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Have the Greens already peaked?

The Australian Greens are betting their future on a high-risk switch to hard-left opportunistic populism. It could backfire.

Populist politics, once the curse of other less fortunate countries, has now consumed two of Australia’s three main parties: the Liberal-National coalition under Peter Dutton, and the Greens under Adam Bandt.

The approaching election raises a question on which the future of Australian politics and government is likely to depend: whether to reward or reject the politics of division and reckless opportunism.

The success or failure of the Greens depends on a highly educated, prosperous and rational inner-city cohort, for whom the move from progressive idealism centred around the environment to bomb-throwing is likely to be disconcerting. The party’s simplistic stance on the complexities of Middle-East politics, its parliamentary alliances with the conservatives to defeat progressive government legislation, and its strident support of a notorious thuggish and criminal-infested trade union, are all emblematic of this transformation.

The change has become increasingly evident since the success of Greens candidates in three Brisbane seats at the 2022 election. The push is now on to break the mould and become a major player. But why? The previous method had served them well.

So far this century, their primary vote has almost tripled, while the major parties contemplate long-term decline.

Despite one hiccup – the party was punished at the 2013 election for its support of the troubled Gillard Labor government – the trajectory was clear.

Throughout much of the democratic world, traditional major parties are in decline, societies are fractured and populism is ascendant. In the United States, Germany, France and elsewhere the far right are making gains that, only a couple of decades ago, would have seemed fanciful. There’s a lot of attention on that, but the other side of the coin – the rise of hard-left populism – is resurgent too.

Both are dangerous for the same reasons: their simple, plausible recipes for Utopia are devoid of the nuance and capacity for tolerance without which modern societies, economies and government cannot function. HL Mencken, no fan of democracy, famously said: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” He might also have said that spurious simplicity tends to destroy democracy and much else.

In Australia, the slow fracturing of traditional politics has its upside: the emergence of rational independents capable of matching their idealism with complex reality. Among those we can number the teals, a number of progressive independents like Andrew Wilkie, David Pocock and – until recently – the Greens.

The Greens have benefited mightily from the electorate’s disenchantment with politics-as-usual. The Redbridge polling consultancy explained how the trend was unfolding in Australia.

“The ‘Double Haters’, a phenomenon first coined in the United States to describe those voters that don’t support either major party or candidate, now make up nearly one third of the electorate in Australia and is consistent with the record non-major party vote at the 2022 federal election of 31.7%,” said Redbridge’s Kos Samaras.

It makes the Greens’ radical change of posture still more surprising.

Taking sides: Jews or Muslims?

There are a few basic principles without which liberal democracy cannot exist. One of those is the necessity to tolerate difference, to understand that humanity is infinitely complex. Government based on these principles must therefore embrace nuance. It must accept that a diverse society cannot function if its politics are driven by simplistic, opportunistic policies.

Populism and liberal democracy do not fit well together. This is why the opportunistic populism of the Coalition and, now, of the Greens, is so dangerous.

The stance of each party on the infinitely complex racial and religious politics of the Middle East is a clear and worrying example. The Coalition and the Greens have unambiguously taken sides, one backing the Israeli government and the other backing Palestine.

The rulers on both sides are guilty of inhuman criminal slaughter of very large numbers of innocent civilians. It’s not a new phenomenon: the conduct of Israel in the occupied territories – including ultra-nationalist settlers on the West Bank – has been condoned and encouraged by successive governments of Israel and particularly the current administration of Benjamin Netanyahu.

In Gaza, the Israeli Defence Force has been responsible for at least 40,000 civilian deaths, almost half of whom were children. There have been consistent attempts to starve the people of Gaza, the bombing of hospitals, the attacks on international aid convoys and the murder of journalists.

Both Israel and Hamas have been declared to be terrorist organisations by the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, for violations of the rights of children. Also on the list are Russia, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

The war crimes committed by Hamas and other Iran-backed militias long predate the attack on Israeli civilians on 7 October last year.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Scottish lawyer Karim Khan (pictured), has applied for arrest warrants against the leaders of Hamas, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape and other acts of sexual violence, and torture.

The prosecutor also applied for arrest warrants for the Israeli rime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Defence Minister, Yoav Galant, also citing war crimes and crimes against humanity. These charges include starvation, wilful killing, intentionally directing attacks on civilian populations, extermination, murder, and persecution.

On the basis of arithmetic, Israel has killed many more people (40,000-plus) since 7 October than Hamas (1,400+). But in situations like this, bland arithmetic is not useful. There have been appalling acts on both sides, and in the middle are the civilian populations of Israel and Palestine who mostly just want to be left in peace.

