Learning from Cr Wanchap’s betrayal

Michele Grant, Byron Greens

There is no disputing Rose Wanchap has betrayed the Greens. However the mistake was made by members of Byron Greens who actually nominated and voted for her candidacy.

Despite having over 100 members, many don’t participate in the ballot and others vote without making the effort to meet and scrutinise the candidates.

Unlike the major political parties, members of the Greens have the privilege of nominating and selecting our candidates.

However, we’re often struggling to find people willing to take up the poorly remunerated and thankless task of representing The Greens on Council.

We’ve had far more success with great candidates standing in the upcoming state election.

As a relatively new political party, we haven’t established the nepotism and cronyism of the major parties and don’t have the corporate backers who can parachute their puppets into positions of influence.

Perhaps Rose was a patsy for other less ethical players!

We’ve had plenty of ‘independent’ duds before on Council, blokes who presented themselves as guardians of the environment but quickly turned into friends of the development lobby.

Clearly it’s up to the punters, to scrutinise the candidates and make sure their vote goes to the right person, it’s so easy to be an armchair critic in hindsight.

If people really want to save this planet from the rapacious greed and wanton destruction inflicted by the supporters of the major parties, then you need to put a lot more time and energy into transforming our politics so we get effective, powerful green advocates into our parliaments.

With so many critics out there, why don’t you nominate and take on the job yourselves. Let’s face it, you couldn’t do any worse than Rose.