They face two policy positions that are not good enough. The only logical position for them to take is to seek to effect change by the ballot box. It's probably the strategy that aligns closest to their values.
The Greens
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I doubt Adam can read however he is continually unable to answer such a question..
Belushi Brassiere
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Adam Bandt is the civilian version of Col. Blimp
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Fair go champion. If he can't read, and you know that. And you keep asking him in letter form.
How can you be upset that he's unable to answer?
Give him the reading writing hotline. One three double one six tripple five oh six.
I've answered the question though. So why do you need Bandt to answer as well? Do you not respect my opinion? It's definitely starting to feel like you don't respect my opinion.
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Dude they're a politcal party. Of course they're trying to win votes...
That's how politics works. Is politicians being self-serving meant to be some kind of breaking news?
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Maybe Labor should enter a coalition arrangement with the Greens if they don't want the Greens to attack various policies of theirs and contest their seats. Or they could shut up and deal with the fact that different political parties represent different constituencies, leading to differing policy platforms and political priorities and Labor aren't entitled to all inner city seats just because that's the way it's been for the last 50 years
Would probably be a 3rd world country if we didn't, that's the 'defence' line from the libs & nats anyway. Yeah I'm not so certain of that mantra.
Belushi Brassiere
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The irony is that by taking the inner city Labor seats, the Greens weaken the Labor Left and will push the ALP further to the right.
How’s many inner city seats have the taken? Oh that’s right, one. One ******* seat. The Greens have very little influence on Labor’s political positions. They are a minor party.
They are used as a wedge against Labor by the LNP. It comes around at every election. Tie Labor to The Greens! It’s not The Greens’ fault, or Labor’s fault, it is just standard muck throwing by the LNP and their minions. What Labor should concentrate on is hammering the LNP on ScoMo and corruption.
Except we saw the holier than thou attitude just this last week. SHY was appalled when the LNP Senator was barking. But when Lidia Thorpe sl*t shamed an LNP Senator very clearly, it was crickets. It's all part of the game, but next time it happens from the other side, they maybe shouldn't pretend their party would never do such a thing. Didn't SHY sue Leyonjelm for a comment like that?
Yes, the media does attack the ALP more, that's why the Greens don't need to be giving them ammunition to attack the only other party which wants to act on climate change.
I want to see action on climate change. And honestly, while the Greens have the best platform, they've managed to put themselves in a position where they're the least likely to effect change. It's more likely the Nats would get change done before the Greens manage anything. But at least they'll have 0.5% more votes from the ALP.
How else could the Greens explain the fact that while they've been banging on about climate change for 30 years, that the more climate change is acknowledged over the last 10 years, the more their vote has gone down.
30 years ago, if you'd said to the Greens that everyone would be debating climate change and having worldwide summits, they'd have said "Great, we'll be at the forefront of that, everyone will realise we're right." And what's happened? They've continued to be largely ignored in the policy space.
The Greens get more votes when the ALP is in power, and dwindle when the LNP is in power. They simply cannot see the forest for all the trees they're tied to.
Just attack the LNP. They're the Govt, they're the corrupt ones, they WILL NEVER act on climate change. If they adopt this stance, they, and the ALP, will both win more votes. If they attack their allies, then they'll both lose.
Oh, and as I said, 10 years ago I was a Greens member, attended meetings for about 6 months and handed out HTV cards, never been a member of another party. And the holier-than-thou attitude is ingrained in the fibre of the party.
Father Jack
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Well I guess the difference would be that Thorpe very quickly apologised but Leyonhjelm flatly refused and thus SHY took him to court.
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The Greens are a grass roots democratic party.
Only union puppets get elected by Labor and they have no principles.
So many MPs tied to the coal unions and the others never criticize Labor's pitiful climate policy.
Even Chris Bowen is promising to not close a coal mine. What a pathetic a-hole.Labor are pro-coal and let Murdoch influence their policy so they have no 'targets' on them.
There's no one of substance in the party, Paul Keating makes more sense than the weak fools they have at the moment.
The whole thing was an exercise in political misjudgement right the way through form the ALP and the Greens.
Rudd did not negotiate with Turnbull. The ALP policy was in place during the 2007 election campaign and if there is ever anything such as a mandate, then the landslide of 2007 was it. We are talking 2008/9, which is "only" 12/13 years ago but the way this issue has moved world wide in the ensuing years, it may as well have been half a century ago.