In this situation, it is not helpful for Australian politicians to take sides. It is also not helpful to fail to recognise that a unilateral recognition by Australia of Palestine as a state, in the absence of an international initiative, will be somewhere between symbolic and futile. It will not save a single life.

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, and the Labor government, are caught in the middle of two opposing populist parties, neither of which is likely to have the responsibility of actually running Australia’s policy. The government’s strategy, along with most western nations, is for recognition to come as part of a two-state solution.

“Recognising a Palestinian state – one that can only exist side by side with a secure Israel – doesn’t just offer the Palestinian people an opportunity to realise their aspirations,” she said in a major speech.

“It also strengthens the forces for peace and undermines extremism. It undermines Hamas, Iran and Iran’s other destructive proxies in the region. A two-state solution is the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence.”

Wong, too, recognises the dangers to Australia’s multicultural society of allowing the hatreds of the Middle East to fester here.

“It is disheartening to witness the number of Australians that increasingly struggle to discuss this conflict without condemning their fellow citizens. This imperils our democracy. We have to keep listening to each other; respecting each other.

“But I have heard language demonstrating that people are losing respect for each other’s humanity – blatant antisemitism and Islamophobia. I’ve heard people who claim to represent one perspective, diminishing the legitimacy of the other, seeking to intimidate and blame.

“It’s not okay to blame anyone in Australia for the actions of Hamas. It’s not okay to blame anyone in Australia for the actions of the Netanyahu Government. And it’s not okay to excuse egregious acts, just because they’re done by people whose views you share.”

The situation was not created by the Coalition and the Greens but both, rather than urging calm and decency, have supercharged the domestic conflict. The damage to the Greens’ brand came from the party’s close collaboration with the pro-Palestinian protesters, so it had to wear a de facto association with the most reckless elements of that movement.

The slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is used by Hamas and others to mean the end of Israel. It mirrors the ultra-nationalist Israelis, such as those in the Netanyahu cabinet, who want Israel to control all the lands of the ancient Jewish empire at its greatest extent.

The slogan has also been prominent among pro-Palestinian protesters in Australia and was draped across the front of Parliament House in Canberra.

The hatreds now imported from the Middle East have resulted in many incidents of violence and vandalism, particularly the attacks on the electorate offices of Labor MPs. The worst of these was on the office of the left-wing Jewish member for Macnamara, Josh Burns. Windows were smashed, fires started, and the slogan “Zionism = Fascism” daubed on the building in red paint.

Victoria Police said in June that since 7 October 2023 there had been 197 incidents in that state alone motivated by the conflict in Gaza. Religious affiliations and political beliefs were the cause, and police said that of the reported incidents linked to religious affiliation, 88 related to antisemitic attacks and 16 involved Islamophobia.

“The problem for the Greens is that some of their members are actively supporting protests that get out of control,” wrote David Crowe, chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“One former Greens candidate, Campbell Gome, addressed a protest that disrupted a forum [assistant health minister Ged] Kearney held on April 30. Kearney said staff members were shoved and injured …

“Bandt, however, is hitting the accelerator in a race to inflame. He called a press conference in Parliament House on Thursday morning at which he said Labor had backed the invasion of Gaza, supported genocide and only wanted a temporary ceasefire so it could be followed by more bombs being dropped on Palestinians. He said the government supported slaughter …

“The Greens are playing with red paint. If they are not careful, it will stain their hands for good.”

Taking sides: thugs and criminals

When Max Chandler-Mather, the Greens member for Griffith, spoke passionately in support of the corrupt and criminal-ridden construction union, he was not freelancing. He was fully consistent with his party’s policy.

“The media and the Labor and Liberal politicians will try to paint everyone here today as radicals,” he told a CFMEU rally in Brisbane protesting about the Labor government’s appointment of an administrator to clean up the union’s notorious construction division.

“You’ll see it in the media tonight. You’ll be dismissed as radicals, you’ll be defamed, your character will be attacked ….

“It is not radical to believe that union workers should have the democratic right to determine the destiny of your own union. And it is not radical to believe that construction workers should have the right to strike to protect your rights, your wages and your conditions.

“The real radicals are the Labor and Liberal politicians who have, on the basis of untested allegations, set a precedent where politicians can act as the judge, jury and executioner, making a mockery of natural justice and the rule of law.”

Adam Bandt sprang to Chandler-Mather’s defence.

