Political Career
Cohen joined the Greens in 1984. He contested the Senate in 1984 and 1993. After contesting a seat in the state upper house in 1991, in March 1995 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council as its first Green member. In September 1995, he was involved in organising a parliamentary delegation to protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
In March 2003, he was re-elected to the NSW Legislative Council for a second 8 year term. He was involved, as a Member of the State Development Committee in Parliament, in enquiries into the Viability of Rural Towns, Sustainable Agriculture, and Fisheries, as well as looking into issues such as salinity. He also established the Genetic Engineering Committee to investigate Genetic Engineering in Agriculture. He has worked on a number of Joint Select Committees, undertaking a pioneering investigation into Medically Supervised Injecting Rooms, and investigating the Northside Sewerage Tunnel.
Cohen retired from parliament in 2011 and has since spoken out against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign supported by some sections of the party and the party's decision not to preference the Labor Party.
Read more about this topic: Ian Cohen
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)