[Greens-Media] Historic four Greens Senators

[Oquist, Ben (Sen B. Brown)]

Tuesday, 2 August 2005

Historic four Greens Senators

The four Australian Greens senators and their twenty four staff have
concluded two days of meeting in Canberra.

Senators Brown (Tas), Nettle (NSW), Siewert (WA) and Milne (Tas) have
assumed portfolios and set up a liaison between offices to streamline
the growing party's role as the progressive voice in politics.

"The parliamentary wing has set in place a plan to have the party
consider federal party room (caucus) procedures which the senators will
develop over the coming months," Senator Brown said.

"We're putting a robust parliamentary structure in place  encoding
offices such as leader and whip as well as rules of meetings, to better
deal with the expanded parliamentary vote the public have entrusted us
with.

"We are the third party in Australia and, with 9,000 members and 900,000
voters, aim to set the agenda in progressive economic, social and
environmental policy. The government's one seat majority in the Senate
is very fragile. We will rattle it," Senator Brown said.

New Greens senators Christine Milne (Tas) and Rachel Siewert (WA) will
give their inaugural speeches next week, on Wednesday (5pm) and Thursday
(5pm) respectively.