This week we cover another incredible Lismore woman in politics, Sue Higginson. Each week I interview an inspiring female leader who has either worked behind the scenes in a leadership position in Government, or has run or been successfully elected into a local, state or federal position. We are so lucky in this region to have such a wealth of incredibly experienced and dedicated women who lead, and Sue Higginson despite her incredibly humble, human-centred and aware way of being with a diverse array of minority groups within the community, is another shining example.

Back in 1996 Sue ran for the Federal seat of Page. According to Sue, she ran "because at the time I was working very hard for forest conservation, protecting the old-growth forests in North Eastern NSW. I felt it was a valuable platform to highlight this need."

"It was a short, sharp campaign, a 6-week campaign, that was a lot of fun, whilst of course also being very serious, and had followed a period of time when I had supported the first-ever Greens MP to be elected in NSW".

It was shortly after this that Sue left politics to become fully engaged with her legal practice in Environmental Law, which at the time was seen as an apolitical activity. After working at the EDO, she resigned and then re-engaged in politics and tells us she "felt I could bring the privilege of my frontline and legal experiences of working with so many incredible stakeholders, to bring these skills and connections to politics, because in my experience at the time, justice just wasn’t working, both in the environmental and social areas of our system".

Sue ran a 12-month campaign in 2019 for the State Seat of Lismore, Sue recalls "that was a full time campaign, with a fantastic team and supportive community, and we ran both a successful environmental and social campaign". That year when the election results came in, Sue and her campaign team had secured 24.3% of the first preference votes, from a whopping 11,693 voters in the Lismore State Electorate.

This meant that Janelle Saffin was elected with 51.3% of the votes, a monumental victory considering the seat had been a safe Nationals seat since 1927 and was most recently held, before Janelle by Thomas George from 1999, re-elected 4 times in that period, and following on from predecessor Bill Rixon who held the seat comfortably for a decade from 1988-1999 prior to retirement, when Thomas George stepped up and was first elected.

NSW Law and Policy is Sue’s area of expertise and she has been engaging with it directly every single day for many decades, particularly in environmental law and policy. Sue says "The Greens vote in Lismore grew massively from the Coal Seam Gas campaign, Bentley Blockade and the high first preference votes," Sue says humbly "had been built from Adam Guise’s campaign and off the back of Bentley.

Sue says collegially about the 2019 campaign "Janelle Saffin had been the Federal Member for Page, and this is how we got her over the line, she was well known, it was a team effort. The National Party have been one of the biggest challenges to the area of environmental law and policy for decades as they often hold the natural resource portfolios, so myself and the team set out to change this, and we won!"

Sue has supported Vanessa Ekins campaign for the last 12 months additionally, saying "I felt she is such an incredible woman in politics and deserved all the support she could get".

I asked Sue about her experiences as a woman in her other work, Rice Farming, she shared "I am a farmer. My partner and I farm dryland rice on the fertile Richmond Floodplain in the Northern Rivers. We are also engaged in trial hemp crops for food and fibre; we produce native grass mulch for gardeners, market gardeners and the native vegetation regeneration sector. We are so fortunate to live and farm amongst core koala habitat. It is central to our farming venture.

We have been regenerating habitat and biodiversity and have planted thousands of trees as part of our farming practice. When I began I found that there was not just a male-dominated industry, but also an industry monopolised by the big rice brands". To ensure a fairer entry to the market for local and smaller growers, Sue formed the Northern Rivers Rice Growers Association, using her skill set as an activist and lawyer. 

Sue has recently put her hand up again, running for the Casual Vacancy in the NSW Upper House (Legislative Council). The Casual Vacancy is a result of David Shoebridge departing from the NSW Parliament as he will be the Greens NSW lead Senate Candidate in the upcoming Federal Election.

When I asked Sue what her experience had been, if she had found support and what has inspired her to enter such a tumultuous and challenging journey, as progressive politics in a traditionally conservative area she said "I am a woman in progressive green politics, my journey started in the environment movement, here in the Northern Rivers. Support for women’s inclusion and leadership generally goes with that territory. I have had enormous support from so many people all along the way and I think I have been incredibly fortunate. I know too well, as last year’s revelations from the Canberra bubble reminded us, that not all women have the experience that I have".   

