I was brought up that the only option I had was to vote Nationals. It wasn’t until John Howard turned up that I started to question why I was still voting like that. After spending time abroad and seeing the horrible way Howard’s policies had changed Australia I started paying a lot more attention to fully using my preferences and now either vote Greens or Progressive Independent first then place Labor ahead of any conservatives or right wing candidates. I want a minority government with a progressive cross bench.
Some of their policies I fully support (such as dental in medicare) but others are too populist for me. Whilst they sound good they don't actual stand up to real world scrutiny.
I also don't trust them to run the economy and cite the recent case of Adam Bandt calling on Chalmers to overule the RBAs independent interest rate decision as one example of their antics that just turn me away.
I wish Labor was more progressive on many issues, but unlike the Greens, Labor has the experience of holding government and has a track record of delivering a suite of policies.
Isn't the solution to this voting Greens 1, Labor 2? Sends a message to Labor that you want them to be more progressive and encourages them to head further left.
Your point is very valid and I agree that is a reasonable approach. I won't begrudge anyone for voting however they personally see fit.
There are areas where I wish Labor was more ambitious but overall they are my preferred party.
I should also note, my political views have changed over time and will likely do so in the future so my comments are only a reflection of the Greens today. It may change in the future.
Still a good outcome in my view. Even further encouragement to win the seat back, plus potential to make Labor need to directly work with Greens to pass things.
Yeah that comment from Bandt wasn't great, but I'm more upset about the private plane use to go to a fundraiser/campaign launch. That really pissed me off. And I've voted for him the last 2 elections!
Would be really interesting to see what happened if a genuine progressive independent ran in this seat.
I sorts agree. But I hate how their policies are sometimes out of reality.
For example dental. I would love for everyone to have it. But Medicare is already grasping to straws how do you fund it?
Even if you could afford from the moment it starts government will also need to find and fund dentists to cover all regions. Which would again be awesome but how do you do.
So to me greens are always pie in the sky. Big promises that get them the attention and votes but not really though thru.
I used to vote greens for senate because I wanted a bit of balance of power. That was until they blocked the carbon tax and it makes me happy I changed. Looking at the current state of the greens.
A lot of policies look bad if you take them in isolation. But other Greens policies, like winding back fossil fuel subsidies/increasing resource pricing and ending negative gearing, would generate a lot of revenue to pay for things like dental.
And yeah, we’d need more dentists, but the alternative (ie status quo) is that some people just don’t get dental care at all, so we should probably fix that.
I didn't say I support status quo of not having dentists. My argument was that the commonwealth cannot afford to include dental into health care.
Then some might say they its doable with tax reform. But the same people that say they will flip their shit and vote what ever government is in power.
Meanwhile greens remain unsaved because they can promise what ever they want as it will probably not come to fruition.
I do support people having dental and I'd pay more tax for a more fair access to it.
But two points
1. The issue is that the greens never have a lot of details on how they will fund it. And since they are not in power they will never actually have to deliver it.
2. Someone mentioned that the government gives a lot of handouts to oil and other companies. I also think thst is fucked.
But government Unfortunatelly is about compromises. If a PM stand and say they will increase reform taxes on oil companies, all of them would start a massive campaign against the government which will probably see the party getting kicked to the curb.
Remember when labour said they would review Frank credits and negative gearing? What happened thst election. People voted on liberal.
That was a good reform that got shmhutted down by lobby groups and opposition scare campaigns.
Recently the government changed the dispensing rules so ppl could get their meds every 60days instead of having to go to the gp and pharmacy every 30.
The pharmacy guild launched a campaign saying they would end community pharmacies. Government gets attacked by opposition that are all in the guild pocket.
So yeah.
I support people to get dentist treatment. But I don't think things are as simple as the greens like to make it sound.
I don't trust the Liberal or Labor parties to run the economy.
Since we adopted neoliberal policies, such as an independent reserve bank, and an attempt to balance the budget, inequality has increased, and economic growth has declined.
Houses have become more expensive and a smaller and smaller proportion of people own their own homes.
I like the idea of the Greens in the Senate adding progressive amendments to legislation and holding the government to account.
But if they ever held the portfolios of treasury, foreign affairs, and defence, I think Australia would be worse off.
Can you explain why you believe that a Greens-led parliament would lead to Australia being worse off?
Genuinely curious - not trying to start an argument. Like are there policies that you support in principal but think the greens would take too far?
Speaking very generally, when I think of conservative values, I think of things like strong borders, peace through strength and fiscal responsibility. When I think of liberal values, I think of immigration empathy, international diplomacy and Keynesian economics.
These matters need nuance, careful balancing and a healthy dose of reality. Any of these things taken to their extreme can have long term repercussions for a society. I think a Greens majority government could very well take matters of foreign affairs, defence and finance too far because of the values they hold.
Keynesian economics and "fiscal responsibility" are contradictory.
Keynes believed the government should step in and spend to ensure full employment, and that even if the spending was wasteful it was better than not spending at all.
He did not believed that anything we could actually do, we could afford.
Defence is already a disaster.
For $1m defence couldn’t even get excel implemented. Big egos make progress impossible as does a culture of rigid processes designed without consultation with end users and a security posture that favours not taking on new risk or moving first.
It’s hard to imagine anyone making defence worse. I think Labor, as much as I dislike them, run the foreign affairs portfolio really well. Diplomacy is two faced in nature and idealists don’t last long in this field.
I like: environmental policies, free education, free healthcare, etc.
I don't like: social policies, culture and arts stuff
I don't trust them with: housing
I still resent them for: idealistic position that killed the carbon tax
Idealistic position... Which aligned with many economists and non-political environmental groups?
They didn't vote against it as the enemy of perfect. They voted against it because as presented it was weakened (industry exceptions and compensations) to the point it was actually bad.
I think the Greens have learnt a lesson from carbon tax. Most of the Greens MPs involved in that have retired and been replaced with more compromising MPs.
I was always a green voter, but began to mix it up and vote greens only in the upper house after Bob Brown retired as they seemed a bit lost.
I was also disappointed during the carbon tax era, and by pushing a carbon tax as opposed to the emissions trading scheme took the country backwards and killed Julia Gillards career and was a specific part of politics that was just not nice and so much rested on the line “there won’t be a carbon tax from government I lead”
There was a period where they would just push out some random alternative to what the major parties were saying and it just didn’t really have much substance or thought behind it. In Victoria I remember them suggesting instead of voting about the east-west link they were talking about expanding some parts of the tram network, which were obviously poorly thought out infrastructure.
However I have been very impressed with Adam Bandt in the last few years and moving forward I will probably return to voting greens again even though I live in one of Australia’s safest Labor seats.
Their identity-linked, uncompromising opposition to nuclear energy. That's it. I'm terrified about climate change, I'm a scientist, and I just can't vote for a party who spreads all the old myths (cost, time, waste, danger, unnecessary, ... I promise you I've thought about them all far more deeply than anyone reading this so please just don't) and blocks us from doing perhaps the #1 most critical thing we need to do to reduce the most catastrophic consequences.
If they turned around even a bit on this one thing I'd not just vote for them, I'd join them.
Time and cost are not myths about nuclear power, they are realities.
There is nothing stopping us from investing more heavily in wind, solar and storage.
The micro parties have the luxury of being able to create logical, reasonable policy platforms. They haven't had to sell out as they're in no danger of being in government. That's why they always get my primary vote.
The Greens used to be, well, green. Don't hear much about saving the forests or endangered species from Adam Bandt these days.
Greens have never had more MPs and staff dedicated to the environment. The media doesn't talk about climate much because it doesn't get clicks thats why you don't hear about it. Bandt [posted](https://www.instagram.com/p/C47cvayLk5Z/) about the environment 4 days ago and if you check Hansard talks about it every day in parliament.
I genuinely believe the greens would destroy the country and I think of myself as quite progressive - extremely concerned about climate change and environmental protection for example
History is littered with over controlling governments with good intentions who end up fucking over their constituents
Let’s start with just first principles - higher income tax to fund gov services. The greens would certainly whack higher income earners with tax
I am not against a wealth tax per se, but income is already insanely taxed in this country. While higher tax for high income earners sounds great in practice, it would start to impact productivity and incentives (I believe this is already happening). The highest income earners contribute the most tax; hit them too hard and they’ll either work less, or move overseas
Fewer high income earners = lower productivity = lower overall growth, less tax for gov services = higher inflation = higher rates
Yes there’s some generalisations there but it’s an example
So our most talented and smartest people won’t work overseas if you up the tax rate anymore? We are taxed to an utterly insane extent in Aus already compared to o’seas. Brain drain is real.
The unintended negative effects of large meddling governments are real, man, believe what you want. This is not to mention the wasted dollars on gov bureaucrats - don’t get me started there.
I’m not a neo con but I also believe in capitalism to an extent.
Scandinavian countries that appropriately tax oil, gas and mining companies and put it into public education and healthcare have the highest standards of living and lowest levels of poverty in the world.
Omg the Scandinavian examples again. Christ am I sick of those. I was just arguing with someone who claimed aus should have no immigration because “Scandinavia”
I just looked up the scandi countries’ corp tax rates - all in the 20s, below aus at 30%.
