its hair a number of times, I don't know that anything has changed lately not being involved for a while. The Australian Conservation Foundation has slowly come to the conclusion that Population is a major consideration and their policy is now much more direct than it has ever been before but it had been contentious and the policy innocuous in the past. The Democrats policy under John Coulter was strong. I remember some real political stuff happening within the Greens at one time over a stronger population policy though I don't know the details. I had a conversation once with Lee Rhiannon many years ago which she would be unlikely to remember and it was clear that she was not interested in talking numbers at all. I am now a member of the Greens and believe the ACF policy is the right way to go and hope to argue that in Green forums in the future.

Bob Brown is an under achiever who believes he can get respect only by immigrating another 50 or 60 million people because he can't get respect from the 23 million that are already here.

Bob Brown is a fraud and he doesn't give a damn about the Australian continent or its fading natural bounty. He's in it for the money and the fame.

It was so obvious on the Dick Smith debate when Ted Shepherd from the Transfield engineering monopoly dressed him down and Brown looked so scared that he couldn't even defend himself.

Shepherd was just ranting the Labor oligarchist line that all the big Anglo business & political groups should have LESS competition while the general population should have MORE competition from highly skilled migrants so the WEAK 90% or so of the current population can be weedeed out thus fulfilling LABOR's bigger,better NATION BUILDING dream.

My view was that Brown has the same idea and agenda. His inability to respond to Shepherd was because he COULDN'T agree with Shepherd while he was trying to sneakily grab votes in a population control forum. It was written all over his face!

The Next election, people casting protest votes against Labor's anglo genocide immigration policy, especially places like Qld and Western Sydney, must vote directly for the sustainable population parties with no Labor preferences & NOT the Greens. I believe within 3 months the Greens and the traiterous Labor's presence in Parliament will be gone if this occurs.

Australian's are tired of being soft Genocided by selfish Labor, anglo kings and queens who Nation Build by immigrating .5 million a year thankful migrants, who have the skills to compete ordinary neglected Australians onto the trash heap of life and die, so they can never again threaten Labor's ascendancy by their "democratic" right of protest voting.

The next election may be the last chance for neglected Australians. For if Labor wins again its fury at their current embarrassment will be assuaged by increasing its immigration program sky-high, with ever more criminal groups & toxic polluters favoured elements.

In response to CJ Morgan, 21/08/10:

<< I think that much of the disillusionment of population activists with the Greens derives from their uninformed assumption that environmental issues are paramount to the party. >>

Yes. Many would have thought in the early days of the Australian Greens that environmental issues would be paramount, especially given that the party arose within the worldwide green (environmental) movement of the time.

In fact, their very name strongly implies if not implicitly states, that the party is based on environmental philosophies and that social justice issues and all else are of secondary and tertiary importance.

Anyway, even if environmentalism wasn’t at the top of the agenda, it was still a big part of it and there could just be no excuse for the Greens being so dismal for so long on population and sustainability issues.

<< I'm certainly hopeful that the Greens will strengthen our population policy along the lines that Bob Brown was talking about on last week's Q&A. >>

Absolutely. Now that Bob has fiiiinally come out in strong support of a sensible population policy, the Greens surely have to modify their policy and undertake a line of action in accordance with his comments. That will be wonderful when it happens…um…..if it happens!

<< However, the way to achieve that as a Greens member is to get involved with policy working groups …., rather than spitting one's dummy and stomping out of the room, as it were. >>

Yes, for Greens members. And for non-Greens like me to keep on at them about it. I rightly left the Greens in 1996 because their actions on population, the continuous growth paradigm and sustainability were virtually non-existent.

I remember speaking to Bob on one occasion when he visited Townsville and asking him about population growth. He answered in a very cursory manner, without making eye contact and basically dismissed the issue as of no consequence.

So, here’s hoping that he has genuinely seen the light and that the Greens will now effectively become our sustainability party and strive to keep the antisustainability bastards honest!

@ Cj Morgan

<< However, the way to achieve that as a Greens member is to get involved with policy working groups …., rather than spitting one's dummy and stomping out of the room, as it were. >>

And this is where the problem lies. Michael Lardelli was a member of the policy working party that developed a sound population policy.
The situation at that time was this - the Greens established a number of policy working parties. The people on these working parties were generally there because they had an interest or expertise with regard to the question at hand. I am sure Michael's working party was no different to mine - we spent many long hours coming up with a succinct policy statement.
However, when we saw the version of the policy statement that was presented to the membership we discovered it had been pared/edited down ostensibly for reasons of length. Yet in the editing process the original logic of the policy (at least in the case of population and the one's in which I was involved) had been lost.
The policies that the membership was encouraged to vote on were sold as being the product of the work that a dedicated and informed group had undertaken and so was generally adopted without dissent.
I know that at least 3 policies did not reflect the consensus achieved in the working party but few of the members would be aware of that.
In the light of such blatant manipulation of participatory democracy what choice does one have but to leave such a party? It is not a dummy spit but rather an attempt to maintain one's integrity.

Dear Baygon,

What the Greens leadership did to Lardelli's report sounds similar to what the Vatican has done with various reports they have commissioned if the Curia doesn't like the results.