In my opinion, it is wrong to try and view the policy settings of the CPRS in 2007/08/09 in the context of today - the world and the policies in place world wide are vastly different than what they were then. At that time, it was an eminently suitable arrangement to move Australia into the forefront of climate change policy and it would have "fired up", so to speak, our renewables industry and our credentials as a world leader.
The policy settings would have necessarily changed to reflect the world trends as the rest of the world caught up with Australia. The art of forging a path to a stated aim in politics does require pragmatism and a degree of negotiation and at that time, the CPRS would have cause forward movement and it had to be "capital friendly" to necessitate that forward movement. Let's not kid ourselves, we live in a capitalist world and to dismiss capital as irrelevant is preposterous.
What we instead got from Rudd's undermining and the ALP's gutlessness in bringing that rat to heal, was an Abbott government that went to the big polluters and said basically, "hey, if you see your way clear to reducing your emissions, that would be great but only if you can and by the way, here are some billions of dollars to help you just in case you do see your way clear". That's we we got instead of a policy which required the big polluters to do something tangible and which would have become even more coercive as the world caught up with Australia's initiative.
Look, the ALP have been around since the first election in the new Commonwealth of Australia. They formed the first Labour government in the world in Queensland 1899 and the first Labour Government on a National level in the world in 1910 and right through that period 'till today, there were policy stands that we find abhorrent today. The White Australia Policy was a Labor "initiative". Arthur Calwell, the far sighted Minister For Immigration in Chifley's Government said "two Wongs don't make a white" in Parliament in 1947. What I am saying is that just as in ALP history there are moments that cannot and should not be glossed over, so too there are moments in Green history that shouldn't be glossed over.
Voting for the Greens in the House of Reps only takes votes away from the party (ALP) that can actually form government and make a difference on climate change.
That's the political reality, just as that reality will bight the Liberal Party who got into bed with Palmer at the last election when the bleeding of first preference votes from previous ALP voters to Palmer benefited the Liberals, this time 'round, there will be a bleeding of first preference votes from disaffected LNP voters to Palmers mob and this will have dire consequences for the LNP.
The first and most important thing that needs to be done to help the environment is to simply get the Liberals out of government.
Ironically and unfortunately, this is an non intended consequence of good people voting for the Greens in the Reps.
Greens policies today are great as far as I'm concerned but the truth is and will always be that a vote for the Greens in the Reps leads to a reduction in first preference votes to the ALP which can stop it occupying the treasury benches.
A vote for the Greens in the Senate is good.
What I have been discussing on this thread is the bloody mindedness of Bob Brown and the Greens back in 2008/09 that thwarted progress on climate action. The policies and political nous on display now by the Greens are for more rational and palatable to the Australian electorate than was the case in 2007/08/09 and Richard Di Natale and the more savvy of the Greens are responsible for that.
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Because if the ALP do not get enough first preferences votes to finish ahead of the Liberal Party and finishes 2nd, then the ALP is in deep s**t. Have a look at the seats of Bass and Braddon in Tasmania and Chisholm in Victoria at the last election. Remember, Morrison got over the line by one seat. First preference votes are crucial. Of course, please don't misunderstand me. I am not blaming the Greens for the the re-election of Morrison, that is fairly and squarely down to the ALP's incompetent electioneering. This time 'round, the Greens 1st preference vote in the House of Reps will play an even more crucial role, I believe, in the outcome.
It's instructive to have a look at this: https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/hor_count.htm
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Man, there is no doubt that this is what political parties must do, that is, get votes!
I think what needs to be understood in this conversation is that statistically speaking, it makes it that much harder for the ALP to form Government if it loses 1st preference votes to the the Greens but what are the Greens to do? They can hardly say "don't vote for us in the Reps, vote ALP". That would be suicidal!
I think though that the Greens need to realise that if they were ever going to win another seat in the House of Reps, it would surely have been at the last election given the ALP's preposterous "slip-and-slide" climate change policy, if one can call it a policy. That being the political reality, the Greens need to put the bulk of their resources into trying to win another Senate spot or two and not be shrill in their protestations about the ALP's climate change policy. The Greens have had their say about the target etc., now they should get on with getting another Senate spot; two extra would be a profound win for the Greens and Australia.
Currently, the Greens have 9 Senate members with five of them having to contest the upcoming election.
