This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The New South Wales Greens appear to have avoided a split three months out from a state election, with two state MPs backing down from a threat to quit the party.

Last week two of the party’s upper house MPs, Cate Faehrmann and Justin Field, sent a letter to members threatening to quit the party unless it held a recount of its preselection ballot and formally banned a section of the party’s hard-left faction.

It marked the culmination of a period of escalating tension within the NSW Greens beginning with Newtown MP Jenny Leong’s use of parliamentary privilege to accuse another MP, Jeremy Buckingham, of committing an “act of sexual violence” against a former party aide and ending with the party’s state delegate council passing a motion calling on him to step aside from the upcoming election ticket.

Buckingham has denied the allegations.

But following a meeting of the party’s national council on Tuesday night, Faehrmann and Field appear to have walked away from their threat, welcoming a commitment for the party to “oversee an independent root and branch review of the NSW Greens”.

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“We believe this is a critical first step to resolving some of the issues that have been called out recently by ourselves and many members who feel let down by the party’s decision-making structures and processes,” they wrote in a letter to members.

“Because the reality is that many members have left the party in recent weeks, months and years due to genuine concerns relating to bullying and bad behaviour, failures of governance and procedural fairness and inadequate complaints and grievance processes.”

However the motion passed by the national council did not endorse either of the two MPs’ demands. Instead, it supported an earlier decision by the NSW Greens to conduct an independent review of its internal structure.

The motion did not mention the preselection ballot or the MPs’ push to ban the Left Renewal faction from the party.

“With regards to the recount of the ballot, should Jeremy step aside, we understand this is under serious consideration by the party,” Faehrmann and Field wrote.

“We remain firmly convinced that a recount is the only democratic way of dealing with a formal request made to a candidate to remove themselves from the ticket who is in a winnable position and we continue to advocate for this.”

However Guardian Australia understands the party’s management committee met to vote on the recount last week and did not pass the motion.

The push for a recount to the ballot followed the decision to ask Buckingham to step aside. It is not known whether another vote will be held.

Another MP, Dawn Walker – a factional ally of Buckingham’s – had wanted to secure a recount in the hope that his preferences would push her position on the ballot from fourth to second.

Walker said the motion passed by the national council did not go far enough.

“This agreement fails to address the critical issue of holding a recount for preselection, should Jeremy Buckingham stand aside, and ensuring many hundreds of members are not disenfranchised,” she said.



“Whether the party agrees to an immediate recount of preselection votes will be the first test of whether the NSW Greens is genuine about democratic reform and bringing the party together.”

Buckingham – who has been openly hostile to the party since it passed the motion calling on him to step aside – was similarly dismissive of the compromise, calling it a “Band-Aid” solution.

“It’s a Band-Aid on a weeping wound that is the rotten and corrupt NSW Greens party. This type of review happened only a few years ago and resulted in virtually no reform,” he said.

“The resolution does not deal with the immediate issues of the party refusing to conduct a democratic recount should I leave the Greens ticket and capitulates to the extreme left who are running riot in the Greens.”

The party’s hard-left faction has claimed Faehrmann and Field’s backdown as a victory.

“They got nothing, none of their demands were even discussed by the Australian Greens,” a source from the hard-left said.

“Instead the Australian Greens unanimously supported the call by the NSW Greens for Buckingham to leave the ticket. This is a humiliating backdown from two right-wing MPs who thought they were more important than they are.”