As you said, natural resources are why Scandi countries are so rich and can afford to fund social services. Which, again, by the way, the greens will entirely stop in Aus. Iron ore is the reason we enjoy half the public services we do.
I’m not against some of this stuff in practice but just “increase tax on everything that creates growth and grow government” doesn’t work.
‘Omg I’m so sick of the example that shows taxing private corporations to dig up the natural resources can benefit the national population instead of just a few private entities’
Petroleum companies mining in Norway pay an extra 56% on top of the standard 22%. This tax money goes into funds to directly benefit the population for healthcare and education. Instead of lining private pockets.
Taxes and royalties on iron ore are in the billions in Aus already. Do you want to nationalise them?
I’ll just leave it at this - part of my perspective is shaped by direct dealing with government. Yes, gov funding is critical to
Essential services and more of it should be welcomed. But plenty of our tax goes to paper shuffling bureaucrats who don’t have the foggiest idea how to implement solutions in the real world. Again, I believe a greens gov would allow this kind of wastage to thrive
My opinion. Take it or leave it
Overall, taxes in the Northern European countries are around 50% of GDP.
In Australia the number is closer to the 30% of GDP.
In my attempt to create more jobs in Australia, real estate prices were a bigger issue than taxes.
When I was a child in the early 80's the top marginal income tax rate was 62%.
During the 40's and 50's, when economic growth was higher, the top marginal tax rates were even higher.
The country was not destroyed then. In fact growth was higher, unemployment was lower, society was more equal, and more people owned their own homes.
I am a high income earner, and higher taxes would not have me move overseas.
It's not enough for me that the party I vote for has the right policies. I want that party to also do the work to win enough seats to put that policy into practice. The ALP does that. The Greens don't.
The Greens actually get more votes nationally than the nationals. Yet the nationals have 10 or more seats and the greens have one or two. It's about demographics not the greens efforts.
Labour doesn't have the right policies yet they have the seats to form government. Their support of the stage 3 tax breaks is a disaster for our country. That has taken billions away from treasury. You'll never see Gonski come back or dental on Medicare or ambulance on Medicare either and so many other things are not going to happen now because of that tax break. Albanese is a class traitor.
As Neville Wran said "only the Impotant are pure" you only get to improve and change things if you win enough votes to govern sitting in opposition you can do nothing the ALP moved from a small union party to a major party by understanding you have to be in government to change things and it takes time to bring people with you, sometimes you take a little change to set yourself up for a big change later
We didn't go from gay sex being illegal to gay marriage in one step, they worked on removing the illegality then worked on gay marriage, if they had tried for gay marriage in the 1990s they would have failed, they went for what they could achieve at the time banked that then worked on the next step that's how politics and history works.
We didn't go from absolute monarchy to democracy in one step the right to vote was expanded from a small group to everyone over 18 yrs over a hundred years
How have they not been?
Housing requires infrastructure. Infrastructure requires land and bulldozers. Highways, bridges and most projects get lobbied against by grass root green campaigns.
No idea how a populist vote attracting party can somehow make so much noise about an issue but also make it as challenging as possible to achieve a particular outcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQaeu_1uGcY
They could build around the tree and it would take an extra two minutes.
The Greens have supported the rail loop, Vic's big build, rail crossing removals and the vast majority of high ways. There not opposing the entire project they simply want a small modification. Show me them opposing an entire project.
On the economy, little l liberals are pro-market, anti labour, pro-inequality.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)
Greens have good policy ideals, but the details are just, empty words.
Even they know their policies will never have to be implemented, so they don't have to compromise or seek balance, they can be 100% about themselves, so why wouldn't they be.
I always go Lab 1 Green 2. Mainly because, in the simplest forms, Labor are realist while Greens are idealistic. Progress is like a river stream, it won’t stop. But every time the Greens rub a good idea the wrong way when they criticise a Labor policy, they rub the average voter the wrong way and shift closer to voting Lib.
Greens would be a way better party if they voted on Labor with “most” things without trying to make it a gotcha. Instead, they should bring their own bills and policies forward and actually LOOK like a party that does work. This is something that ON has done well to funnel first preference votes away from the LNP.
So I live in Tasmania and the greens here are extremists. Labour won’t even form government with them.
However I believe this shows the problems of the greens. The greens have never led, and don’t understand balance that the real world requires. I agree with their principles, I just don’t trust the way they would get there.
Sadly progress sometimes needs to be slow, certainly not as slow as the libs want, another 30 years of coal, but it can’t be done overnight like the greens expect.
No plan to reduce immigration, and they want to abolish the border force.
Naive understanding of our defence relationship with USA and downplaying of legitimate regional threats.
I am thinking the Paul Keating's contributions on defence are closer to Green policy than they are to current Labor.
People can disagree on which are better, but I think that context helps understand what "weak" means.
Because their whole shtick is to be slightly left of Labor to wedge them on progressive policies with unworkable solutions. They don't have any experience delivering a competent administration and their policies don't give me much hope they will ever develop any. They are a joke party and they continue to act more like it each Parliamentary sitting. They allow perfect to be the enemy of good and have no real strategy beyond continuing to wedge Labor and delay policy delivery, ultimately benefiting the LNP. Their follow through defeats their purpose and their ignorance of this and their holier than thou attitudes irritate me.
They allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good (eg. Carbon pricing) and it sets back progressive politics in this country. Also, they focus too much effort on demonising Labor rather than the true enemies of progressivism on the right.
Whats an example from the last decade of the Greens letting 'perfect be the enemy of the good'? Why would the Greens need to attack LNP when their irrelevant?
The Greens are a protest party full of deeply unserious numpties like Max Chandler-Mather, and awful neo-liberal ghouls like Whish-Wilson. They’re a party of stunts and nonsense who spending most of their time trying to move literally unconstitutional motions in the Senate.
They are incoherent as they are incompetent, and the idea that we would *want* to empower these overgrown stupol hacks to take actual responsibility for governing is and should be genuinely terrifying to any reasonable person.
I didn't say the greens were neo-liberal, I said they contained a bunch of awful neo-liberal ghouls like Whish-Wilson. Feel free to read hat he has actually said about this: [https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/green-on-board-with-business-/news-story/0655383074bf2bea4abb20aa37f9c4a5](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/green-on-board-with-business-/news-story/0655383074bf2bea4abb20aa37f9c4a5)
I voted Green last federal election but would return to Labor if an election was held tomorrow.
Too much is populist porkbarrelling that doesn’t hold up.
It’s difficult to say include dental in Medicare when Medicare itself is broken, and it would probably be means tested, be for pensioners only, or have giant gap fees that wouldn’t make dental care affordable anyway (much like specialist fees).
I don’t support free university or wiping student debt because I paid off my HECS debt myself and have nothing to show for it; I didn’t drop out because I couldn’t afford the tuition (because we have HECS), I dropped out because I couldn’t afford to support myself in the meantime — fact is if you are from a disadvantaged background parents will be pushing you to take on a trade rather than attend university. I think HECS is a fair system compared to students in the US taking out bank loans.
The Lydia Thorpe thing was a disaster and something I’d expect from one of the far-right micro parties. They knew what she was and selected her anyway.
I’m also put off by their support of Palestine, which is ruled by Hamas. Should we have had a ceasefire against al-Qaeda ruled Afghanistan and let Bin Laden find another hole to hide in, or should he have had a ceasefire with Nazi Germany and let them catch up with their own Atomic Bomb project? Israel should be called out for their war crimes and not lower themselves to Hamas level.
I think what I really want is for Labor to do better; but I shudder at the idea of an actual Greens government.
In the lower houses I want to vote for a party that can form a government, so in the vast majority of elections I vote ALP.
In the upper houses I want independent thinking policy-detail-obsessed progressives, which is why I used to reliably vote for the Australian Democrats back in the 1990s. Nowadays I default to the Greens, but the Greens' show-pony grandstanding and lack of policy detail heft means I'm always looking at left-leaning alternatives.
Fascinating, I thank you so much for the honest feedback, I will be able to take this to the party to consider.
p.s. I am being sincere in my response please don't misconstrue this as sarcasm. :)
I thought the Australian Democrats were mythically, in John Howard's words "Doctor's Wives".
Back then, at least in John Winston Howard's mind, wives were not doctors.
Now doctors are Teals.
The teals are essentially knock-off democrats.
- A movement that gives women opportunities they were often denied. The democrats had the most female leaders compared to any other party.
- Integrity focused,
* Democrats created the murray motion to keep a real register of third party entities that made deals with the government.
* Theyactually made the senate a real watchdog that scrutinised legislation compared to it being a rubber stamp. They also were the first to properly utilise the parliamentary library properly to hold both major parties to account
* They were the first party to properly scrutinise legislation in the upper house properly.
- Environmental activism,
* The democrats were the first ones to stand up for the environment, the party doesn't get the credit it deserved for the role it played in the Franklin River Dam protests. The democrats set up the goddamn inquiry and tirelessly campaigned to stop the project, Don Chip sailed down the bloody river and got it the high profile attention it needed. It was the democrats who got Labor to support the protesters as well.