As it stands, there are 26 ALP members in the Senate and 9 Greens and added all up, that is 1 short of the Coalition's 36 in the 76 seat Senate Chamber. By my reckoning, there are 24 Coalition Senators up for re-election. If the Greens could snatch one of these Senate spots from the Coalition, that would give them 10 spots. Assuming all the other members are re-elected this would mean that with their 10 and the ALP's 26, that would be one more than the LNP. If they could win two spots, then even with the knuckdragging, far right dog Hanson's two Senate spots, the LNP would be rendered largely impotent and the 3 remaining Independents would then become the omnipotent ones and then there is a much greater likelihood of anything that the ALP and Greens negotiate would be passed.
If the numbers remain the same in the Senate after this upcoming election, even if the ALP form Government, then even with the combined votes of the ALP, the Greens and the 3 independents, that's a total of 38 votes and therefore, the dog Hanson with the far-right LNP still tie any vote in the Senate and any bill fails to pass.
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I agree with all this. But it doesn't change the reality that if the Greens continue to attack the ALP, it will reduce the likelihood of action on climate change.
If they care more about the climate than their party, they'd stick to attacking the LNP. But they don't. They abandon their principles just like the ALP does.
Bass is a good electoral example of the problem with the Greens saying the ALP is as bad as the LNP.
The distribution of preferences shows that while most Greens preferences went to the ALP, about 20% went to the LNP. If that number was 10%, the ALP wins Bass.
The distribution of preferences shows that while most Greens preferences went to the ALP, about 20% went to the LNP. If that number was 10%, the ALP wins Bass.
Let's not get carried away. You are approaching conspiracy level attacks now.
Albanese was never a "union puppet" and it is plainly wrong that ALP members have no principles. Of course there are some who see politics as a career in the sense of what they can get out of it for themselves, but the ALP has been around for over 120 years and it does keep progressing and it will be around for at least another 120 years.
The ALP will phase out coal mines and as far as I'm aware, that's the Greens policy as well, that is phasing out/closing down coal mines and coal powered power stations.
As for "many MP's tied to the coal unions", Fitzgibbon was the last of these people tied to the "coal unions" but like a true believer and bowing to the ALP platform, he is making way instead of making waves. He did initially go wah wah wah but sense prevailed and he's getting out the way.
I don't know if you caught Doug Cameron on the Drum the other night but he was a miner and worked at the Liddell Power Station and was with the AMWSU, later the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union of which he was National Secretary; on The Drum, he was full on with his opinion that coal mining in Australia and the way we have been generating power will cease and be replaced with new ways of generating power whether people like it or not - the world is saying that this is what is going to happen and we must start to transition to that inevitability!
With the greatest of respect and I mean that sincerely, you are a bit naive when it comes to politics and how political parties behave in Opposition as opposed to being in Government. In Australia, it is as certain as night follows day that the electorate do not like change, more to the point, they s**t themselves at the thought of change so any party that promises big changes if elected whilst the are in Opposition, hands an election victory to the incumbent Government. Take as an example the "un-winnable election" of 1993 where Hewson promised a GST, the last election when the ALP did a Hewson. Look at the 2013 election when Abbott promised he would change nothing except abolish the "Carbon Tax" and "stop the boats". Once he took office, he did those things but also gutted Education, Health and access to justice as well as wiping out a myriad of fantastic social welfare initiatives and became despised overnight.
You can't do a thing being in Opposition and if you "spill the beans" about what you are going to do if elected and if you are the ALP or the Greens for that matter, then you guarantee yourself of being in Opposition even if the Government is as corrupt and inept as Morrisons' and in a civil war.
13% went to the LNP.Bass is a good electoral example of the problem with the Greens saying the ALP is as bad as the LNP.
The distribution of preferences shows that while most Greens preferences went to the ALP, about 20% went to the LNP. If that number was 10%, the ALP wins Bass.
You are assuming that the reason some of The Greens voters preferenced Libs was because of campaigning against the ALP. Why is this chosen as the deciding factor? It seems to me that you have made an arbitrary choice which fits the narrative of The Greens misbehaving. Could there have been other mitigating factors in this seat?
The point is that there are myriad of reasons that people might direct preferences one way or the other. The Greens pretend that attacking the ALP has no impact other than to drag ALP voters to the Greens.
What that preference flow demonstrates is that nobody really exists on this imaginary Greens-ALP-LNP-ON/Nats spectrum.
So yes, attacking the ALP could direct Greens preferences away from the ALP to the Nats or LNP.
I’m sorry I don’t get your point. Is it that the ALP must win first preference counts in order to win seats? That they can’t rely on preference flows to win? I agree that they can’t rely on receiving 100% of preferences from The Greens. But that is not unique to this election or Labor, The Greens, LNP, UAP.