"I spent part of my early life under Thatchers Britain in the industrial north of England. It was a brutal introduction to women in politics and a direct view into the heart of the liberalist economic agenda. Thatcher was mean. I didn’t like her. I was a kid. She was just like the men I was meant to be afraid of, not the woman who was kind to kids. She said things that didn’t make sense, that weren’t true. Like, if everyone works hard, they will succeed, if they were not succeeding, they are not working hard enough. It wasn’t even clear to me what it meant to succeed, under Thatchers Britain. She said we are all individuals, we are not a society, that we should look after ourselves, not each other".

Sue continues "My engagement in politics, like law, has always been purpose-driven, it’s not like I ever thought to myself, 'I really want to be in politics'. Politics is a vehicle to drive change. For me, it stemmed from learning about the need to protect our forests from logging, our wildlife from extinction and our planet from climate change.

I found myself surrounded by supportive people, with a common purpose, who were engaged in earth sciences and regenerative culture and held a positive and hopeful vision. It was clear to me that to end the exploitation of the environment we would need to unravel the current entrenched liberal economic agenda, which exploits the environment and people, particularly the poor and vulnerable, for the ‘economy’. It’s an agenda that has turned the State against communities and the places they love, rather than caring for and supporting them. It’s such a harmful short-sighted agenda and it’s got us all in a frightful mess".

Why is Sue running again? She tells us "We are in a Climate Emergency. Rather than listening to the world's scientists and doing all we can to prevent the harmful impacts, we have been arguing about it. Even though the only arguments against taking necessary action on Climate Change, are from those who profit from not taking action. We are still logging our native forests, approving coal and gas mines and corporate capitalism is on steroids. It’s created billionaires, while many are losing the concept of having a home and are stressed about feeding and schooling their children. The Pandemic has exposed the dire consequences of the failure of the Liberalist State to invest adequately and place proper value in our most important public services, our health and education systems and the people who keep them together".

"I love being part of progressive green politics. At its heart, it’s about building a movement of people and being connected, to each other and the living planet, which we completely depend upon. It’s about science, evidence-based policy and innovation. It’s about equality, fairness, looking after people and working together inclusively to protect our wonderful living planet so that those who come after us can experience and do the same. This is not the politics we see in our Parliaments, yet. Let’s face it, in our Parliaments, we mostly see men arguing and working against each other, as they have done for centuries". 

When asked about her experience of Gender in politics, Sue reflects "What we saw in politics in Canberra recently, which led to the Women’s March 4 Justice was distressing, but not surprising for most women. Once again, incredible women everywhere worked hard together, supported each other and spoke out about the injustices experienced at every level, for women in politics".

"It’s not only about women in politics, it’s about women everywhere. Women in politics are not separate from women. We are women wherever we are. As women we remain far from equal, it’s difficult to see how we can achieve substantive equality while we are living in the systems and structures built and led exclusively by men, to the gross and harmful exclusion of women, over centuries. I think the way our first ever female PM was allowed to be treated was strong evidence of this". 

"We all need to walk many paths of equality together. More women in politics is one of those paths. While some political parties have affirmative action policies, I think we should be working to have more women than men in our Parliaments, at least for a while. It will likely accelerate the action required to balance out all the centuries of male-only occupation. For the record, I acknowledge and appreciate, at every step, the men who support the plight of substantive equality, for women. I am not suggesting we can do what we need to do as women alone". 

What lessons has Sue learned in her time in leadership? "I have held traditionally male leadership roles outside of politics. I have been a CEO and a principal lawyer of a legal practice. I’m also a farmer and have lived on the land most of my life, I have spent a lot of time ‘on the tools’. I often wonder what my experience in politics may have been if I hadn’t held such roles or had such experience". 

"Where they are able, women have a tendency to create safe and inclusive spaces to work. It means the contest of ideas and working on solutions to problems is broader then otherwise. Studies recently we have measured collective intelligence, unsurprisingly to most, the more women are included, equally, the better the outcomes for all". 

Sue's message to women in regards to entering politics is "We need you now. We need more women in politics. People have lost faith and trust in politicians and politics and it is understandable. Many of those in power are serving the entrenched liberalist economic agenda and the wealthy few that benefit, not the people, our precious planet and the public interest.

There are many good people working tirelessly to turn things around and we need more. Lismore is the centre of a region that has embraced progressive green politics over time. While things may slip and slide on the political spectrum, the one thing that connects us all is this beautiful place and it is a great place to become political".