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Abstract
Are the Australian Greens, as a political organisation, experiencing a similar transformation to green parties in Europe in moving from a movement-based party to a pragmatic parliamentary party? What are the implications of changes in the party organisation, and how key party activists respond to this? The debate surrounding party leadership, and particularly parliamentary leadership, is a central issue. As the Greens have increased their parliamentary representation, the question of access to resources, as much as access to media, has brought the leadership issue to the forefront. The resignation of Senator Bob Brown as federal leader on 13 April 2012 has sharpened that focus. This article explores the role of the ‘party organisational activist’ and, in particular, how party activists perceive and respond to issues of leadership.
Notes
1For the purposes of this article, the focus will be on the interactions between the components of the party organisationally, rather than whether the Greens now fit into a particular party ‘form’: catch-all, cartel or electoral professional (Katz and Mair Citation1995).