
- Sep 21, 2009
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But why?Albanese has always reserved his strongest enmity for those who dare to be to his left - one only needs at how he's acted internally to members of the Left faction who've not followed his lead in making peace with the Right.
On the topic at hand, I think it’s probably sticking one’s head in the sand to say the election wasn’t that bad for the Greens - losing 75% of your lower house seats (with the one survivor being by far your lowest profile of the four) is a disaster no matter which way you look at it, and while the 0.5% swing away from them isn’t enormous, it still represents their first negative swing after three elections of growth.
That said, it isn’t necessarily a “burn it all down and start again” result, which it’s being treated as. Bandt and Chandler-Mather going means they lose two of their more prominent economic justice voices, and so it’s very possible this does represent a major change in direction (God knows they're not the most transparent caucus in the world). From my scan, a lot of the seats with the biggest swings against them are Teal ones, which were the type they were angling for under the more centrist Di Natale before the move to Bandt. More working class metropolitan seats saw them gain solid swings and shares of the vote (11% in Werriwa in Sydney, 15% in Lalor in Melbourne), which shows they have been breaking away dissatisfied Labor voters beyond just the inner city types.
However, it's probably not enough to put faith in, and, realistically, for the major left wing party soaking up the vote to the left of an increasingly neoliberal ALP, it's not enough 40 years into their existence (for comparison, the early Labor Party had had four Prime Ministers in its first 40 years). I'm not really sure where they go from here, which suggests it might be for the better for a change on the left-wing flank.
Outside of media narratives and representation. Why is Bandt or Chandler-Mather the linchpin of The Greens?
Hanson-Young has been one of the most impressive and impactful representative of The Greens for a very long time.
She has faced more hate and targeted attacks year on year than Bandt or Chandler-Mather have in their entire career.
Almost all 'left wing' causes that have had an impact in the senate, or Senate estimates that actually get results, have been related to Hanson-Young in some way.
Why is she viewed as such a non-entity, outside of the disgustingly vicious hate she receives, unjustifiably.