Lee Rhiannon
Encyclopedia
Lee Rhiannon an Australia
n politician, is a Senator
for New South Wales
, elected at the 2010 federal election, representing the Australian Greens
. Prior to her election to the Australian parliament, Rhiannon was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council
, serving between 1999
and 2010, representing the NSW Greens
.
(CPA) and later the Soviet-loyal Socialist Party. Her parents' membership of the CPA led to documentation of her life by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
(ASIO) from as early as the age of seven. She joined the Socialist Party around 1973.
She sat the New South Wales Higher School Certificate at Sydney Girls High School
in 1969 and obtained a Bachelor of Science, majoring in botany
and zoology
with honours in botany, at the University of New South Wales
, graduating in 1975.
During the 1970s Rhiannon was arrested during anti-apartheid protests. In the 1980s she helped organise the "peace camp" protest outside the joint US-Australian defence facility at Pine Gap
, central Australia.
According to Mark Aarons
, she left the Socialist Party in the early 1980s. Rhiannon edited the Soviet–funded newspaper Survey from 1988 until it ceased publication in 1990. She joined the Greens
in 1990.
Lee Brown married Paddy O'Gorman, from whom she separated in 1987. They had three children. Following her separation, she adopted the surname "Rhiannon", the name of a figure from Welsh mythology
.
in the state's upper house of parliament. She was re-elected with over nine percent of the vote (more than 300,000 votes) at the 2007 state election, taking her seat with three other Greens MLCs.
Rhiannon used her New South Wales Parliamentary maiden speech in 1999 to announce her opposition to a development proposal by the Carr Labor Government
for Walsh Bay
. Rhiannon called on the Australian Labor Party
to advance instead the Party's constitutional ideals for "redistribution of political and economic power" and "the development of public enterprises based upon... forms of social ownership". Rhiannon also spoke against Australia's British colonial legacy and announced that she was the first MLC to sit in the NSW Parliament without the title "honourable". She spoke of her family's involvement in the labour movement and acknowledged her parents' membership of the Communist Party of Australia and said she was proud of their tradition of "optimistic social activism". She reiterated Greens opposition to privatisation of public assets and to the Howard Government
's Goods and Services Tax
.
Rhiannon served on the following Committees in state parliament: General Purpose Standing Committees, Joint Select Committees on the Cross City Tunnel, a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, a Standing Committee on Law and Justice, a Select Committee on the NSW Taxi Industry, a Select Committee on the Increase in Prisoner Population, and a Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and Police Integrity Commission.
In November 2002, in the week prior to protests against the World Trade Organisation in Sydney, Rhiannon spoke in support of the protesters and organised a public conference on Civil Disobedience
at NSW Parliament. Rhiannon spoke against police actions during the S11 Protests
, which violently protested against meetings of the World Economic Forum
in Melbourne in 2000. Rhiannon called on Police Minister Michael Costa to guarantee that police violence would not be used against protesters in Sydney. Costa in return called on Rhiannon to resign for hosting the civil disobedience seminar. Rhiannon lobbied the Vatican against considering the Archbishop of Sydney
, George Pell
, for the position of Pope
because of his conservative views. In 2007 she referred him to the parliamentary privileges committee, alleging "contempt of parliament
" for comments he made in opposition to embryonic stem cell
research legislation.
During her term in the NSW Parliament, she was the Greens NSW Parliamentary spokesperson for the following portfolio areas:
to fill the casual vacancy
.
Rhiannon was elected with 10.7 percent of the statewide vote (more than 400,000 votes), a swing to the Greens in New South Wales of 2.3 percent since the previous federal election. She will share the balance of power
with eight other Greens Senators from July 2011.
The NSW Greens State Conference prior to the 2011 NSW State Election
adopted of a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
campaign against Israel
. In support of the statement, Rhiannon said it was "motivated by the universal principles of freedom, justice and equal rights"
and also "I see the value of that tactic as a way to promoting Palestinian human rights."
Following the election, Federal leader Bob Brown
said that he had conveyed his disapproval of this policy emphasis to Rhiannon.
Announcing portfolio responsibilities for the Australian Greens in June 2011, Bob Brown allocated Rhiannon the following portfolios:
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n politician, is a Senator
Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...
for New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, elected at the 2010 federal election, representing the Australian Greens
Australian Greens
The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, is an Australian green political party.The party was formed in 1992; however, its origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia and the formation of the United Tasmania Group , the first Green party in the world, which...
. Prior to her election to the Australian parliament, Rhiannon was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council
New South Wales Legislative Council
The New South Wales Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of New South Wales in Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney. The Assembly is referred to as the lower house and the Council as...
, serving between 1999
New South Wales state election, 1999
Elections to the 52nd Parliament of New South Wales were held on Saturday, 27 March 1999. All seats in the Legislative Assembly and half the seats in the Legislative Council were up for election...
and 2010, representing the NSW Greens
Greens New South Wales
The Greens New South Wales is the state Greens party in New South Wales. It is a member party of the Australian Greens. The Greens NSW have one member in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly , five members in the New South Wales Legislative Council...
