Stuart Munckton and Federico Fuentes sat down with Max Chandler-Mather, Greens MP for Griffith, to discuss the Magan-djin/Brisbane Greens’ political vision and how parliament fits into their strategy for social change.
Based on previous discussion, it seems the Brisbane Greens’ perspective is based on turning away from the political class and towards ordinary people who have no connection to that world. The aim seems to be rebuilding collective politics to then challenge that status quo. Is that a fair summary?
I think it is a dual strategy: we are a parliamentary party but we are also attempting to be a mass party and establish roots within society.
But civil society has largely become alienated and disconnected from the political system. So, there are some contradictions — healthy contradictions — within that strategy which, I think, constantly raise important strategic questions.
See also
Unions asked to put ‘green bans’ on public housing demolitions Cities need people-oriented development, not developer handouts Max Chandler-Mather: ‘Labor is the political wing of the banking and property industry’We are attempting to win representation in parliament as a way to provide a platform, resources and leverage to continue building connections with civil society, which rightly distrusts, and has largely been disconnected from, that political system.
One of the big questions the left faces is how to convert discontent into ongoing solid social organisation.
That is a key organisational question. Our message, rhetoric and campaigning is very much designed to appeal to, and speak to, people’s material experience of being disconnected and alienated from politics.
But that is one thing; it is another to convert that into organisational and social strength in the same way that, in the 20th century you had those large social........