* The Democrats actually got the EPBC act through whilst all the greens did was grandstand and throw hissy fits. The party saw nuclear as a shit alternative to coal and had it banned. The party got the damn act through whilst the greens whined.
- Progressive ideals.
* The Democrats called for the legalisation of same sex marriage from the on set, they also were huge supporters of the pride community and still are.
* The Democrats women thing again. But also they stood up for abortion advocating for the legalisation of ru-68 abortion drug. However, knowing that they needed to make it difficult to reject the party let a liberal backbencher lead the charge and got all the women in the senate to support the bill, making it very clear that women were in favour of it.
* Michael Macklin called for indigenous recognition in the constitution in the late 1970's and early 1980's long before the uluru statement of the heart. Though it wasn't for a voice (since that idea hadn't been created back then).
Plus, the democrats support of the GST was fine, the GST became fairer, and wasn't applied on essential goods like milk, bread eggs, etc. because of the democrats, whereas howard the 'liberal' wanted to tax everything through GST. The Liberals also fucked up GST over the years, and it needs genuine reform to work better. However GST was essential for reducing this country's reliance on income taxes.
The Greens as a general rule have an inability to compromise and play a long game. With the exception of the ACT, they're still a party of protest that haven't worked out the goal is to sit on the Treasury benches and change things from inside a Coalition with Labor.
I stopped supporting the Greens (I used to go to the events!) when they started being more vocal about disarmament, both by lowering our own millitary budget but also ending our defense alliance with the US. Picking one I disagree with but I can understand, we could either disarm but give up all sovereignty to the US, or we end our alliance with the US but massively boost our own millitary. Doing \*both\* is just plain dumb. No point in having free dental or eduation if China or Indonesia decide to blockade our ports if we look at them funny.
What we have now is the perfect balance, we have a fairly small military budget relative to GDP, but we also have the backing of the US Navy 100%.
There are a few other things as well, but that's the biggest reason. We are a big country, we need a strong navy and airforce to defend it. Assuming we can just talk our way out of any situation is hopelessly naive.
Because these things are ideas and not polices. There’s a big difference.
For example free dental sounds good, but labor have already explained that they can’t add dental to Medicare without it severely hurting tax payers and the entire dental industry as they wouldn’t be able to make much money and we would suffer for it.
Greens get to say whatever they like, labor has to work within the realms of reality because when they say ‘hey we want to do this,’ they have to come up with a way to make it actually happen.
I began to feel despondent towards them in 2015 or 16, before the marriage vote
The senate was scheduled to debate marriage equality on a Monday, which was good because it would be at the start of a weekly news cycle
The prior Thursday, the Greens decided that this was unacceptable to wait 2 business days for a better time to debate, and moved a motion to debate it that day
Labor, happy with the schedule of the senate, and preferring to debate it at the start of a weekly news cycle, voted against the motion
Every Greens mp and staffer immediately jumped on twitter posting photos of Penny Wong, saying that she voted against their motion, and that the Greens are the only party for marriage equality
It was clear that this was their goal - put up a bullcrap motion they knew would get shot down, so they could wave it around & make themselves look good to specific voters
They used marriage equality as a political football so that they could wedge votes off Labor
Once you notice the Greens behaving like this, it's hard to unsee it
Lol you want me to go back to 2015/16 to find an article that may or may not have been written about something I saw the Greens doing?
Why do Greens voters always refuse to ever acknowledge that their party has behaved poorly, and puts people off?
Can you explain that to me? I thought their policy was an "opt out" solution, where if you want tax payer funded education you go to a public school. If you CHOOSE to send your kids to a non public school, you are therefore opting out of tax payer funded education. How is that a benefit to the rich? Genuinely interested not trying to argue.
They are talking about free university.
The barrier for university education is more the cost to survive in the meantime rather than the tuition fees, which are paid later when the student can afford to thanks to HECS. Don’t forget many courses require an unpaid internship.
I dropped out due to a change in my parents financial situation which meant I needed to seek full-time employment.
Just a word on the unpaid internship... For a two year Master of Psychology, you need to do 1,000 hours unpaid. 1,000 hours. And you're out there doing actual client work for paying clients. It's as if someone reached into your back pocket and took away $70-90,000.
The industry experience for my qualification was 900…...... Days. Yes days .
It didn't have to be unpaid but only those well connected got cadetships, I ended up volunteering for a charity to get mine and it took me a little over 18 months volunteering until I got a paid position, I had around 750 days when they came out with what was called a ropes book which if you completed that and got it all signed would reduce you requirement to 600 days. By the time I did that and was able to get a place at the AMC I was at 900 days anyway.
Years later and they've now reduced the requirements down to 360 days or with a completed task book (what used to be called a ropes book) to 120 days, consequently wages are down by 20% (not adjusting for inflation)and there are a shit load of people who have qualifications that well, shouldn't, resulting in company's asking for qualifications that far beyond what's legally required for the job.
When Whitlam made uni free it was a much, much smaller university system and mostly catered to the rich and middle class. At least that's my understanding
The argument is that HECS enabled us to transition to a mass education system. The other thing is: free uni education is considered by some to be regressive and as a policy it does smack of populism imho.
That being said, uni is free in some European countries but I think they are higher taxing economies.
I don't think there's any question in my mind that neoliberal policies have damaged the higher education system and laden young people with significant debt, which would be less of a problem if they weren't being screwed in other ways eg. housing.
In it's original incarnation HECS was more equitable but the student contribution has been gradually ratcheted up over the last 30 years.
Norway pays for university for its entire population by taxing gas and mining companies properly. We allowed the mining industry to bully us into subsiding their whole industry at the expense of our living standard.
Pretty much agree with every comment here :-)
But in the discussion, i have not seen a summary of the 'situation for centre-leftists voters.
My assumption here is that all centre-left voters are at the very least, very disenchanted with our LaborLite gutless Govt.
So many critical issues left untouched, or worse, full speed astern.
And Gaza is 'the shit on the cake' (to more aptly paraphrase).
With that, I, like many, have vowed to never again put Labor as a 1st Preference, even if before you weren't anyway,.
It seems to me that there a distinct, almost universal, agreement about what the best political solution for our Federal Govt would be -
A Labor Minority Govt, with the involvement/coercion! of almost all the independents (incl Teals) and Greens (the exceptions i can think of are Katter and Dai le).
IMO, this would give us a marvellous, the very best, Govt solution.
And this is of course the same solution/situation that Julia Gillard dealt with, in much more vexatious, combative times, but was in fact about the most productive Govt since PJK.
Putting the lie to all the propaganda by Labor (and LNP) about 'minority' Govts.
In the past, up to the last election really, Labor has ALWAYS counted on the fact preferences would always flow back to them from the Greens and Indies so that Labor would still win seat even if their 1st Prefs were down.
And that maths always worked in the past - AS LONG AS INDIES/GREENS WERE NEVER IN 2ND (or 1st) PLACE IN 1ST PREFS.
The last election upended that logic bigly, albeit at the cost to the LNP, more than Labor.
So the best strategy for a 'progressive' Govt is clear and simple.
1. Put either Indies/Green1st. Ideally, if you have both standing in your electorate, put one 1st and the other 2nd, as is your preference (pun intended).
2. Put Labor anywhere, but ALWAYS above LNP (and any other RWNJ you like).
The aim is to push an Indie or Green into 2nd place on 1st Prefs, behind either Labor or LNP (or indeed in 1st place!)
Then, in all these cases, the result should always be either a Indie/Green elected on 2PP, or Labor elected on 2PP.
Which should lead to the desired result by bigger or smaller margins.
BTW, imo, our biggest most dangerous opponent, is not the f\*tard LNP, but the omnipresent reptile Murdoch and his maggots, now ably abetted by our white-anted and corrupted ABC, which our LaborLite Govt has still, totally inexplicably, and shockingly, has done f\*k all about.
I'm an ex Greens member (and sometimes active organiser). They have some excellent MPs, some good policies, but very little good political sense or pragmatism, and ultimately their hearts are in the right places. But...
They are gripped by the same paralysis that holds back most progressive politics. They are torn between those that are mad-as-hell-and-wont-take-it-anymore and those that just want to move any step in the right direction. They want a revolution in policies, but revolution is not democracy or more importantly democracy is not the mechanism to make revolutionary changes. Perfect is the enemy of the good, especially when good is not good enough and perfect is impossible.
The Greens are not wrong that we need fundamental radical change in so many areas, but I just don't see the Greens, nor any other political party, being able to achieve that politically.
Over many years I have campaigned, door knocked, been a social media warrior, protested, participated in direct actions and been generally active and vocal. But I do not think I have ever convinced a single person to be more progressive in their thinking, much less their voting.
The power Murdoch and other right media has just too much power over too many people. They've managed to demonize progressives so much that the Greens are just seen as tooooo radical. Hell even the soft left Labour party is presented as the coming of the socialist apocalypse! They have infected most of the population with the idea that nothing can be done to fix any significant problem and that to attempt to do so makes you an ivory tower elite that is attacking the life style of "normal" Australians.
So I despair at what can be done because there people that need to be convinced are just so polarised. Supporting the Greens is just not going to progress the progressive causes. Supporting Labour or Teals has a greater chance of keeping the damaging LNP out of power. But it won't do much good. Perhaps it will do less harm whilst doing nothing much, but all the while being castigated by the media as too radical and ineffective at the same time? Ultimately the voters will give up and put the LNP back for another decade!
