Lee Rhiannon

Lee Rhiannon is the Greens lead Upper House candidate. For the past eight years, eking re-election. Like other Greens MPs she has maintained close connections with a range of community groups. This reflects her strong personal belief that progressive change comes primarily from social movements rather than politicians.

Lee’s work in the NSW Parliament has been extensive:

Opposing inappropriate mining projects
Lee has worked with communities from Lake Cowal to the Hunter to take on polluting mine projects that damage local economies. Her campaign to stop any new coal projects is at the forefront of the Greens commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to expand clean green manufacturing jobs.

Advocating for more sustainable public transport
Lee plays a major part in the Greens’ campaign for a better funded train network, restored rural rail branch lines and CountryLink services, integrated fares across Sydney, more bicycle paths, a robust light rail system for inner Sydney and no new motorways.

Opposing overdevelopment in our cities, towns and suburbs
Lee was active in the successful campaign to save Callan Park. She works closely with communities fighting over development from Sandon Point on the south coast to Lawson in the Blue Mountains.

Supporting forest and biodiversity protection
Lee is a regular visitor to the South East Forest protest camps and works on campaigns to protect urban bushland and biodiversity in threatened environments around NSW.

Protecting the rights of working people
Lee worked closely with the union movement when the Labor Government moved to weaken the NSW workers' compensation scheme. She campaigned for the introduction of legislation mandating criminal penalties for industrial manslaughter and is now working on a private members bill to protect more NSW workers from Howard's WorkChoices.

Supporting Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Intersex (lgbti) rights
Lee campaigned for equal age of consent for gay males. Labor and Coalition MPs joined forces with Christian Democrats to block both debate and a final vote on her private member’s bill to prevent discrimination against lgbti people in private schools and small businesses.

Promoting animal welfare
High-profile campaigns include opposing the import of Asian elephants to Australian zoos, exposing cruel practices at piggeries in NSW, and resisting moves to open up state forests to recreational shooters.

Banning corporate donations to political parties
Lee has driven a major Greens research project on political donations (click here to see the Greens'  Democracy4Sale website) and proposed a private members' bill to ban developer donations to political parties.

Cleaning up politicians' pay and entitlements
Through Parliament and the media, Lee constantly highlights the extravagant superannuation scheme for MPs and has worked for greater transparency and accountability of MPs’ allowances.

Reform public education funding
Lee is a tireless campaigner for public education. She introduced a private members bill to transfer the financial assistance given to wealthy non-government schools to disadvantaged public schools and to improve the accountability of all private schools. She also introduced a bill to restore TAFE funding and to protect the rights of all TAFE teachers.