.
Early life
Lee Rhiannon was born Lee Brown, the daughter of Bill and Freda Brown, who were long-term members of the Communist Party of AustraliaCommunist Party of Australia
The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991; it was succeeded by the Socialist Party of Australia, which then renamed itself, becoming the current Communist Party of Australia. The CPA achieved its greatest political strength in the 1940s and faced an attempted...
(CPA) and later the Soviet-loyal Socialist Party. Her parents' membership of the CPA led to documentation of her life by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...
(ASIO) from as early as the age of seven. She joined the Socialist Party around 1973.
She sat the New South Wales Higher School Certificate at Sydney Girls High School
Sydney Girls High School
Sydney Girls High School is an academically selective, Public high school for girls, located at Moore Park, in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
in 1969 and obtained a Bachelor of Science, majoring in botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
and zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
with honours in botany, at the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, graduating in 1975.
During the 1970s Rhiannon was arrested during anti-apartheid protests. In the 1980s she helped organise the "peace camp" protest outside the joint US-Australian defence facility at Pine Gap
Pine Gap
Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a satellite tracking station at, some south-west of the town of Alice Springs in the centre of Australia which is operated by both Australia and the United States. The facility has become a key part of the local economy.It consists of a large computer complex...
, central Australia.
According to Mark Aarons
Mark Aarons
Mark Aarons is an Australian journalist and author. He was a political adviser to NSW Premier Bob Carr.Aarons was born in Newcastle, New South Wales but was brought up in Sydney. He was educated at Fairfield Boys High School and North Sydney Boys High School.He is the son of the late Laurie...
, she left the Socialist Party in the early 1980s. Rhiannon edited the Soviet–funded newspaper Survey from 1988 until it ceased publication in 1990. She joined the Greens
Greens New South Wales
The Greens New South Wales is the state Greens party in New South Wales. It is a member party of the Australian Greens. The Greens NSW have one member in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly , five members in the New South Wales Legislative Council...
in 1990.
Lee Brown married Paddy O'Gorman, from whom she separated in 1987. They had three children. Following her separation, she adopted the surname "Rhiannon", the name of a figure from Welsh mythology
Rhiannon
Rhiannon is a prominent figure in Welsh mythology, mother to the Demetian hero Pryderi and wife to Pwyll . She is probably a reflex of the Celtic Great Queen goddess Rigantona and may also be associated with the horse goddess Epona.She appears in both the first and third branches of the Mabinogi...
.
New South Wales
Rhiannon contested the New South Wales Legislative Council at the 1999 state election for the Australian Greens. She was elected with three percent of the statewide vote (more than 100,000 votes), joining fellow Green Ian CohenIan Cohen
Ian Cohen is an Australian politician. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1995 to 2011, for The Greens...
in the state's upper house of parliament. She was re-elected with over nine percent of the vote (more than 300,000 votes) at the 2007 state election, taking her seat with three other Greens MLCs.
Rhiannon used her New South Wales Parliamentary maiden speech in 1999 to announce her opposition to a development proposal by the Carr Labor Government
Bob Carr
Robert John "Bob" Carr , Australian statesman, was Premier of New South Wales from 4 April 1995 to 3 August 2005. He holds the record for the longest continuous service as premier of NSW...
for Walsh Bay
Dawes Point, New South Wales
Dawes Point is a locality of Sydney's city centre, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Dawes Point is located on the north-eastern edge of the Sydney central business district, at the southern end of Sydney Harbour Bridge, adjacent to The Rocks. It is part of the local government area of...
. Rhiannon called on the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
to advance instead the Party's constitutional ideals for "redistribution of political and economic power" and "the development of public enterprises based upon... forms of social ownership". Rhiannon also spoke against Australia's British colonial legacy and announced that she was the first MLC to sit in the NSW Parliament without the title "honourable". She spoke of her family's involvement in the labour movement and acknowledged her parents' membership of the Communist Party of Australia and said she was proud of their tradition of "optimistic social activism". She reiterated Greens opposition to privatisation of public assets and to the Howard Government
Howard Government
The Howard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Howard. It was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, which won a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives at four successive elections. The Howard Government...
's Goods and Services Tax
Goods and Services Tax
A goods and services tax or value added tax is a tax on exchanges.By country:*Goods and Services Tax *Goods and Services Tax *Goods and Services Tax *Goods and Services Tax...
.
Rhiannon served on the following Committees in state parliament: General Purpose Standing Committees, Joint Select Committees on the Cross City Tunnel, a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, a Standing Committee on Law and Justice, a Select Committee on the NSW Taxi Industry, a Select Committee on the Increase in Prisoner Population, and a Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and Police Integrity Commission.