“What does this mean for the future? If it's this organisation now, will there be another organisation next?” he said.

But those “untested allegations” are being tested in the courts after all. In November, the High Court will hear a case on whether the government’s actions are legal and constitutional. Police are pursuing criminal cases against individuals.

The Greens’ position means that no action can be taken on any matter of corruption or thuggery by a public organisation, no matter how serious or well-documented, unless a court rules on it first. On that basis, a whole system of regulation and oversight across the entire range of national life, would become untenable. The financial regulators could not make a direction to a bank or a finance company. Consumer protection authorities could not enforce a statutory guarantee without a court order. Health authorities could not take action against a doctor for malpractice. Only the courts could do any of that.

Legal recourse is available to almost any action taken by a government authority. But administrative law allows action to be taken first. The prospect of court oversight is an immense constraint on governments, bureaucrats and regulators. But it doesn’t prevent them from stepping in to prevent imminent and serious harm to the public and to the economy.

Comanchero enforcer Norm Meyer
The evidence in the case against the CFMEU is so strong that the term “allegation” hardly describes its seriousness or the weight of evidence. The ALP has a case to answer, as does the ACTU, but not the one the Greens are pursuing. Corruption and thuggery in that union have been well known for years, but the organisation’s power within the ALP national conference was too great, and its financial contribution too large. Labor now has to fight the election without the CFMEU’s $1 million donation, but they have been seen by the country to have taken – at last – a principled stand.

The union donated to the ACT Greens before the last election. Now, money from hard-left unions is flowing to the Greens, with the Electrical Trades Union the first to announce it was redirecting at least some of its funding to them and away from Labor.

 The plan

At his recent National Press Club address Adam Bandt, the Greens leader, outlined his party’s electoral ambitions.

“There are at least five new seats across the country, where we believe we are in with a strong chance,” he said. “In one of them, if only 300 people change their vote, the Greens could win the seat,” he claimed.

“Among voters under the age of 34 years old, The Greens are neck and neck with the Liberals and Labor.”

He named four of those five target seats: Wills and Macnamara in Melbourne, Sturt in Adelaide, and Perth. Another four are reported to have been previously in contention: Cooper in Melbourne, Richmond in northern New South Wales, Moreton in Brisbane and Higgins (now abolished) in Melbourne.

Over the past three elections, the Greens vote in the three seats newly won in 2022 – Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane – benefited from the precipitate decline in the Liberal-National vote. This allowed the Greens, who benefit from Labor preferences, to win the seats. The Greens got 82% of Labor preferences in Griffith, 84% in Ryan and 86% in Brisbane. Even a relatively small decrease in the preference flow from Labor would have produced a quite different result. The LNP would have retained Ryan and Brisbane, and either of the major parties could have prevailed in Griffith.



In May the Redbridge polling company used multilevel regression statistical techniques to predict seat-by-seat outcomes. Overall, they found most likely result would be that the Greens would retain Griffith and Ryan, perhaps with lower margins, but would be lucky to hold on in Brisbane.

“The Greens’ surge in 2022 in the inner city appears to have stalled,” said Redbridge’s Kos Samaras, “largely due to older Millennials shifting to Labor, offsetting Labor’s losses among younger voters in inner Melbourne and Brisbane. This Labor versus Green dynamic could ultimately threaten the Greens in Brisbane.”

The outlook for the Greens’ ambitions to expand its parliamentary representation look grim, even without the risky new populist strategy. The Redbridge predictions indicate that the Greens have little chance of picking up any of these four target seats.

In all four, the Labor and Coalition primary vote shares remain much as they were in 2022, and there is no sign of a surge in Greens support that would put them within striking distance of victory. If Redbridge is right, the Greens primary vote will fall by 6% in Macnamara, by 3% in Sturt and by 2% in Perth. The only predicted increase is 1% in Wills.

The electoral redistribution has now transferred some Labor-voting areas from Wills into other electorates and replaced them with Greens-voting areas. According to Antony Green, the ABC’s elections analyst, the just-released final boundaries have reduced Labor’s theoretical margin against the Greens from 8.6% to 5.2%.

The Greens are hoping Muslim voters in this electorate will respond to the party’s strident position on Palestine and help propel them to victory. But only 10.3% of the people in Wills, according to the 2021 census, adhere to Islam. Almost four times as many have no religious affiliation. It would be more accurate to call this an atheists seat rather than a Muslim seat.

