The Greens

[CM86]

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.

But why?

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.

 

[Caesar]

Why is she viewed as such a non-entity

Historically - because she has had no factional support

The SA Greens do not have much power in the federal caucus because they are not close enough to the middle of the party to make them acceptable to the NSW and QLD Greens.

That means someone like SHY needs strong backing from the VIC and TAS Greens to stand a chance in leadership elections - and historically that pair of states have preferred to back their own (and each other’s) members.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

You’re proving my point - this is an example of it being handled internally using parliamentary procedures - as all parties expect it to be

Going on a podcast and bleating about it is not how parties expect MPs to handle this stuff which is why he’s opened himself up to public criticism

He's no longer an MP. I don't see how calling out a toxic culture is bad, others have suffered from it in the past, particularly female MPs.

 

[spinynorman]

But why?

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.

I don't think they're necessarily the "linchpin" of the Greens, just that they're two key members of what's perceived to be the party's left, which is what I was talking about.

I feel like SHY has had less of a profile in recent years, and I can't say I've given her an awful amount of thought lately. As Caesar pointed out, I don't think she's seen as having much support (I seem to recall rumours of her standing in one of the leadership ballots and receiving a single vote - her own), and to my understanding of the party's internal politics she's not within their left wing grouping.

I recall when she had a higher profile a bit of a view that she was something of a lightweight, but perhaps me not hearing so much of her lately indicates she's matured (God knows she was extremely young when she was first elected). No doubt she also got some of the unjustifiable hate you mention through the sexism that's aimed at young progressive women in politics; one needs only think of the Leyonhjelm bullshit.

I read something about her and Mehreen Fahruqi being the two likely candidates for leader - unsure how true that is, but assuming so, I think Mehreen's gotten a lot more of a positive public profile for herself (and has also been targeted with a lot of crap).

 

[CM86]

Historically - because she has had no factional support

The SA Greens do not have much power in the federal caucus because they are not close enough to the middle of the party to make them acceptable to the NSW and QLD Greens.

That means someone like SHY needs strong backing from the VIC and TAS Greens to stand a chance in leadership elections - and historically that pair of states have preferred to back their own (and each other’s) members.

Thanks, I appreciate the insight into the internal party conflicts.
But I was talking about the external, public response.

The people who seem to look for reasons to deny or deminish Hanson-Young.


The limited knowledge and understanding of the internal factions of The Greens dynamic is speculation most of the time. And it has almost nothing to do with general discussion.

So why do people in general ignore her? Why don't they view her as a prominent Greens MP?
Who taught the general public not to take her seriously, while defending people like Joyce from 'vile personal attacks'?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Of course I realise that. Criticism of Israeli war crimes isn't anti-semitic per se. But the behaviour from the Greens often does transgress into racist tropes and the entire Jewish community are genuinely traumatised by their rhetoric.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...nny-leong-antisemitic-trope-octupus-greens-mp

Do you think this was acceptable? Have Bandt and co made any effort to reach out to the Jewish community?

Interesting you should bring the Jenny Leong "tentacles" matter up.

I did a bit of research into it at the time, because a few things weren't ringing true to me.

On first blush, it already seemed to me to be a bit of a stretch to conclude that merely mentioning the world "tentacles" when talking about the Jewish lobby was automatically a reference to Nazi propaganda cartoons from nearly 90 years ago. It's a pretty common figure of speech, after all.

So I did a Google search.

As I had suspected, I quickly found that there is a long, sad history of the octopus motif being used in all sorts of racist propaganda, not just referring to Jews. (In fact, Australia has the dubious honour of propelling one such cartoon - in The Bulletin from 1886, depicting the Chinese octopus wrapping his tentacles round Australian society - to international infamy, as I found it cited on a University of Nevada web page. Jenny Leong, as an Australian of Chinese descent, would perhaps be already as aware as anyone of the significance of the octopus as an allround racist trope.)

So yes, a bit of a stretch to assume Leong was specifically referencing abhorrent antisemitic cartoons from the Nazis.

But here's the thing. (Actually, several things):

*I can't find much evidence online of many more than one Nazi-era antisemitic octopus cartoon anywhere! The only one I can find much reference to is the one mentioned in the Guardian article you linked, said by them to be a 1938 illustration by one Joseph Plank, an Austrian.