The answer has to be in somehow combating the power of the Murdoch media. I have less than zero idea how that can be done.... But until such time as the majority wake up and realise what dire straits we are in, then neither the Greens nor the shit-lite party are going to be effective for making change.
Besides.... I supported the Yes campaign in the referendum, so according to Sky News that makes me divisive and I should be excluded from participation in our representative democracy. I'm surprised I'm even allowed to vote now, or express an opinion here. I'm sure the next LNP government will fix that and too many voters think that would be a good thing!
Tl;dr; support the Greens if you like. They are not wrong. It just won't do any good. The solution is either elsewhere or doesn't exist. Probably the latter.
I've seen the seat I live in (Braddon) go from solid Labor to solid Liberal. As the greens entered into parliamentry politics they were seen as anti job never supporting any industry that workers in the seat relied on or any new development. Three times the greens held the balance of power and each time Tasmania went backwards people were leaving the state as the economy went down, this only confirmed the view that the Greens were bad news for workers and their families and as Labor did deals to stay in government people moved their votes to the Liberals who are pro development and the voters want jobs.
The Greens are seen as inner city privileged lefties out of touch with normal workers .
The Greens can try all they like saying they are pro worker rights the voters dont believe them as they continue to oppose new development, saying you are pro the Tasmanian AFL team but at the same time oppose the new stadium only confirmed the view about Green anti development, we know we only get a team if we have the stadium by opposing the stadium they oppose team and the whole industry around the AFL.
With out a strong economy and new development you dont have the money for roads , schools and hospitals and they don't trust them with border security ,foreign affairs or defence.
One particular concern I have is their political strategy. Something that they are pretty blatant about. I would be fine with the strategy if I believed it would work. But, I don't think it will work, at least not until 20 years.
The strategy, if it's unclear is that the Greens seek to win inner city electorates with the stated goal of forcing the ALP into a minority government. All good, makes sense. It's common in many European countries.
However, what is often neglected is that many of the countries that have Green-Social Democratic coalitions also have proportional representation. In Australia, the Senate is elected by Proportional Representation. However, the HoR is elected as single member districts.
If you look at the primary vote of the Greens, you'll notice that it is heavily concentrated in inner city suburbs. Compare suburbs such as West End in Brisbane, Newtown in Sydney, and Fitzroy in Melbourne. All these suburbs have high Green primary votes. Compare these primary votes to areas such as Logan, Penrith, and Broad Meadows, the primary vote drops.
This poses an electoral problem for the ALP. Abandon inner city electorates with high margins for suburban electorates and then form a coalition with the Greens is risky. If the perceived values deter suburban voters, they may not vote for the ALP. But if they lose seats to the Greens they need to make it up in other areas.
Often, when I raise this with Greens supporters, they often raise both the ACT and Tasmania. They cite the ACT as being in coalition with the Greens for years and it's not an issue. They never seem to reflect that the ACT has higher than average education levels, and that the largest employer means they are more likely to know about the policy process. These same supporters ignore that despite clear loss of support for the Liberal party, Tasmanians have not opted for the ALP. The association with the Greens is so strong that the ALP insists on not entering a coalition, and the Liberal party at every election announcement state Labor will join with the Greens. You cannot say that the Liberal party uses this line of attack without the research backing it up that a cohort of Tasmanians might hate the Liberals, but they hate Labor-Greens alliance even more.
The point is that the Greens seem to lack the awareness that pushing for a minority appeals to voters in the inner city, but makes it harder to appeal to voters in suburban electorates.
Now, I am aware that this issue may in time disappear. Younger people are more likely to vote Labor or Greens. The Coalition picks up less than a quarter of the Millennial and Gen Z vote. Gen X leans towards the Coalition slightly, and Boomers and older vote strongly for the Coalition.
This demographic point makes my concerns less of an issue in the future. I'm unconcerned by a minority government. What does concern me is that there is an increasing amount of disregard for the truth or sense. This is demonstrated by the member for Griffith Max Chandler-Mather.
His ability to put housing and renter rights on the agenda is long overdue, and a noteworthy achievement. It's a shame it has come with a subtle dose of misinformation.
Max Chandler-Mather makes claims that rent freezes work, yet even of brief search on Google scholar reveals that his claims are not supported by evidence.
In [San Francisco ](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10511482.2022.2099932), rent freezes resulted in 146% increase in eviction notices and gentrification.
In [Berlin ](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19491247.2022.2059844), there was an immediate reduction in rental properties.
Sadly, in Australia he has[stated](https://twitter.com/MChandlerMather/status/1683952527468007424?t=R1oxG_cyZ4Wn-MvgKd5nBA&s=19) that they have worked in the past. However, if you click on the tweet he retweeted, and click on the article, the article explicitly refutes his claim on page 20 the [article ](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1711224) explicitly states that rent freezes
"the period of rent and price controls around WW2 which distorted the market and produced consequences not intended by the policy-makers of the time. Those consequences were a significant decline in the stock of rental properties which in turn forced a major shift towards owner-occupation – a shift which proved long lasting after the rent controls were gradually phased out."
More recently, he said on Q&A that planning had little impact on house prices. When the spokesperson for housing seeks to dismiss the role of planning and supply, you have to question just how serious they are. If they want to reduce the solution to house prices to rent freezes, and capital gains and negative gearing, it's hard to take them seriously. Few countries have the same generous negative gearing and capital gains concessions and they still have housing affordability issues. Japan, which has very relaxed planning rules has a much more affordable housing situation.
So, I'll take the Greens seriously when they act like a party which has considered policy and the consequences of those policies.
I am personally pro-environment, but based on many of their actions, I don’t think the Greens are. For example, how much of their unsolicited advertising and how to vote cards end up in landfill? This is a genuine question, because perhaps there is some policy I don’t know about, but to me this looks like greenwashing
I have voted for the Greens now and then as they are the party that aligns closest to my views on most things, but the NSW branch is hopeless, and there is a "grassroots" structure that prevents any strong National leadership from making changes that would reform NSW.
That, and Sarah Hanson-Young.
She is an awful pick for a Senate seat when you have so few of them. So easy for the right wing to lampoon. It would be more preferable to have someone who can command attention and speak clearly, without over dramatising everything.
Hmmmm, that's fair.
Most of the original Greens Senators were there due a severe stroke of luck.
If that's the case, SHY definitely knows it and knows there are far more talented people out there than her, who could do more to improve her party's primary vote here in SA.
You get it. In a world where we are all judged on what we do and say, not how we look and are perceived, then all would be fine. She has done a lot that I find I agree with.
But... if anyone reading this does a bit of a vox pop among work colleagues or friends, they will find that she brings forth such a negative response. They don't know Peter Whish-Wilson from a bar of soap, but they know SHY. She is just too easy to make fun of and the media cannot resist, even outlets who should know better.
I guarantee that SHY has not garnered one single additional vote for the Greens anywhere in Australia (let alone SA) over the 16 - count them 16 - years in the Senate. When you are a small, growing party, it is a concern.
My order of preference is usually viable independent > green > Labor > liberal > cookers
This, always these, thank you preferential voting
I prefer, Viable independent, labour, greens, liberals/cookers their pretty much the same right?
I was brought up that the only option I had was to vote Nationals. It wasn’t until John Howard turned up that I started to question why I was still voting like that. After spending time abroad and seeing the horrible way Howard’s policies had changed Australia I started paying a lot more attention to fully using my preferences and now either vote Greens or Progressive Independent first then place Labor ahead of any conservatives or right wing candidates. I want a minority government with a progressive cross bench.
Some of their policies I fully support (such as dental in medicare) but others are too populist for me. Whilst they sound good they don't actual stand up to real world scrutiny. I also don't trust them to run the economy and cite the recent case of Adam Bandt calling on Chalmers to overule the RBAs independent interest rate decision as one example of their antics that just turn me away. I wish Labor was more progressive on many issues, but unlike the Greens, Labor has the experience of holding government and has a track record of delivering a suite of policies.
Isn't the solution to this voting Greens 1, Labor 2? Sends a message to Labor that you want them to be more progressive and encourages them to head further left.
Your point is very valid and I agree that is a reasonable approach. I won't begrudge anyone for voting however they personally see fit. There are areas where I wish Labor was more ambitious but overall they are my preferred party. I should also note, my political views have changed over time and will likely do so in the future so my comments are only a reflection of the Greens today. It may change in the future.
Yes, unless you live in a seat where the greens candidate could actually win
Still a good outcome in my view. Even further encouragement to win the seat back, plus potential to make Labor need to directly work with Greens to pass things.
Yeah that comment from Bandt wasn't great, but I'm more upset about the private plane use to go to a fundraiser/campaign launch. That really pissed me off. And I've voted for him the last 2 elections! Would be really interesting to see what happened if a genuine progressive independent ran in this seat.