But the Labor Party and its member for Wills, Peter Khalil, have been working that diverse electorate for decade. Even if a significant proportion of Muslim voters switched from Labor to the Greens, it would be unlikely to change the eventual outcome.

Support for the Greens is concentrated in the inner cities, and particularly among people under 35 who rent their homes. Support is also stronger among people with higher educational qualifications.

In Wills, the proportion of people with university qualifications is no higher than the national average but there are a lot more young people, renters and people who speak a language other than English at home.

On paper, this looks like a seat the Greens could win. But the demographics haven’t changed, so why should they succeed now when they haven’t in the past?

The Greens have characterised themselves as the renter’s defenders but rent increases have moderated and there’s a danger this image is now overshadowed by its new stance on the Middle East and the CFMEU. Labor is intent on holding onto this seat, and will run a well-resourced and determined campaign.

Macnamara, like Wills, is often thought to be dominated by a strong religious grouping. There is a strong and visible Jewish community but again, as in Wills, actual numbers are fairly low. Only about 10% of people living in Macnamara adhere to Judaism and it, even more than Wills, is better described as an atheist electorate.

But to the extent that the Jewish vote affects the outcome, it is likely to strongly favour Labor over the Greens.

The demographics in this electorate give relatively little comfort to the Greens. There are fewer younger voters and renters than in the country as a whole. The higher-than-average level of education may also no longer favour the Greens as it once did: better-educated people may be more likely to scrutinise policy and to react against the opportunistic populism of both the hard-left and the hard-right.

Sturt is a relatively affluent suburb to the immediate east of the Adelaide CBD. Its university-educated population is much higher than the nation but the number of renters and younger voters is about the same. There’s little about the demographics of Sturt to identify it as a strong prospect for the Greens.

Sturt is a traditional Liberal stronghold, won by the Liberals at all but two elections since its establishment in 1949. But the margin over Labor has been narrowing and in 2022 the Liberal candidate held on with a majority of only 1,016 votes after preferences. The Greens won only 16.4% of primary votes, compared with 43.1% for the Liberals and 30.6% for Labor.

This seat is a very long shot for the Greens.

Perth is Labor heartland, with only four conservative members since 1901. As in many inner-city electorates, there is a higher-than-average proportion of university graduates. But there are fewer younger voters and renters.

The Greens won only 22% of the primary vote at the last election against 39% for Labor. To win this seat, the Greens would not only have to massively improve their primary vote but would also need a substantial proportion of Liberal preferences. Neither of those outcomes is remotely likely.

Rhinestone politics

Elections are often decided not by the minority of voters who pay close attention to policies and politics but by those who don’t tune in until the last moment. Governments are made and unmade largely by the fleeting impressions picked up by distracted voters. That’s why politicians shout so much, and it’s why opportunistic populism, and its hollow but shiny remedies for the nation’s ills, so often works.

The pursuit of political bling led Peter Dutton to scream about nuclear power stations and terrorists from Gaza It’s how Donald Trump became president of the United States and Boris Johnson became prime minister of Britain.

Usually, this kind of look-at-me populism comes from the playbook of the hard right. The Australian Greens, though, have shown the hard left can follow a very similar script of its own. Whether it is rewarded or rejected by the electorate will have profound consequences for the future of political life in this country.

Anthony Albanese does not do glitz. That, timidity and a propensity for self-inflicted wounding, put him and the government at a major disadvantage. Always in electoral matters, outcomes depend on the relative quality and attractiveness of the participants: shonks are enabled by inadequate opponents. If Labor had a more inspiring leader and a more inspiring program, this might not be happening. They have not had a leader who could arouse the nation since Paul Keating.

But minor parties in Australia have had a limited life expectancy. The Democratic Labor Party, formed after the 1955 ALP split, lasted in parliament for 19 years before being wiped out in the 1974 double-dissolution election. The Australian Democrats did better, lasting 27 years from 1977 and being finally wiped out in 2004. Both were restricted to the Senate.

Bob Brown was elected to the Senate in 1996 as the first Australian Greens member in Canberra. A high point came with the 2010 election, which left them with nine senators and one member of the House of Representatives, Adam Bandt. The Greens, holding the balance of power, kept the minority Labor government of Julia Gillard in power for three years. The 2022 election left them with 13 senators and four members in the lower house.

If there’s a danger point for the survival of minor parties, the Greens – despite their current success – could be approaching theirs. There was no obvious need for them to switch their tactics so drastically. Now, having made that enormous bet, they and the electorate will find whether the party can maintain its previous trajectory of growth or, like its predecessors, fade away.







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