The
United Tasmania Group (UTG) is generally acknowledged as the world's first Green party. The party was formed on 23 March 1972, during a meeting of the
Lake Pedder Action GroupThe Lake Pedder Action Committee was a Tasmanian environmental group that in the early 1970s unsuccessfully fought the state government of Tasmania led by Eric Reece and its powerful and influential energy agency the Hydro-Electric Commissionto prevent the flooding of Lake Pedder in South West...
(LPAG) at the
HobartHobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
town hall in order to field political candidates in the April 1972 state election. They received 3.9% of the statewide vote and came within 200 votes of winning a seat. They also contested the 1976 election, this time receiving 2.2% of the votes.
The United Tasmania Group's first President was
Dr Richard JonesDr. Richard Jones was one of the co-founders of the United Tasmania Group , the world's first Green party and the predecessor of the Tasmanian Greens. He was the UTG's first president when it formed in March 1972, through to the middle 1970s. At the time Jones was an academic biologist working at...
and it lasted for five years, briefly reforming in 1990 for the federal election. Most of the original candidates, including
Bob BrownRobert 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...
went on to form the
Tasmanian GreensThe Tasmanian Greens are a political party in Australia which developed from numerous environmental campaigns in Tasmania, including the flooding of Lake Pedder and the Franklin Dam campaign...
(who enjoyed considerably more success) and then ultimately, at the national level, the
Australian GreensThe 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...
.
External links
Further reading
- Armstrong, Lance J.E. (1997). Good God, He’s Green! A History of Tasmanian Politics 1989-1996. Wahroonga, N.S.W., Pacific Law Press. ISBN 1-875192-08-5
- Lines, William J. (2006) Patriots : defending Australia's natural heritage St. Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press, 2006. ISBN 0-70223-554-7