Greens South Australia

Greens South Australia is a Green Party located in South Australia, a member of the federation of the Australian Greens party.

Electoral history
Prior to 1995, a very small local Green party not connected to the emerging Australian Greens contested a number of State and Federal elections. This party was more or less non-functioning by the time Mark Parnell (current Greens State MLC) called the first meetings to establish a new Green Party in 1995. It took a number of attempts to get the new party off the ground, however a visit to Adelaide by Bob Brown in late 1995 provided the necessary impetus to register the new party.

The Australian Greens (SA) first ran and contested every seat at the 1996 federal election, followed by the 1997 state election. In both elections they scored around 1.7 percent of the vote.

Since that time, the SA Greens have steadily built up a support base at state and federal elections, partly due to the demise of the Democrats.

Kris Hanna, the member for Mitchell, was elected as an ALP member in March 2002, but changed to The Greens in January 2003. Hanna left the party in February 2006, citing constituents' wishes for him not to be bound to any party.

2006 state election
At the 2006 election, Environmental lawyer Mark Parnell became the first Green candidate to be elected in South Australia, securing a position in the Legislative Council on a primary vote of of 4.3 percent. A vote of 6.5 percent was achieved in the House of Assembly.

The best lower house result was in the electoral district of Heysen, on a primary vote of 17.7 percent. Heysen was also the Democrats closest lower house win, coming as close as 1.9 percent at the 1997 state election on a primary vote of 29.2 percent, finishing at 48.1 percent after preferences.



2007 federal election
Second on the 2006 state ticket, Sarah Hanson-Young was first on the ticket at the 2007 federal election, and became South Australia's first Greens Senator. She won the sixth and final South Australian Senate position with a primary vote of 6.5 percent. The strongest Green votes in the Senate came from Adelaide, Boothby and Mayo.