In November 2002, in the week prior to protests against the World Trade Organisation in Sydney, Rhiannon spoke in support of the protesters and organised a public conference on Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
at NSW Parliament. Rhiannon spoke against police actions during the S11 Protests
S11 (protest)
S11 refers to a series of protests against meetings of the World Economic Forum on 11, 12 and 13 September 2000 in Melbourne, Australia, where approximately 10,000 people of many ages and a wide cross section of the community were involved. One of the groups involved in the protests called itself...
, which violently protested against meetings of the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
in Melbourne in 2000. Rhiannon called on Police Minister Michael Costa to guarantee that police violence would not be used against protesters in Sydney. Costa in return called on Rhiannon to resign for hosting the civil disobedience seminar. Rhiannon lobbied the Vatican against considering the Archbishop of Sydney
Catholic Bishops and Archbishops of Sydney
Sydney has had a Catholic Archbishop since 1842.-List of incumbents:# John Bede Polding OSB, 1842-1877.# Roger Bede Vaughan O.S.B., 1877-1883.# Patrick Francis Moran, 1884-1911.# Michael Kelly, 1911-1940.# Norman Thomas Gilroy, 1940-1971....
, George Pell
George Pell
George Pell AC is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth and current Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne...
, for the position of Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
because of his conservative views. In 2007 she referred him to the parliamentary privileges committee, alleging "contempt of parliament
Contempt of Parliament
In some countries, contempt of parliament is the offence of obstructing the legislature in the carrying out of its functions, or of hindering any legislator in the performance of his or her duties. The offence is known by various other names in jurisdictions in which the legislature is not called...
" for comments he made in opposition to embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst, an early-stage embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells...
research legislation.
During her term in the NSW Parliament, she was the Greens NSW Parliamentary spokesperson for the following portfolio areas:
- Firearms; Donations; Mineral Resources; Roads; Transport; Health; Sexuality and Gender Identity; Electoral Issues; Industrial Relations; Attorney Generals; Parliamentary Process; Ports & Waterways; Gaming & Racing; Youth; South East NSW; Women; Animal Welfare; Rural Affairs; Science; and the Hunter region.
Federal parliament
Rhiannon contested and won a seat in the Australian Senate for New South Wales at the 2010 federal election for the Australian Greens. She resigned from the NSW Legislative Council when the federal election was called, with a ballot of party members selecting Cate FaehrmannCate Faehrmann
Cate Faehrmann is a Greens Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, environmental activist and former director of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW. She was also a board member of the progressive political organisation GetUp and the public interest environmental law firm, the...
to fill the casual vacancy
Casual vacancy
In the Parliament of Australia, a casual vacancy is caused when a member of either house :* dies* resigns mid-term * is expelled from Parliament and their seat is declared vacant, or...
.
Rhiannon was elected with 10.7 percent of the statewide vote (more than 400,000 votes), a swing to the Greens in New South Wales of 2.3 percent since the previous federal election. She will share the balance of power
Balance of power (parliament)
In parliamentary politics, the term balance of power sometimes describes the pragmatic mechanism exercised by a minor political party or other grouping whose guaranteed support may enable an otherwise minority government to obtain and hold office...
with eight other Greens Senators from July 2011.
The NSW Greens State Conference prior to the 2011 NSW State Election
New South Wales state election, 2011
Elections to the 55th Parliament of New South Wales were held on Saturday, 26 March 2011. The 16-year incumbent Australian Labor Party government led by Premier Kristina Keneally was defeated in a landslide by the Liberal-National coalition opposition led by Barry O'Farrell.New South Wales has...
adopted of a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions refers to a campaign first initiated on 9 July 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause ".....
campaign against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. In support of the statement, Rhiannon said it was "motivated by the universal principles of freedom, justice and equal rights"
and also "I see the value of that tactic as a way to promoting Palestinian human rights."
Following the election, Federal leader Bob Brown
Bob Brown
Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...
said that he had conveyed his disapproval of this policy emphasis to Rhiannon.
Announcing portfolio responsibilities for the Australian Greens in June 2011, Bob Brown allocated Rhiannon the following portfolios:
- Democracy; Local Government; Higher Education; Assisting on National Security; Women; International Aid and Development; Animal Welfare; and Forests.
Other political and community engagement
- High School Students Against Vietnam War, 1968
- Organiser with Low Cost Housing for Glebe Estate from 1971–1976
- Secretary, Waverley International Year of the Child Committee 1978-1980
- Organiser for Bondi Junction Residents Action Group from 1974–1978
- Member of Women's Advisory Council to the NSW Government, 1980–82
- Secretary, Union of Australian Women (NSW Branch), 1980–83
- Organiser for Women Against Global Violence and Women for Survival, 1983–85
- Member of the Woollahra P&C, 1984–89
- Organiser for Parents Support Public Education, 1998
- Convenor, Coalition for Gun Control 1988-92
- Director, Rainforest Information Centre, 1990–1992
- Director, AID/WATCH 1993-98