Emergency Motions passed at conference
14 September 2007
NEWS: Green Party in England & Wales
The following emergency motions have now been passed at the Green Party's Autumn Conference in Liverpool.
1) Cllr John Coyne, of Liverpool City Council, presented the follwoing motion:
'Divergence between recent Lib Dem rhetoric and Liverpool City Councilperformance'
Conference regrets the growing disparity between the green rhetoric employed by the Liberal Democrat party at a national level, advanced especially by the Zero Carbon Britain report, published 28th August 2007, and the actions of Liberal Democrats where in power.
Conference particularly regrets the record of the Liberal Democrat administration on Liverpool City Council, which has:
* sought to dissuade Liverpudlians from using sustainable transport routes, with council leader Warren Bradley saying: "I urge business leaders to support airline VLM instead of alternative train services";
* failed to lift Liverpool's recycling rate out of the bottom 10 in the country despite nine years in power;
* rejected Green calls to remove investment in the arms trade from the Council pension portfolio; and,
* U-turned on support for the Green approach of avoiding economic dependency on airport expansion
Conference considers that a green-minded local authority would make urgent progress on mitigating climate damage and in particular would:
* plan to avoid dependence on expansion of Liverpool airport as a driver of economic growth;
* apply speed limits of 20mph or lower on all residential streets, citywide;
* reallocate road space so that buses and cycles have priority over cars; and,
* show leadership by giving up councillors' rights to free parking.
Conference notes that the Green Party Autumn conference in Liverpool will be followed by the Spring Conference of the Liberal Democrats, also in Liverpool.
Using Liverpool as a test case, Conference instructs GPEx to work with Liverpool Green Party:
* to monitor the progress, if any, made by Liverpool's ruling Liberal Democrat City Council in the coming six months to close the gap between national policy and local practice;
* to publish an assessment of that progress; and,
* in the absence of radical progress, to invite green-minded Liberal Democrat councillors to resign from their party and apply for membership of the Green Party.'
2) Cllr John Coyne also succesfully proposed the following motion:
'Liverpool City Council's rejection of urban wind power'
Conference is appalled by the recent decision of Liverpool City Council's Planning Committee not to approve the installation of an urban wind turbine, being part of Liverpool's first zero-carbon building within an educational centre in Toxteth.
Conference regrets the lack of vision demonstrated by the Planning Committee, and considers that this attitude is preventing the city of Liverpool from fulfilling its obvious potential to be a world leader in environmental, economic and social innovation.
Conference particularly regrets that the Liverpool Labour Party spokesperson on environment had objected to this wind turbine application.
Conference instructs GPEx to make representation to the Liverpool Planning Authority, urging it to reconsider its position given the urgent need to take practical as well as symbolic steps towards mitigating climate chaos.
3) Pete Murry of the Trade Union Group within the party proposed the following mortion, which was carried.
'GP delpores the short-sighted nature of Gordon Brown's economic policies as exemplified by his provocation of the recent Prison Officers' strike. Offering public sector workers, (who in all different ways perform socially important work), below inflation pay settlements whilst allowing their workloads to inexorabley increase is insulting, when private sector bosses can award themselves pay rises of 37 per cent or more. The consequences of this gross inequality are crime, social problems and physical and mental ill health. We call on the government to institute a pay policy based on need not greed and to set about practically addressing the problems we face due to climate change, instead of making matters worse for us all by its tight-fistedness.'
Green Party Principal Speaker Dr. Derek Wall was a strong supporter of this motion. When it was passed he said: "I welcome this motion. We need to radically change the way in which our government functions. The economy must be made to work for us, rather than us working for the economy."
ENDS
