User:Sambauers/Drafts/Lee Rhiannon

Lee Rhiannon is an Australian politician. She joined The Greens NSW in 1991 and was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1999. She was re-elected to the Legislative Council at the 2007 state election.

In June 2009 she won preselection to run in first position on The Greens NSW ticket for the Senate at the next federal election. She will resign from the Legislative Council when that federal election is called. A ballot of Greens members in late 2009 selected Cate Faehrmann to fill the resulting casual vacancy.

Rhiannon holds a strong personal belief that social change comes from social movements, not politicians. In her inaugural speech to NSW Parliament she said, “This parliament makes the law, but it is the people who make history".

She has three adult children and lives with her partner in Sydney.

Early Years
Rhiannon is the daughter of Freda Yetta Brown who was a prominent Australian women's rights activist, and Bill Brown. Both were former Communist Party of Australia members. Her parents activism led to documentation of Rhiannon's life by ASIO from as early as the age of seven.

She went to primary school in Newtown, Kangaroo Valley and Bronte. She attended Sydney Girls High School, completing her Higher School Certificate in 1969.

Early Activism
Rhiannon was active as a school student against the war in Vietnam as a member of High School Students Against The Vietnam War (1968), travelling to Canberra to protest at the US Embassy and Australian Parliament.

As a teenager in the late 1960s, Rhiannon worked as a zoo-keeper at Taronga Zoo, and then at the Regent Park Zoo in London. She later graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in botany and zoology with Honours in Botany (1975). She was later a tutor in botany practicals at UNSW (1975) and worked at Macquarie University as a research assistant in population ecology (1976-77) and as a tutor in general ecology. In the 1970s Lee was arrested whilst involved in anti-apartheid protests.

During the 1980s Rhiannon was a member of NSW Women’s Advisory Council to the Wran Government (1980-82) and an organiser of the Pine Gap women’s peace camp, where 700 women camped outside the US military base in central Australia. During this decade she was Secretary of the Union of Australian Women (NSW Branch) (1980-83) and an organiser for Women Against Global Violence and Women for Survival (1983-85). Rhiannon also worked as a journalist for trade unions including the Seamens Union (now Maritime Union of Australia) and the Printers Union (now Australian Manufacturing Workers Union). She founded and became convenor of the National Coalition for Gun Control (1988-92), regularly debating gun lobbyists in the media and championing the call for removing all guns from urban areas.

In the 1990s, Rhiannon’s attention moved towards overseas aid. In this period, she was public relations officer with the Ideas Centre, a resource centre on low income countries (1989-90). She initiated 'Pactok', a program designed to provide people from low-income countries with information technologies (1990-91) and AWARE (Action for the World and Renewable Environment) a schools and community education program highlighting inequity between the first and third worlds (1990). Rhiannon worked for the Rainforest Information Centre (1991-1992), where she helped develop a campaign for the banning of imports of rainforest timbers. One of Rhiannon’s most significant achievements was founding and directing AID/WATCH, an international monitoring body of Australia’s overseas aid programs (1993-98).

Overview
During her time as a Greens MLC in NSW Parliament Rhiannon has campaigned on a broad range of issues. These include reforming the funding of public education, advocating for more sustainable public transport and no new motorways, protecting workers’ rights, opposing over-development, creating a fairer justice system, protecting native forests, working for gay and lesbian rights, promoting animal welfare and cleaning up politicians’ pay and entitlements.

She has also campaigned for reform of NSW’s freedom of information laws and to remove abortion from the NSW Crimes Act.

In 2001 Rhiannon initiated an annual memorial lecture in honour of Juanita Nielsen, a community activist who organised against overdevelopment in Sydney's Kings Cross, activity that is believed to be the motive for her murder during the same period.

Two of Rhiannon’s most notable campaigns have been in the areas of political donations and coal mining across NSW.

Political Donations
Rhiannon initiated the Greens Democracy 4 Sale project which indexes political donation records in Australia so that they are more easily searchable. The project has helped to drive electoral funding reform in NSW.

Rhiannon initiated a private members bill to ban donations from developers to the NSW government in 2003 and worked with Greens MP Sylvia Hale to move the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Restoration of Community Participation) Bill in 2008.

Although these bills were defeated, these actions led to increased pressure on the NSW government initiate donation reform. In June 2008 this culminated in the government itself presenting two bills, the Election Funding Amendment (Political Donations Expenditure) Bill and the Local Government and Planning Legislation Amendment (Political Donations) Bill in 2008. Rhiannon moved a raft of amendments to close loopholes, which failed to gain the major parties’ support. Donations from developers to political parties in NSW were finally banned in 2009.

Mining
Working closely with coal communities, Rhiannon has campaigned against the expansion of the NSW coal industry, highlighting damage to the natural environment and water sources, prime agriculture and the quality of life of local people, including their health. In 2009 she moved a private members bill to safeguard prime agricultural land from mining.

Education
Rhiannon has campaigned for better funding of NSW public schools. She has introduced private members bills to reduce the financial assistance given to wealthy non-government schools and make education funding for public schools and TAFE more equitable.

Industrial Relations
Rhiannon worked closely with the union movement when the Carr government moved in 2001 to dismantle the hard-won right to worker's compensation. Her ‘no job is worth dying for’ campaign called for the introduction of industrial manslaughter legislation.

Transport
Rhiannon has worked for a better funded train network, restoring rural branchlines and CountryLink services, first class infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians, a robust light rail system for inner Sydney and an end to new motorways. She has also campaigned to keep Sydney ferries in public hands. Rhiannon helped expose the problems with the Cross City Tunnel project.

Her Peak Oil Response Plan Bill set out how the NSW government should plan for peak oil.

Over-development
Community pressure and Rhiannon’s Save Callan Park Bill in 2002 helped with the successful campaign to save Callan Park from development.

Justice
Rhiannon has campaigned against the Liberal, Labor and National parties’ law and order agenda, including extending police powers, creating new offences and longer sentences, and eroding civil liberties. She has opposed the use of sniffer dogs for encouraging discriminatory policing and wasting resources, and the weakening of NSW’s gun control laws.

Gay and Lesbian Rights
Rhiannon campaigned to lower the age of consent for gay males to 16 years old. She introduced bills to prevent discrimination by private schools and small businesses and legalise same sex marriage. She has also campaigned to allow adoption by same sex couples.

Animal Welfare
High-profile campaigns have included opposing the import of Asian elephants to Australian zoos, exposing cruel practices at NSW's piggeries, and preventing moves to open up NSW state forests and national parks to hunting.

Politician's Pay and Entitlements
Rhiannon has called for reform of the overly generous pay, superannuation and entitlements scheme for NSW members of parliament. She has also called for increased transparency in the area.

Committees
Rhiannon currently serves on the following parliamentary committees:
 * Select Committee on the NSW Taxi Industry
 * General Purpose Standing Committee No. 2
 * General Purpose Standing Committee No. 3
 * Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters

2010 Senate Campaign
Rhiannon was announced as the lead Senate candidate in NSW for The Greens in March 2009.

In July 2010 she came under fire for allegedly misusing her State Parliamentary resources for her campaign. NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos alleged that Ms Rhiannon's state parliamentary staff were potentially taking calls regarding her federal Senate campaign.

Ms Rhiannon acknowledged that she had made unintentional errors by putting her parliamentary phone number at the end of a small number of media releases, but denied that it had cost tax payers money. In a statement she labelled the claims against her as a Labor smear campaign.