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Greens candidate: Irene Doutney

Council elections will be held in September and the Greens are first to preselect candidates (Labor will announce candidates following its State Conference in early May). Chris Harris is the Greens Lord Mayoral candidate, with Irene Doutney number two on the ticket reports Andrew Collis in the South Sydney Herald of April 2008.

The Greens are hoping, for the first time, to have two councillors come September, a realistic hope according to Irene Doutney, who with the strong support of party members from the South Sydney and Inner City Greens, is already in campaign mode, and ready to serve the city she has lived in all her life.

Ms Doutney is a well-known and respected activist for peace and social justice, with an impressive resume. She is the tenant rep for the public housing complex in which she lives, an editorial board member of the tenant newsletter The Redwater News, secretary of the management committee of the Factory Community Centre in Waterloo, and a co-ordinating member of REDWatch (set up to monitor the plans of the Redfern-Waterloo Authority and development in South Sydney).

As a member of the Greens she has worked on the Heffron and Sydney campaigns, and is currently a member of the Anti-Privatisation Working Group, convenor of the South Sydney Greens, a member of the Housing Working Group, the Council Reference Group and the editorial committee of the Greens newspaper Greenvoice.

The Greens, Ms Doutney says, offer real alternatives to exploitative capitalism, and the party’s policies are grounded in four consistent principles: economic and social justice; sustainability; peace and non-violence; and grass-roots democracy.

“These are not abstract principles,” she adds. “When considering a Development Application, it’s important to ask for whom the project is beneficial and who stands to lose. Does it weaken essential community infrastructure? It’s important to consider the environmental sustainability of the project – mandatory standards should be set – while encouraging open and fair community discussion and involvement.”

Ms Doutney is keen to point out that the Greens are committed to independence. “We take donations from individuals only. No developers. No corporations.”

In the present and near future, key social issues include programs for youth and the elderly, detox centres, and dry centres for the homeless. “A psychiatric referral centre in Redfern is sorely needed,” Ms Doutney says.

“It’s frustrating to see trendy little pocket parks – and the fuss made of that – when there’s such tremendous disadvantage among the people, including Indigenous people.

Sometimes it seems that festivals and events are organised to placate and distract the community from real and urgent needs.

“I’m thinking of the new lighting erected over Redfern Street. It’s ironic. Under the lights such disadvantage in the streets. We now have new lights but crumby boarding houses, few services for people with health problems, mental health issues, drug and alcohol addictions.”

The Greens are sometimes accused of naivete, of being anti-progress. “The opposite is true,” Ms Doutney says. “There are finite resources and we need to find more innovative and future-oriented ways of managing resources. We don’t need more cars and freeways. We don’t need more competition, more of the same. We need real alternatives to over-development and self-indulgent investment. We need affordable housing, and in a hurry.”

Source: South Sydney Herald April 2008 - www.southsydneyherald.com.au