Peter Haggar was elected to Bega Valley Shire Council in 2024. He carries on 20 years of Greens representation on the Council including by Councillors Keith Hughes and Cathy Griff, since 2004.
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I moved to the beautiful Bega Valley, on what I now know is Djiringanj land, in 2006 with my partner Anna who was pregnant with our child. We were determined to become active in our new community and deeply concerned and excited by the challenges and opportunities that knowledge of the deepening climate and ecological crisis would unleash.
Anna and I purchased a house on a ‘bush block’ and an established cafe in the town of Bega and began to become entangled with the local permaculture movement including hosting ‘Transition Towns’ meetings in our cafe after hours. I’m informed by our membership officer Sylvie Mester that I first became a member in 2010 but it was several years later that I built the courage and inclination to attend my first meeting. By my second or third meeting I had enticed the Bega Valley Greens to the cafe for meetings after hours. Over the years I am proud of the fact that the cafe has been used after hours for hosting meetings and events with Lee Rhiannon, Cate Faehrmann , David Shoebridge and Sue Higginson as well as providing a location for other activist groups involved in the struggle.
Over the years the Bega Valley Greens and their extraordinary long term members have inculcated in me a deep appreciation if the value of consensus decision making and the importance of proper grass roots deliberative decision making. After being involved in Local, State and Federal campaigns, hosting monthly meetings and pre SDC meetings I eventually found myself as the Greens candidate in the Bega By-election of 2022 in which the safe Liberal seat moved to Labor for the first time in its history. A result that wouldn’t have happened without Greens preferences- of course our new Labor member turned out to be a be the usual disappointment and expresses biblical Dominion attitudes to our forests. C’est la vie.
In 2024 I decided to run as the Greens candidate for the Bega Valley Shire partly because I couldn’t talk anyone else into running, partly as a sense of obligation to my local group but primarily because of the experience of the horrific climate fires of 2019/2020. The campaign was made a little more interesting when I was arrested on top of a Coal Train in Newcastle causing considerable angst for James Ryan and my campaign committee.
There are many battles left to fight in the Bega Valley- the Woodchip Mill in Eden still grinds up our precious Native Forests and exports them as low value wood-chips causing massive environmental damage and increased fire risk (our main fire of 2019/20 started when lightning struck fresh slash left by Forestry) and the agriculture industry still thinks old white men know more than science but they are building a Church to Circularity in our town and while it is currently CircularWashing for the Agribusiness it does open up the opportunity for fresh conversation. There are proposals for kelp farming and a proposed new wharf to provide staging for the building of offshore wind which will provide opportunities and challenges for Green minds. In the meantime the importance of a voice on council that ‘accepts the science’ around our current situation becomes ever more important.