Greens leader Shane Rattenbury will face his party’s rank-and-file members this week for the first time since a plot to oust Labor and form a government with the Liberals was revealed.
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Party members have been invited to a “briefing meeting” on Thursday evening, where Mr Rattenbury is expected to face backlash over the detailed talks which canvassed installing him as chief minister.
“This meeting will provide an opportunity for both the Assembly team and management committee to provide detailed information on what has happened so far, and where we now stand, regarding dialogue between the ACT Greens and Canberra Liberals,” a notice to members said.
Greens leader Shane Rattenbury, left, and deputy leader Jo Clay, who will face a meeting of party members on Thursday. Picture by Gary Ramage
Members within the Greens have privately been expressing a mixture of shock and anger about the prospect of their party, which emerged from the Australian environmental movement, helping the right-wing Canberra Liberals into power.
Mr Rattenbury on Tuesday confirmed his party’s talks with the Liberals considered “a possible change of government” and said European politics showed there were ways for political parties to work together across the aisle.
Mr Rattenbury said he sat down with Canberra Liberals leader Mark Parton, after Mr Parton was elected by his party room to lead the opposition in November.
“And those conversations have progressed to some degree. The focus has really been on the frustrations we hear from the Canberra community about the things that are not being fixed, the complacency of the government in a range of areas and how you might approach them differently,” Mr Rattenbury said.
“So, it’s very much been about how do we get better outcomes for the community.”
The Greens needed to talk more to its membership before further talks could proceed and “there’s not a really active discussion at the moment,” he told ABC radio.
The decision-making processes of the ACT Greens are based on a bottom-up, consensus-building approach, which is why the confirmation of talks led by the parliamentary party with the Liberals has been met with such resistance among the membership.
The party’s constitution gives wide-ranging powers to a special general meeting of members, including the power to decide whether the ACT Greens will join a coalition or contest an election.
Rank-and-file members also have the power to spill parliamentary leadership positions “when a motion of loss of confidence petitioned by at least 20 members achieves at least two-thirds support of the voting members at a special general meeting”.
Thursday’s briefing could not be considered a special general meeting under the party’s rules, which require a 21-day notice period and advance warning of the agenda.
Mr Rattenbury last week told Mr Parton he was unlikely to receive the support of the Greens’ management committee for their potential power-sharing deal.
The Greens’ management committee was understood to have met at the weekend of January 16 and 17 about the proposal and decided it would be unable to support forming government with the Liberals.
Greens convenor Susan Helyar previously told The Canberra Times: “It is routine business for Greens MLAs to update our management committee on emerging concerns and opportunities and the political landscape in the Assembly.”
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