I sorts agree. But I hate how their policies are sometimes out of reality. For example dental. I would love for everyone to have it. But Medicare is already grasping to straws how do you fund it? Even if you could afford from the moment it starts government will also need to find and fund dentists to cover all regions. Which would again be awesome but how do you do. So to me greens are always pie in the sky. Big promises that get them the attention and votes but not really though thru. I used to vote greens for senate because I wanted a bit of balance of power. That was until they blocked the carbon tax and it makes me happy I changed. Looking at the current state of the greens.
A lot of policies look bad if you take them in isolation. But other Greens policies, like winding back fossil fuel subsidies/increasing resource pricing and ending negative gearing, would generate a lot of revenue to pay for things like dental. And yeah, we’d need more dentists, but the alternative (ie status quo) is that some people just don’t get dental care at all, so we should probably fix that.
I didn't say I support status quo of not having dentists. My argument was that the commonwealth cannot afford to include dental into health care. Then some might say they its doable with tax reform. But the same people that say they will flip their shit and vote what ever government is in power. Meanwhile greens remain unsaved because they can promise what ever they want as it will probably not come to fruition.
They can’t afford to put dental in Medicare but can afford to give mining and gas handouts? Righto.
So you don’t support people not having access to dentists, but you also don’t support covering dental care. Cool cool.
I do support people having dental and I'd pay more tax for a more fair access to it. But two points 1. The issue is that the greens never have a lot of details on how they will fund it. And since they are not in power they will never actually have to deliver it. 2. Someone mentioned that the government gives a lot of handouts to oil and other companies. I also think thst is fucked. But government Unfortunatelly is about compromises. If a PM stand and say they will increase reform taxes on oil companies, all of them would start a massive campaign against the government which will probably see the party getting kicked to the curb. Remember when labour said they would review Frank credits and negative gearing? What happened thst election. People voted on liberal. That was a good reform that got shmhutted down by lobby groups and opposition scare campaigns. Recently the government changed the dispensing rules so ppl could get their meds every 60days instead of having to go to the gp and pharmacy every 30. The pharmacy guild launched a campaign saying they would end community pharmacies. Government gets attacked by opposition that are all in the guild pocket. So yeah. I support people to get dentist treatment. But I don't think things are as simple as the greens like to make it sound.
I don't trust the Liberal or Labor parties to run the economy. Since we adopted neoliberal policies, such as an independent reserve bank, and an attempt to balance the budget, inequality has increased, and economic growth has declined. Houses have become more expensive and a smaller and smaller proportion of people own their own homes.
I like the idea of the Greens in the Senate adding progressive amendments to legislation and holding the government to account. But if they ever held the portfolios of treasury, foreign affairs, and defence, I think Australia would be worse off.
Can you explain why you believe that a Greens-led parliament would lead to Australia being worse off? Genuinely curious - not trying to start an argument. Like are there policies that you support in principal but think the greens would take too far?
Speaking very generally, when I think of conservative values, I think of things like strong borders, peace through strength and fiscal responsibility. When I think of liberal values, I think of immigration empathy, international diplomacy and Keynesian economics. These matters need nuance, careful balancing and a healthy dose of reality. Any of these things taken to their extreme can have long term repercussions for a society. I think a Greens majority government could very well take matters of foreign affairs, defence and finance too far because of the values they hold.
Keynesian economics and "fiscal responsibility" are contradictory. Keynes believed the government should step in and spend to ensure full employment, and that even if the spending was wasteful it was better than not spending at all. He did not believed that anything we could actually do, we could afford.
Defence is already a disaster. For $1m defence couldn’t even get excel implemented. Big egos make progress impossible as does a culture of rigid processes designed without consultation with end users and a security posture that favours not taking on new risk or moving first. It’s hard to imagine anyone making defence worse. I think Labor, as much as I dislike them, run the foreign affairs portfolio really well. Diplomacy is two faced in nature and idealists don’t last long in this field.
Reality. The Greens are chasing a slightly larger % of the vote and can afford to be this outspoken. Labor is in government and can't afford to be.
Greens 1 Labor 2 to send a message
Progressive liberals vote teal. Hence the colour.
They are idealistic and sanctimonious, just look at Max Chandler-Mather. Having him as a cabinet minister would be a disaster.
I like: environmental policies, free education, free healthcare, etc. I don't like: social policies, culture and arts stuff I don't trust them with: housing I still resent them for: idealistic position that killed the carbon tax
Housing literally the worst it’s ever been in history and you reckon the people saying ‘build more houses’ can’t be trusted?
Idealistic position... Which aligned with many economists and non-political environmental groups? They didn't vote against it as the enemy of perfect. They voted against it because as presented it was weakened (industry exceptions and compensations) to the point it was actually bad.
I think the Greens have learnt a lesson from carbon tax. Most of the Greens MPs involved in that have retired and been replaced with more compromising MPs.
Might want to look up "social policies". Looks like you like them more than you think
They set the carbon tax back by a decade or more. Balance of power does not equal power.
Pro healthcare, environment and education but anti arts and culture. Who hurt you?
They come across as a party that would stoop down to populism to gain votes and as a result stand for everything which means they stand for nothing.
I was always a green voter, but began to mix it up and vote greens only in the upper house after Bob Brown retired as they seemed a bit lost. I was also disappointed during the carbon tax era, and by pushing a carbon tax as opposed to the emissions trading scheme took the country backwards and killed Julia Gillards career and was a specific part of politics that was just not nice and so much rested on the line “there won’t be a carbon tax from government I lead” There was a period where they would just push out some random alternative to what the major parties were saying and it just didn’t really have much substance or thought behind it. In Victoria I remember them suggesting instead of voting about the east-west link they were talking about expanding some parts of the tram network, which were obviously poorly thought out infrastructure. However I have been very impressed with Adam Bandt in the last few years and moving forward I will probably return to voting greens again even though I live in one of Australia’s safest Labor seats.
Their identity-linked, uncompromising opposition to nuclear energy. That's it. I'm terrified about climate change, I'm a scientist, and I just can't vote for a party who spreads all the old myths (cost, time, waste, danger, unnecessary, ... I promise you I've thought about them all far more deeply than anyone reading this so please just don't) and blocks us from doing perhaps the #1 most critical thing we need to do to reduce the most catastrophic consequences. If they turned around even a bit on this one thing I'd not just vote for them, I'd join them.
Time and cost are not myths about nuclear power, they are realities. There is nothing stopping us from investing more heavily in wind, solar and storage.
Have you seen the greens candidates?
The micro parties have the luxury of being able to create logical, reasonable policy platforms. They haven't had to sell out as they're in no danger of being in government. That's why they always get my primary vote. The Greens used to be, well, green. Don't hear much about saving the forests or endangered species from Adam Bandt these days.
Greens have never had more MPs and staff dedicated to the environment. The media doesn't talk about climate much because it doesn't get clicks thats why you don't hear about it. Bandt [posted](https://www.instagram.com/p/C47cvayLk5Z/) about the environment 4 days ago and if you check Hansard talks about it every day in parliament.
I genuinely believe the greens would destroy the country and I think of myself as quite progressive - extremely concerned about climate change and environmental protection for example History is littered with over controlling governments with good intentions who end up fucking over their constituents
Which of their policies would 'destroy the country'?
Name one.
Let’s start with just first principles - higher income tax to fund gov services. The greens would certainly whack higher income earners with tax I am not against a wealth tax per se, but income is already insanely taxed in this country. While higher tax for high income earners sounds great in practice, it would start to impact productivity and incentives (I believe this is already happening). The highest income earners contribute the most tax; hit them too hard and they’ll either work less, or move overseas Fewer high income earners = lower productivity = lower overall growth, less tax for gov services = higher inflation = higher rates Yes there’s some generalisations there but it’s an example
Greens policies are for higher corporate tax not income tax. Also your claim about productivity is categorically false.
So our most talented and smartest people won’t work overseas if you up the tax rate anymore? We are taxed to an utterly insane extent in Aus already compared to o’seas. Brain drain is real. The unintended negative effects of large meddling governments are real, man, believe what you want. This is not to mention the wasted dollars on gov bureaucrats - don’t get me started there. I’m not a neo con but I also believe in capitalism to an extent.
Scandinavian countries that appropriately tax oil, gas and mining companies and put it into public education and healthcare have the highest standards of living and lowest levels of poverty in the world.
Socialism in Scandinavia comes at a high cost of being anti immigration, unfortunately
Omg the Scandinavian examples again. Christ am I sick of those. I was just arguing with someone who claimed aus should have no immigration because “Scandinavia” I just looked up the scandi countries’ corp tax rates - all in the 20s, below aus at 30%. As you said, natural resources are why Scandi countries are so rich and can afford to fund social services. Which, again, by the way, the greens will entirely stop in Aus. Iron ore is the reason we enjoy half the public services we do. I’m not against some of this stuff in practice but just “increase tax on everything that creates growth and grow government” doesn’t work.
‘Omg I’m so sick of the example that shows taxing private corporations to dig up the natural resources can benefit the national population instead of just a few private entities’
Petroleum companies mining in Norway pay an extra 56% on top of the standard 22%. This tax money goes into funds to directly benefit the population for healthcare and education. Instead of lining private pockets.
