14-9-2007 Greg Barber, Colleen Hartland and I have been elected for eight months now and parliament has sat for 12 weeks. In that time, the government has put up 44 bills. Of those, the Greens have proposed amendments to nine bills and voted against three. Forty (93%) were supported by the Greens even though our amendments were not successful. One was a conscience vote. Only one (critical water infrastructure projects – really a bill to give the Planning Minister more power) has been returned to the Assembly with an amendment and only one (nuclear plebiscite) has failed entirely.

General (non government) Business takes the form of motions (or private members’ bills) that are listed by non government members and debated on Wednesdays. To date, thirteen non-government motions have been debated. The Greens have supported six of these, which the ALP voted against. These included motions put by the non government parties to open up the legislative council and expand its role as a house of review, to establish the select committees into gambling and public land and the Greens motion to establish an anti corruption commission in Victoria.

We believe these initiatives are to the benefit of the parliament and the community and should have been supported by the ALP. The government is always saying it supports transparency and accountability but has voted against measures to increase accountability in the parliament.

The Greens did not support three of the eleven motions moved by the Liberal party – this included the Greens and ALP voting against a desalination plant! Three other non government motions were supported by all parties and one motion regarding the appearance of MLAs at upper house select committees was amended by the ALP and Nationals combined to effectively negate it.

We take every opportunity to speak up for Greens policies and values in response to government bills, in our members’ statements, in general business debates and in questions in parliament.

If you would like more information on how the Greens have voted in parliament, see the greens voting record on our website.

If you are interested in reading the debates on the bills or non government motions in the Legislative Council, go to Hansard and Search under the name of the bill or motion, the date and/or the name of the speaker/s.