*I can find very little information about this Joseph Plank.

*Contrary to what The Guardian says, some sites give a different date for this cartoon, and some say Date Unknown.

*I can find no reference to what paper or journal it was published in.

So we know very little for certain about this cartoon, its artist, and the circumstances of its publication. (That in itself doesn't necessarily mean much. Germany had been bombed back into the Stone Age and there are giant gaps in the surviving documentation of that terrible era.)

*Finally, the cartoon in question, though clearly antisemitic, does not actually depict a Jewish person as an octopus. It depicts Winston Churchill as an octopus, with a Star of David above his head. The implication was that Churchill was controlled by the global Jewish lobby. Still antisemitic, but rather different to the grotesque stereotypical image we've all got in our heads, right?

Drawing: "Seppla" [Josef Plank], Churchill as an octopus, between 1935 and 1943, Churchill and the Great Republic (A Library of Congress Interactive Exhibition, Text Version)

This exhibition examines the life and career of Winston Spencer Churchill and emphasizes his lifelong links with the United States--the nation he called "the great Republic." This exhibition comes nearly forty years after death of Winston Churchill and sixty D-Day allied invasion...

www.loc.gov

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encyclopedia.ushmm.org

I am more than happy for you and other posters on here to do their own research about this. I really don't trust Google, and in fact I'd prefer to find that my search terms were too wide, or narrow, and that there is in fact a whole grotesque cavalcade of Nazi antisemitic octopus cartoons out there. But I couldn't find them, and I do wonder if many of the people piling on to Jenny Leong had bothered to do even as little research as I did, before they rushed to condemn her.

(I suspect Jenny Leong knows the answer, given that she agreed to be given a tour of the Sydney Jewish Museum and make a $2,000 donation to the Museum - without admitting liability - and that she also made another $2,000 donation, to the Jewish Council of Australia, which she describes as a “diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers united in their opposition to Israel’s continued policies aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life”)

Greens MP to tour Sydney Jewish Museum and donate funds after offensive ‘tentacles’ trope

Exclusive: Jenny Leong, who apologised after referencing antisemitic cartoon, was subject of human rights commission complaint

www.theguardian.com

 

[Festerz]

Hubris?

As it happens someone else has seen what I see about the Greens pre-and post election commentary and is far more articulate in explaining it than I could be..

Greens’ election hubris – how the minor party lost its way and now its leader

The Greens will be searching for a new way forward and now a new leader, with Adam Bandt conceding he has lost his seat.

theconversation.com

 

[Festerz]

Drew Hutton is a founding member of the Greens and played a crucial role in the party's formation- first in Queensland, then as a co-founder of the national party alongside Bob Brown.

IMO he has made some excellent comments about the need for the Greens to fundamentally rethink the way it communicates with Australian voters.

“The Greens have experimented with what I would call a hyper-militant approach during the last three years,” says Hutton, who was suspended from the Queensland branch in 2023 over a debate over trans rights and free speech.

“I’m a bit of a hyper-militant myself, in many ways, but you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them."

“They also overplayed their hand on Gaza and needed to make it a bit clearer they were totally opposed to the politics of Hamas,” Hutton says.

This comment in particular is one that I think resonates with a lot of swing voters and reflects on the dialogue and commentary of many Green politicians and their most vocal supporters on both traditional and social media platforms:

“What will broaden their base is if they lose this terrible way they have of expressing their moral superiority over everyone else and their refusal to talk meaningfully with ordinary Australians.”

No surprises though that Hutton's perspective is not shared by many other current and past Green leaders, including Bob Brown who, when asked if the party has been too hardline in recent years, says “I don’t think they were hardline enough.”

Will be interesting to see which perspective holds sway as the Greens review the election results and their strategies going forward under a new leader.

How the war between ‘watermelons’ and ‘tree-Tories’ brought down the Greens

Party veterans are calling for the Greens to ditch its “hyper-militant” style and return to its environmental roots after the shock loss of Adam Bandt’s seat.

www.theage.com.au

 

[Demonic Ascent]

As it happens someone else has seen what I see about the Greens pre-and post election commentary and is far more articulate in explaining it than I could be..

