UTG Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Statement – United Tasmania Group (UTG), 3 March 2021

The world’s first green political party, the United Tasmania Group (UTG), has just begun celebrating its 50th year anniversary.

As part of the celebrations UTG has produced a compilation of its extensive policies from 1972 to 2020 (130 pages).

As Assoc. Prof. Kate Crowley, University of Tasmania Associate Professor of Public and Environmental Policy, says, “It’s a political party that invented a type of politics — despite never managing to get one of its candidates elected — and, according to one academic, deserves greater recognition in its home state.

“It’s really hard to overstate the significance of the United Tasmania Group. It invented green politics in Tasmania, and Australia, and globally …

It wasn’t narrowly ecological, but it infused ecological concerns through politics in a party-political forum for the first time anywhere in the world.”

UTG contested 10 elections between 1972 and 1977 (with 45 candidates), had 17 branches across Tasmania and 15 policy committees.

See historian James Boyce’s comments here –

This compilation is only available in print form – please contact Geoff Holloway at geoffsarmiento1@gmail.com for any orders