Greens South Australia

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Greens SA




Leader	No official leader¹

Founded	1995
Headquarters	PO BOX 10483 (239 Wright St) ADELAIDE BC SA 5000

Political Ideology	green politics
International Affiliation	Global Greens Asia-Pacific Green Network

Website	Greens SA

See also	Politics of Australia Political parties Elections

Greens South Australia is a Green Party located in South Australia, a member of the federation of the Australian Greens party.

1 Electoral history
2 Kris Hanna Defection
3 2007 federal election
4 See also
5 External links
6 notes

[edit] Electoral history

Prior to 1995, a very small local Green party not connected to the emerging Australian Greens contested a number of State and Federal elections. This party was more or less non-functioning by the time Mark Parnell (current Greens State MP) called the first meetings to establish a new Green Party in 1995. It took a number of attempts to get the new party off the ground, however a visit to Adelaide by Bob Brown in late 1995 provided the necessary impetus to register the new party.

The Australian Greens (SA) first ran in the Australian legislative election, 1996 (where they contested every seat), followed by the 1997 state election. In both elections they scored around 1.7% of the vote.

Since that time, the SA Greens have steadily built up a support base at the 2002 and 2006 state elections, partly due to the demise of the Democrats. At the 2006 election, Environmental lawyer Mark Parnell became the first Green ever to be elected in SA, securing a position in the Legislative Council with a vote of 4.3%. Their best lower house result at the 2006 state election came in the electoral district of Heysen, with 17.7% of first preference votes. http://www.pollbludger.com/sa2006/heysen.htm] Heysen was also the Democrats closest lower house win, coming as close as 1.9% at the 1997 state election on a primary vote of 29.2%, finishing at 48.1% after preferences. The residual Democrats vote could also work in the Greens favour.

[edit] Kris Hanna Defection

Kris Hanna, the member for Mitchell, was elected as an ALP member, but changed to The Greens in January 2003. Hanna subsequently left the party on 8th February 2006, citing constituents' wishes for him not to be bound to any party. [1]

[edit] 2007 federal election

The lead Senate candidate for the Greens SA in the 2007 Federal election will be Sarah Hanson-Young, whose chances of election have improved since the impending retirement of Democrat Natasha Stott Despoja.