Rebel Greens faction to fight police, capitalism
Formed around federal NSW senator Lee Rhiannon and NSW upper house MP David Shoebridge, the “Left Renewal” faction has published a statement of principles that is at odds with its own party and contradicts the Greens’ national policies in several key areas.
In forming the faction, Left Renewal said the Greens were failing those with liberal beliefs.
“Positions of power and influence within the party are falling to those with liberal politics, who manipulate party processes and abuse their resources to take and solidify their control,” the new faction’s Facebook page says.
The group opposes market-based mechanisms, such as a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme, as methods to address climate change, and will have a binding caucus in which members will be forced to follow the majority view expressed within the faction.
Candidates supported by the hard Left have lost in recent state preselections in NSW, prompting the unified group looking to wrest power from what it sees as a right-wing body.
In a statement of principles, the group describes itself as “advocates for peace” and rejects the authority of the police.
“A rejection of class antagonism, and capitalism, also depends on a rejection of the state’s legitimacy and the right of it, and its apparatuses, to impose oppression upon the working class,” it says.
“We further rejected state- mediated oppression in all of its forms, and recognise that violent apparatuses like the police do not share an interest with the working class.”
Former Greens leader Bob Brown previously has called for Senator Rhiannon to bow out of politics to make room for “renewal”.