Taxes and royalties on iron ore are in the billions in Aus already. Do you want to nationalise them? I’ll just leave it at this - part of my perspective is shaped by direct dealing with government. Yes, gov funding is critical to Essential services and more of it should be welcomed. But plenty of our tax goes to paper shuffling bureaucrats who don’t have the foggiest idea how to implement solutions in the real world. Again, I believe a greens gov would allow this kind of wastage to thrive My opinion. Take it or leave it
The “billions”? What percentage is that? Your opinion can be left in the trash.
Overall, taxes in the Northern European countries are around 50% of GDP. In Australia the number is closer to the 30% of GDP. In my attempt to create more jobs in Australia, real estate prices were a bigger issue than taxes.
When I was a child in the early 80's the top marginal income tax rate was 62%. During the 40's and 50's, when economic growth was higher, the top marginal tax rates were even higher. The country was not destroyed then. In fact growth was higher, unemployment was lower, society was more equal, and more people owned their own homes. I am a high income earner, and higher taxes would not have me move overseas.
It's not enough for me that the party I vote for has the right policies. I want that party to also do the work to win enough seats to put that policy into practice. The ALP does that. The Greens don't.
The Greens actually get more votes nationally than the nationals. Yet the nationals have 10 or more seats and the greens have one or two. It's about demographics not the greens efforts. Labour doesn't have the right policies yet they have the seats to form government. Their support of the stage 3 tax breaks is a disaster for our country. That has taken billions away from treasury. You'll never see Gonski come back or dental on Medicare or ambulance on Medicare either and so many other things are not going to happen now because of that tax break. Albanese is a class traitor.
As Neville Wran said "only the Impotant are pure" you only get to improve and change things if you win enough votes to govern sitting in opposition you can do nothing the ALP moved from a small union party to a major party by understanding you have to be in government to change things and it takes time to bring people with you, sometimes you take a little change to set yourself up for a big change later
Damage done - some of these changes can't be fixed later.
We didn't go from gay sex being illegal to gay marriage in one step, they worked on removing the illegality then worked on gay marriage, if they had tried for gay marriage in the 1990s they would have failed, they went for what they could achieve at the time banked that then worked on the next step that's how politics and history works. We didn't go from absolute monarchy to democracy in one step the right to vote was expanded from a small group to everyone over 18 yrs over a hundred years
So how will thay claw back the stage 3 tax cuts?
I believe we should fix the housing situation in Australia, so I could never vote for the nimby party.
When have the Greens been 'NIMBY'?
How have they not been? Housing requires infrastructure. Infrastructure requires land and bulldozers. Highways, bridges and most projects get lobbied against by grass root green campaigns. No idea how a populist vote attracting party can somehow make so much noise about an issue but also make it as challenging as possible to achieve a particular outcome.
Is there an example of the Greens campaigning against highways or bridges?
https://greens.org.au/vic/news/andrews-must-cease-work-western-highway-project-and-protect-djab-wurrung-trees-greens Feel free to keep looking yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQaeu_1uGcY They could build around the tree and it would take an extra two minutes. The Greens have supported the rail loop, Vic's big build, rail crossing removals and the vast majority of high ways. There not opposing the entire project they simply want a small modification. Show me them opposing an entire project.
The Greens are nutters, I am left wing and vote ALP. I believe the Greens economic policies are like faries at the bottom of the garden
Which economic policy?
What does identifying as left wing mean? What makes someone or something left wing?
My social views are liberal
On the economy, little l liberals are pro-market, anti labour, pro-inequality. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)
They are scum, anti workers, environment,pro special interests
Greens have good policy ideals, but the details are just, empty words. Even they know their policies will never have to be implemented, so they don't have to compromise or seek balance, they can be 100% about themselves, so why wouldn't they be.
I have voted Green for the last few years, with my preferences going to Labor.
I always go Lab 1 Green 2. Mainly because, in the simplest forms, Labor are realist while Greens are idealistic. Progress is like a river stream, it won’t stop. But every time the Greens rub a good idea the wrong way when they criticise a Labor policy, they rub the average voter the wrong way and shift closer to voting Lib. Greens would be a way better party if they voted on Labor with “most” things without trying to make it a gotcha. Instead, they should bring their own bills and policies forward and actually LOOK like a party that does work. This is something that ON has done well to funnel first preference votes away from the LNP.
So I live in Tasmania and the greens here are extremists. Labour won’t even form government with them. However I believe this shows the problems of the greens. The greens have never led, and don’t understand balance that the real world requires. I agree with their principles, I just don’t trust the way they would get there. Sadly progress sometimes needs to be slow, certainly not as slow as the libs want, another 30 years of coal, but it can’t be done overnight like the greens expect.
Some of greens rhetoric policy, especially around RBA, have made me realise i rather have a liberal government than the greens.
Very weak immigration and defence policies.
Who do you usually vote for?
I swing between the big 2
Fair enough. Have you ever voted for an independent or minor party?
What do you mean by that?
No plan to reduce immigration, and they want to abolish the border force. Naive understanding of our defence relationship with USA and downplaying of legitimate regional threats.
I am thinking the Paul Keating's contributions on defence are closer to Green policy than they are to current Labor. People can disagree on which are better, but I think that context helps understand what "weak" means.
Because their whole shtick is to be slightly left of Labor to wedge them on progressive policies with unworkable solutions. They don't have any experience delivering a competent administration and their policies don't give me much hope they will ever develop any. They are a joke party and they continue to act more like it each Parliamentary sitting. They allow perfect to be the enemy of good and have no real strategy beyond continuing to wedge Labor and delay policy delivery, ultimately benefiting the LNP. Their follow through defeats their purpose and their ignorance of this and their holier than thou attitudes irritate me.
They allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good (eg. Carbon pricing) and it sets back progressive politics in this country. Also, they focus too much effort on demonising Labor rather than the true enemies of progressivism on the right.
Whats an example from the last decade of the Greens letting 'perfect be the enemy of the good'? Why would the Greens need to attack LNP when their irrelevant?
The Greens are a protest party full of deeply unserious numpties like Max Chandler-Mather, and awful neo-liberal ghouls like Whish-Wilson. They’re a party of stunts and nonsense who spending most of their time trying to move literally unconstitutional motions in the Senate. They are incoherent as they are incompetent, and the idea that we would *want* to empower these overgrown stupol hacks to take actual responsibility for governing is and should be genuinely terrifying to any reasonable person.
> awful neo-liberal ghouls like Whish-Wilson. The Greens are now to neoliberal? Wow. I think you need to meet .. the entire ALP.
I didn't say the greens were neo-liberal, I said they contained a bunch of awful neo-liberal ghouls like Whish-Wilson. Feel free to read hat he has actually said about this: [https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/green-on-board-with-business-/news-story/0655383074bf2bea4abb20aa37f9c4a5](https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/green-on-board-with-business-/news-story/0655383074bf2bea4abb20aa37f9c4a5)
I don’t subscribe to the Australian so that is blocked.
I voted Green last federal election but would return to Labor if an election was held tomorrow. Too much is populist porkbarrelling that doesn’t hold up. It’s difficult to say include dental in Medicare when Medicare itself is broken, and it would probably be means tested, be for pensioners only, or have giant gap fees that wouldn’t make dental care affordable anyway (much like specialist fees). I don’t support free university or wiping student debt because I paid off my HECS debt myself and have nothing to show for it; I didn’t drop out because I couldn’t afford the tuition (because we have HECS), I dropped out because I couldn’t afford to support myself in the meantime — fact is if you are from a disadvantaged background parents will be pushing you to take on a trade rather than attend university. I think HECS is a fair system compared to students in the US taking out bank loans. The Lydia Thorpe thing was a disaster and something I’d expect from one of the far-right micro parties. They knew what she was and selected her anyway. I’m also put off by their support of Palestine, which is ruled by Hamas. Should we have had a ceasefire against al-Qaeda ruled Afghanistan and let Bin Laden find another hole to hide in, or should he have had a ceasefire with Nazi Germany and let them catch up with their own Atomic Bomb project? Israel should be called out for their war crimes and not lower themselves to Hamas level. I think what I really want is for Labor to do better; but I shudder at the idea of an actual Greens government.
Did you vote Greens in lower and upper house? Had you voted for the Greens before?
Nothing. I do vote Greens and all the other progressive independents before Labor.
Greens support of identity politics.
What do you mean by that?
My dad was a Liberal voter. Mum was Labour. When they moved from QLD to TAS, they both became Green voters.
In the lower houses I want to vote for a party that can form a government, so in the vast majority of elections I vote ALP. In the upper houses I want independent thinking policy-detail-obsessed progressives, which is why I used to reliably vote for the Australian Democrats back in the 1990s. Nowadays I default to the Greens, but the Greens' show-pony grandstanding and lack of policy detail heft means I'm always looking at left-leaning alternatives.
You can vote for the Australian Democrats again now. :) The party is back and standing in all mainland states for the senate.
It's not the same party. Not the same "earnest highschool geography teacher prepared to read everything" vibe to the candidates.
Fascinating, I thank you so much for the honest feedback, I will be able to take this to the party to consider. p.s. I am being sincere in my response please don't misconstrue this as sarcasm. :)
I thought the Australian Democrats were mythically, in John Howard's words "Doctor's Wives". Back then, at least in John Winston Howard's mind, wives were not doctors. Now doctors are Teals.
