The Australian Greens by Jackson Stewart;

Author:Jackson, Stewart;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing

Activity and engagement with branches

Having joined the party, a new member—and potential party activist—goes through a period of settling in, perhaps involving engagement with the local group or attendance at working group meetings, actions or social events. Key involvement within the party often starts with attendance at a local branch meeting, as the Greens are still heavily oriented towards local participation. Other activities within the party that are encouraged are policy- or activity-oriented working groups. Party activists engaged organisationally are those most involved in activities within the party. How do they engage, and why?

As might reasonably be expected of party activists, 85 per cent described themselves as ‘fairly’ or ‘very active’. This can be compared to members, of whom 32 per cent described themselves in this manner. Very few activists, compared to almost a quarter of members, identified that they were ‘not at all active’. When looked at in terms of when activists joined the party, a marked number of the earliest joiners describe themselves as only ‘fairly active’ or ‘not very active’. Equally, while there is a slight drop among more recent joiners in those identifying as ‘very active’, there is an equivalent increase in those saying they are ‘fairly active’.

This in itself might simply indicate that as the party grows in terms of membership, resources and MPs (and therefore staffing), the need for high continuous levels of activity has reduced. A young party with limited resources, whether physical or financial, will require a high level of committed activity from its relatively small membership, yet a large party with professional staff, an extended membership and large branch structure will have less reason to call on individual members. Equally, there will be a corresponding sense that any individual party activist need not be constantly active to fulfil the roles as they might once have done—essentially that there are now more bodies to fill the requisite positions and do the job of organising the party.

Compared to the frequency of particular actions, several activities stand out as the most likely to be undertaken. First among these are the number of meetings attended (see table 6.2). Almost 80 per cent of party activists attended six or more local group meetings in this last twelve months. When coupled with those who attended three to five times (14 per cent), 93 per cent of activists attended a local meeting at least once a quarter. Since party activists include local branch office holders (≃60 per cent of the target population), this is perhaps not completely surprising. However, it also indicates that members are engaged with the organisation and attending local group meetings, with more than half of members generally having attended at least one meeting in the last year.

Table 6.2: Activists, staff and members—local meeting attendance

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