Greens senator-elect Lee Rhiannon outside the NSW Greens office in inner-west Sydney yesterday. Picture: Jeremy Piper Source: The Australian
GREENS leader Bob Brown has carpeted future Senate colleague Lee Rhiannon for her anti-Israel stance, telling her the policy was a mistake that cost the party votes in the NSW state election.
Senator Brown said the Israel boycott proposal was against his advice and had alienated NSW voters when the party should have been focusing on bread-and-butter issues.
He had conveyed his views to Greens senator-elect Ms Rhiannon in a "robust'' phone call this morning.
Senator Brown said the federal Greens in no way endorsed the policy.
"The NSW Greens have taken to having their own shade of foreign policy,'' Senator Brown said.
"It was a mistake. I differ from Lee on that, and so do the other components of the NSW Greens, who handled so badly that part of the campaign against my advice.
"I reiterate that the policy she and the NSW Greens had in the run to the NSW election was wrong emphasis.
"NSW voters wanted to hear about issues affecting them day-to-day, it's one that has been rejected by the Australian Greens.''
Ms Rhiannon, who will take her Senate spot on July 1 when the Greens take the balance of power in the upper house, has expressed regret that the NSW Greens did not campaign harder for the policy.
But Senator Brown said the policy had turned off voters.
"I think that it was damaging to the Greens campaign, they had very good policies on transport, preschool education, renewable energy, and the hate media was able to play this issue up,'' he said.
"`There's always going to be campaigns against any new mainstream player like us,'' he said.
The Greens leader also criticised Julia Gillard for "turning her fire on the very people supporting her in government'' in a speech last night.
He was referring to a speech in which Ms Gillard criticised the Greens as a party out of touch with the needs and aspirations of ordinary Australians.
Senator Brown said the attack was "product differentiation'' and a sign of how well the Greens were performing.
But he warned Labor could suffer if the rhetoric continued.
"If you aren't very prudent about the words you use in deliberate public speeches, of all thing ... sometimes they can come back to bite you,'' he said.
more to come...