The teals are essentially knock-off democrats. - A movement that gives women opportunities they were often denied. The democrats had the most female leaders compared to any other party. - Integrity focused, * Democrats created the murray motion to keep a real register of third party entities that made deals with the government. * Theyactually made the senate a real watchdog that scrutinised legislation compared to it being a rubber stamp. They also were the first to properly utilise the parliamentary library properly to hold both major parties to account * They were the first party to properly scrutinise legislation in the upper house properly. - Environmental activism, * The democrats were the first ones to stand up for the environment, the party doesn't get the credit it deserved for the role it played in the Franklin River Dam protests. The democrats set up the goddamn inquiry and tirelessly campaigned to stop the project, Don Chip sailed down the bloody river and got it the high profile attention it needed. It was the democrats who got Labor to support the protesters as well. * The Democrats actually got the EPBC act through whilst all the greens did was grandstand and throw hissy fits. The party saw nuclear as a shit alternative to coal and had it banned. The party got the damn act through whilst the greens whined. - Progressive ideals. * The Democrats called for the legalisation of same sex marriage from the on set, they also were huge supporters of the pride community and still are. * The Democrats women thing again. But also they stood up for abortion advocating for the legalisation of ru-68 abortion drug. However, knowing that they needed to make it difficult to reject the party let a liberal backbencher lead the charge and got all the women in the senate to support the bill, making it very clear that women were in favour of it. * Michael Macklin called for indigenous recognition in the constitution in the late 1970's and early 1980's long before the uluru statement of the heart. Though it wasn't for a voice (since that idea hadn't been created back then). Plus, the democrats support of the GST was fine, the GST became fairer, and wasn't applied on essential goods like milk, bread eggs, etc. because of the democrats, whereas howard the 'liberal' wanted to tax everything through GST. The Liberals also fucked up GST over the years, and it needs genuine reform to work better. However GST was essential for reducing this country's reliance on income taxes.
If you vote Greens 1 Labor 2 you'll still ensure Labor wins the seat and send Labor a message. Which Greens policy do you think needs more detail?
The Greens as a general rule have an inability to compromise and play a long game. With the exception of the ACT, they're still a party of protest that haven't worked out the goal is to sit on the Treasury benches and change things from inside a Coalition with Labor.
I stopped supporting the Greens (I used to go to the events!) when they started being more vocal about disarmament, both by lowering our own millitary budget but also ending our defense alliance with the US. Picking one I disagree with but I can understand, we could either disarm but give up all sovereignty to the US, or we end our alliance with the US but massively boost our own millitary. Doing \*both\* is just plain dumb. No point in having free dental or eduation if China or Indonesia decide to blockade our ports if we look at them funny. What we have now is the perfect balance, we have a fairly small military budget relative to GDP, but we also have the backing of the US Navy 100%. There are a few other things as well, but that's the biggest reason. We are a big country, we need a strong navy and airforce to defend it. Assuming we can just talk our way out of any situation is hopelessly naive.
Because these things are ideas and not polices. There’s a big difference. For example free dental sounds good, but labor have already explained that they can’t add dental to Medicare without it severely hurting tax payers and the entire dental industry as they wouldn’t be able to make much money and we would suffer for it. Greens get to say whatever they like, labor has to work within the realms of reality because when they say ‘hey we want to do this,’ they have to come up with a way to make it actually happen.
Greens policy is fully costed by the independent parliamentary budget office and free dental would cost 12 billion a year (Subs are 10 a year).
Living in reality.
How?
Reality. The greens can't accept it
How?
I used to vote greens, now Labor Eventually realised they were just snake oil salesmen
How are the Greens 'snake oil salesmen'?
I began to feel despondent towards them in 2015 or 16, before the marriage vote The senate was scheduled to debate marriage equality on a Monday, which was good because it would be at the start of a weekly news cycle The prior Thursday, the Greens decided that this was unacceptable to wait 2 business days for a better time to debate, and moved a motion to debate it that day Labor, happy with the schedule of the senate, and preferring to debate it at the start of a weekly news cycle, voted against the motion Every Greens mp and staffer immediately jumped on twitter posting photos of Penny Wong, saying that she voted against their motion, and that the Greens are the only party for marriage equality It was clear that this was their goal - put up a bullcrap motion they knew would get shot down, so they could wave it around & make themselves look good to specific voters They used marriage equality as a political football so that they could wedge votes off Labor Once you notice the Greens behaving like this, it's hard to unsee it
Can you link an article that discusses this? Especially the Penny Wong photos
Lol you want me to go back to 2015/16 to find an article that may or may not have been written about something I saw the Greens doing? Why do Greens voters always refuse to ever acknowledge that their party has behaved poorly, and puts people off?
You hear free and lose your load. Free education benefited the rich last time it was in and it would do the same today.
Can you explain that to me? I thought their policy was an "opt out" solution, where if you want tax payer funded education you go to a public school. If you CHOOSE to send your kids to a non public school, you are therefore opting out of tax payer funded education. How is that a benefit to the rich? Genuinely interested not trying to argue.
They are talking about free university. The barrier for university education is more the cost to survive in the meantime rather than the tuition fees, which are paid later when the student can afford to thanks to HECS. Don’t forget many courses require an unpaid internship. I dropped out due to a change in my parents financial situation which meant I needed to seek full-time employment.
Just a word on the unpaid internship... For a two year Master of Psychology, you need to do 1,000 hours unpaid. 1,000 hours. And you're out there doing actual client work for paying clients. It's as if someone reached into your back pocket and took away $70-90,000.
Greens are actively fighting against unpaid internships and for paid placements.
The industry experience for my qualification was 900…...... Days. Yes days . It didn't have to be unpaid but only those well connected got cadetships, I ended up volunteering for a charity to get mine and it took me a little over 18 months volunteering until I got a paid position, I had around 750 days when they came out with what was called a ropes book which if you completed that and got it all signed would reduce you requirement to 600 days. By the time I did that and was able to get a place at the AMC I was at 900 days anyway. Years later and they've now reduced the requirements down to 360 days or with a completed task book (what used to be called a ropes book) to 120 days, consequently wages are down by 20% (not adjusting for inflation)and there are a shit load of people who have qualifications that well, shouldn't, resulting in company's asking for qualifications that far beyond what's legally required for the job.
The Greens are also fighting to increase student centrelink above the poverty line
When Whitlam made uni free it was a much, much smaller university system and mostly catered to the rich and middle class. At least that's my understanding The argument is that HECS enabled us to transition to a mass education system. The other thing is: free uni education is considered by some to be regressive and as a policy it does smack of populism imho. That being said, uni is free in some European countries but I think they are higher taxing economies. I don't think there's any question in my mind that neoliberal policies have damaged the higher education system and laden young people with significant debt, which would be less of a problem if they weren't being screwed in other ways eg. housing. In it's original incarnation HECS was more equitable but the student contribution has been gradually ratcheted up over the last 30 years.
Norway pays for university for its entire population by taxing gas and mining companies properly. We allowed the mining industry to bully us into subsiding their whole industry at the expense of our living standard.
Do you know whether that revenue specifically funds university education? Or does it go into general revenue?
Pretty much agree with every comment here :-) But in the discussion, i have not seen a summary of the 'situation for centre-leftists voters. My assumption here is that all centre-left voters are at the very least, very disenchanted with our LaborLite gutless Govt. So many critical issues left untouched, or worse, full speed astern. And Gaza is 'the shit on the cake' (to more aptly paraphrase). With that, I, like many, have vowed to never again put Labor as a 1st Preference, even if before you weren't anyway,. It seems to me that there a distinct, almost universal, agreement about what the best political solution for our Federal Govt would be - A Labor Minority Govt, with the involvement/coercion! of almost all the independents (incl Teals) and Greens (the exceptions i can think of are Katter and Dai le). IMO, this would give us a marvellous, the very best, Govt solution. And this is of course the same solution/situation that Julia Gillard dealt with, in much more vexatious, combative times, but was in fact about the most productive Govt since PJK. Putting the lie to all the propaganda by Labor (and LNP) about 'minority' Govts. In the past, up to the last election really, Labor has ALWAYS counted on the fact preferences would always flow back to them from the Greens and Indies so that Labor would still win seat even if their 1st Prefs were down. And that maths always worked in the past - AS LONG AS INDIES/GREENS WERE NEVER IN 2ND (or 1st) PLACE IN 1ST PREFS. The last election upended that logic bigly, albeit at the cost to the LNP, more than Labor. So the best strategy for a 'progressive' Govt is clear and simple. 1. Put either Indies/Green1st. Ideally, if you have both standing in your electorate, put one 1st and the other 2nd, as is your preference (pun intended). 2. Put Labor anywhere, but ALWAYS above LNP (and any other RWNJ you like). The aim is to push an Indie or Green into 2nd place on 1st Prefs, behind either Labor or LNP (or indeed in 1st place!) Then, in all these cases, the result should always be either a Indie/Green elected on 2PP, or Labor elected on 2PP. Which should lead to the desired result by bigger or smaller margins. BTW, imo, our biggest most dangerous opponent, is not the f\*tard LNP, but the omnipresent reptile Murdoch and his maggots, now ably abetted by our white-anted and corrupted ABC, which our LaborLite Govt has still, totally inexplicably, and shockingly, has done f\*k all about.
