When I got the invitation to write a short piece on my journey to the Greens I was thrown right back to being a teenager in the UK…that’s a long way back now as I’ll be turning 70 in December.
As a stroppy teenager I found my mother’s commitment and determination to campaigning for a better world embarrassing and weird but looking back I know that she was a dedicated pioneering environmentalist and Green activist. In 1973 Sally Willington was a member of the People Party which became the Ecology Party in 1975, later adopting the name, Green Party in 1985.
By the time I left England as a young adult it was grafted on, my parents’ commitment to social justice, nuclear disarmament, what was then called “environmentalism” and green economics migrated with me to Australia. I had become an intergenerational Green, a “rusted on” Green voter.
A busy life working in medical practice and parenting consumed my energy in early adulthood and middle age. I found time to put energy into campaigning for a marine park at Jervis Bay but there wasn’t enough left in the tank to be regularly active in the Greens. But come election time I’d always lend a hand on the polling booths. Always a Green voter.
Later, life drew me and my partner back to Sydney, after a few more years working in general practice I retired to enjoy my hobbies, walking the dog and helping out at elections with all the demanding time-consuming tasks that every election campaign entails. Then one morning at the local park a friend and fellow Green stopped me looked me in the eye and encouraged me to put my hand up to stand for local Council in September ’24. “You know how to do this!” she said, and she was right. All those childhood hours at protests and marches, stuffing newsletters into envelopes, hanging out reading or drawing at the back of political gatherings, I’d been absorbing how to do this. Now it was my turn to stand up and get on with the job as an elected representative.
After the first year of the term I was elected Deputy Mayor. I still feel a bit surprised as I certainly didn’t imagine I’d be in this role. I enjoy the work representing people at the local government level and I’m proud to do this as a member of the Greens. It’s important to stand and keep the energy and achievements of all the good Greens who have campaigned before us alive and provide a progressive and robust political platform in our democracy so that people of goodwill can band together and achieve better outcomes for human society and the Planet.
If you know someone who you think would be a good Greens representative at any level in our democracy, look them in the eye and tell them they know how to do this !