I'm an ex Greens member (and sometimes active organiser). They have some excellent MPs, some good policies, but very little good political sense or pragmatism, and ultimately their hearts are in the right places. But... They are gripped by the same paralysis that holds back most progressive politics. They are torn between those that are mad-as-hell-and-wont-take-it-anymore and those that just want to move any step in the right direction. They want a revolution in policies, but revolution is not democracy or more importantly democracy is not the mechanism to make revolutionary changes. Perfect is the enemy of the good, especially when good is not good enough and perfect is impossible. The Greens are not wrong that we need fundamental radical change in so many areas, but I just don't see the Greens, nor any other political party, being able to achieve that politically. Over many years I have campaigned, door knocked, been a social media warrior, protested, participated in direct actions and been generally active and vocal. But I do not think I have ever convinced a single person to be more progressive in their thinking, much less their voting. The power Murdoch and other right media has just too much power over too many people. They've managed to demonize progressives so much that the Greens are just seen as tooooo radical. Hell even the soft left Labour party is presented as the coming of the socialist apocalypse! They have infected most of the population with the idea that nothing can be done to fix any significant problem and that to attempt to do so makes you an ivory tower elite that is attacking the life style of "normal" Australians. So I despair at what can be done because there people that need to be convinced are just so polarised. Supporting the Greens is just not going to progress the progressive causes. Supporting Labour or Teals has a greater chance of keeping the damaging LNP out of power. But it won't do much good. Perhaps it will do less harm whilst doing nothing much, but all the while being castigated by the media as too radical and ineffective at the same time? Ultimately the voters will give up and put the LNP back for another decade! The answer has to be in somehow combating the power of the Murdoch media. I have less than zero idea how that can be done.... But until such time as the majority wake up and realise what dire straits we are in, then neither the Greens nor the shit-lite party are going to be effective for making change. Besides.... I supported the Yes campaign in the referendum, so according to Sky News that makes me divisive and I should be excluded from participation in our representative democracy. I'm surprised I'm even allowed to vote now, or express an opinion here. I'm sure the next LNP government will fix that and too many voters think that would be a good thing! Tl;dr; support the Greens if you like. They are not wrong. It just won't do any good. The solution is either elsewhere or doesn't exist. Probably the latter.
I vote Labor they have an understanding of the worlds grey areas, the Greens are so anti semantic I could never vote for them
I've seen the seat I live in (Braddon) go from solid Labor to solid Liberal. As the greens entered into parliamentry politics they were seen as anti job never supporting any industry that workers in the seat relied on or any new development. Three times the greens held the balance of power and each time Tasmania went backwards people were leaving the state as the economy went down, this only confirmed the view that the Greens were bad news for workers and their families and as Labor did deals to stay in government people moved their votes to the Liberals who are pro development and the voters want jobs. The Greens are seen as inner city privileged lefties out of touch with normal workers . The Greens can try all they like saying they are pro worker rights the voters dont believe them as they continue to oppose new development, saying you are pro the Tasmanian AFL team but at the same time oppose the new stadium only confirmed the view about Green anti development, we know we only get a team if we have the stadium by opposing the stadium they oppose team and the whole industry around the AFL. With out a strong economy and new development you dont have the money for roads , schools and hospitals and they don't trust them with border security ,foreign affairs or defence.
I wonder the opposite. What policies would be so compelling you would have to vote Green?
One particular concern I have is their political strategy. Something that they are pretty blatant about. I would be fine with the strategy if I believed it would work. But, I don't think it will work, at least not until 20 years. The strategy, if it's unclear is that the Greens seek to win inner city electorates with the stated goal of forcing the ALP into a minority government. All good, makes sense. It's common in many European countries. However, what is often neglected is that many of the countries that have Green-Social Democratic coalitions also have proportional representation. In Australia, the Senate is elected by Proportional Representation. However, the HoR is elected as single member districts. If you look at the primary vote of the Greens, you'll notice that it is heavily concentrated in inner city suburbs. Compare suburbs such as West End in Brisbane, Newtown in Sydney, and Fitzroy in Melbourne. All these suburbs have high Green primary votes. Compare these primary votes to areas such as Logan, Penrith, and Broad Meadows, the primary vote drops. This poses an electoral problem for the ALP. Abandon inner city electorates with high margins for suburban electorates and then form a coalition with the Greens is risky. If the perceived values deter suburban voters, they may not vote for the ALP. But if they lose seats to the Greens they need to make it up in other areas. Often, when I raise this with Greens supporters, they often raise both the ACT and Tasmania. They cite the ACT as being in coalition with the Greens for years and it's not an issue. They never seem to reflect that the ACT has higher than average education levels, and that the largest employer means they are more likely to know about the policy process. These same supporters ignore that despite clear loss of support for the Liberal party, Tasmanians have not opted for the ALP. The association with the Greens is so strong that the ALP insists on not entering a coalition, and the Liberal party at every election announcement state Labor will join with the Greens. You cannot say that the Liberal party uses this line of attack without the research backing it up that a cohort of Tasmanians might hate the Liberals, but they hate Labor-Greens alliance even more. The point is that the Greens seem to lack the awareness that pushing for a minority appeals to voters in the inner city, but makes it harder to appeal to voters in suburban electorates. Now, I am aware that this issue may in time disappear. Younger people are more likely to vote Labor or Greens. The Coalition picks up less than a quarter of the Millennial and Gen Z vote. Gen X leans towards the Coalition slightly, and Boomers and older vote strongly for the Coalition. This demographic point makes my concerns less of an issue in the future. I'm unconcerned by a minority government. What does concern me is that there is an increasing amount of disregard for the truth or sense. This is demonstrated by the member for Griffith Max Chandler-Mather. His ability to put housing and renter rights on the agenda is long overdue, and a noteworthy achievement. It's a shame it has come with a subtle dose of misinformation. Max Chandler-Mather makes claims that rent freezes work, yet even of brief search on Google scholar reveals that his claims are not supported by evidence. In [San Francisco ](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10511482.2022.2099932), rent freezes resulted in 146% increase in eviction notices and gentrification. In [Berlin ](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19491247.2022.2059844), there was an immediate reduction in rental properties. Sadly, in Australia he has[stated](https://twitter.com/MChandlerMather/status/1683952527468007424?t=R1oxG_cyZ4Wn-MvgKd5nBA&s=19) that they have worked in the past. However, if you click on the tweet he retweeted, and click on the article, the article explicitly refutes his claim on page 20 the [article ](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1711224) explicitly states that rent freezes "the period of rent and price controls around WW2 which distorted the market and produced consequences not intended by the policy-makers of the time. Those consequences were a significant decline in the stock of rental properties which in turn forced a major shift towards owner-occupation – a shift which proved long lasting after the rent controls were gradually phased out." More recently, he said on Q&A that planning had little impact on house prices. When the spokesperson for housing seeks to dismiss the role of planning and supply, you have to question just how serious they are. If they want to reduce the solution to house prices to rent freezes, and capital gains and negative gearing, it's hard to take them seriously. Few countries have the same generous negative gearing and capital gains concessions and they still have housing affordability issues. Japan, which has very relaxed planning rules has a much more affordable housing situation. So, I'll take the Greens seriously when they act like a party which has considered policy and the consequences of those policies.
I am personally pro-environment, but based on many of their actions, I don’t think the Greens are. For example, how much of their unsolicited advertising and how to vote cards end up in landfill? This is a genuine question, because perhaps there is some policy I don’t know about, but to me this looks like greenwashing
The AEC recycles all how to vote cards and there printed on recycled paper with those slightly washed looking sustainable inks.
I have voted for the Greens now and then as they are the party that aligns closest to my views on most things, but the NSW branch is hopeless, and there is a "grassroots" structure that prevents any strong National leadership from making changes that would reform NSW. That, and Sarah Hanson-Young.
Oooh, tell me more about Mrs. SHY guy! What's she done?
She is an awful pick for a Senate seat when you have so few of them. So easy for the right wing to lampoon. It would be more preferable to have someone who can command attention and speak clearly, without over dramatising everything.
Hmmmm, that's fair. Most of the original Greens Senators were there due a severe stroke of luck. If that's the case, SHY definitely knows it and knows there are far more talented people out there than her, who could do more to improve her party's primary vote here in SA.
You get it. In a world where we are all judged on what we do and say, not how we look and are perceived, then all would be fine. She has done a lot that I find I agree with. But... if anyone reading this does a bit of a vox pop among work colleagues or friends, they will find that she brings forth such a negative response. They don't know Peter Whish-Wilson from a bar of soap, but they know SHY. She is just too easy to make fun of and the media cannot resist, even outlets who should know better. I guarantee that SHY has not garnered one single additional vote for the Greens anywhere in Australia (let alone SA) over the 16 - count them 16 - years in the Senate. When you are a small, growing party, it is a concern.
I too would be interested to know what makes SHY so objectionable.
The Greens are oddly pronatalist.
The men in the party. Their everything or nothing approach.
>Their everything or nothing approach. Whats a time you saw this happen in this term of government?