Greens’ election hubris – how the minor party lost its way and now its leader

The Greens will be searching for a new way forward and now a new leader, with Adam Bandt conceding he has lost his seat.

theconversation.com

I was querying the hubris you attributed to SHY in the twitter post you attached. Didn't seem to be anything in that but it was a screen grab instead of a video which is why I queried it because I wanted to know what you thought she said that could be deemed hubris.

 

[Caesar]

So why do people in general ignore her? Why don't they view her as a prominent Greens MP?

Because the media focuses on the big players, and she’s not one of them any more. Hasn’t been for a decade.

15 years ago when the parliamentary party was smaller and she was the Young Turk - yeah, she was prominent. But she torched all her credibility with left wing of the party by publically criticising the decision to back Gillard over Abbott in 2010.

Since then she has challenged for the deputy leadership twice and been defeated twice. She lost heavily on both occasions, and the reason we know this is because her caucus colleagues were eager to tell the media how weak her position was.

Maybe she stages a comeback if the NSW Greens forgive her, but I’d say that’s only marginally more likely than them forgiving Stalin for Trotsky.

 

[spinynorman]

Because the media focuses on the big players, and she’s not one of them any more. Hasn’t been for a decade.

15 years ago when the parliamentary party was smaller and she was the Young Turk - yeah, she was prominent. But she torched all her credibility with left wing of the party by publically criticising the decision to back Gillard over Abbott in 2010.

Since then she has challenged for the deputy leadership twice and been defeated twice. She lost heavily on both occasions, and the reason we know this is because her caucus colleagues were eager to tell the media how weak her position was.

Maybe she stages a comeback if the NSW Greens forgive her, but I’d say that’s only marginally more likely than them forgiving Stalin for Trotsky.

From the Herald article today on their party leadership:

Faruqi showed she had support in the party room when she was elected Bandt’s deputy in 2022, in contrast with Hanson-Young, who has run several times for the deputy position but never received the support of colleagues.

Hanson-Young, however, is seen as representing a clear break with the Bandt era and more likely to pursue a pragmatic approach of working with the Labor government where the parties have common ground.

 

[Caesar]

Faruqi will definitely want the leadership but the reduced Queensland contingent won’t help her case

my money would be on a compromise candidate (not SHY) that keeps Faruqui in the deputy seat

But that’s highly speculative, most of the people I know are from the NSW party and they aren’t the best judge of what the Tasmanians and Victorians are thinking

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Drew Hutton is a founding member of the Greens and played a crucial role in the party's formation- first in Queensland, then as a co-founder of the national party alongside Bob Brown.

IMO he has made some excellent comments about the need for the Greens to fundamentally rethink the way it communicates with Australian voters.

“The Greens have experimented with what I would call a hyper-militant approach during the last three years,” says Hutton, who was suspended from the Queensland branch in 2023 over a debate over trans rights and free speech.

“I’m a bit of a hyper-militant myself, in many ways, but you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them."

“They also overplayed their hand on Gaza and needed to make it a bit clearer they were totally opposed to the politics of Hamas,” Hutton says.

This comment in particular is one that I think resonates with a lot of swing voters and reflects on the dialogue and commentary of many Green politicians and their most vocal supporters on both traditional and social media platforms:

“What will broaden their base is if they lose this terrible way they have of expressing their moral superiority over everyone else and their refusal to talk meaningfully with ordinary Australians.”

No surprises though that Hutton's perspective is not shared by many other current and past Green leaders, including Bob Brown who, when asked if the party has been too hardline in recent years, says “I don’t think they were hardline enough.”

Will be interesting to see which perspective holds sway as the Greens review the election results and their strategies going forward under a new leader.

How the war between ‘watermelons’ and ‘tree-Tories’ brought down the Greens

Party veterans are calling for the Greens to ditch its “hyper-militant” style and return to its environmental roots after the shock loss of Adam Bandt’s seat.

www.theage.com.au

Drew Hutton is a transphobe who has picked fights with and sent abusive messages to other Greens figures. He got old and bigoted and the party is no longer his, the new generation have moved on from his view of the world.

 

[Gralin]

Drew Hutton is a transphobe who has picked fights and sent abusive messages to other Greens figures. He got old and bigoted and the party is no longer his, the new generation have moved on from his view of the world.

Amazing how consistent the age is in platforming former greens who are transphobes

 

[Gralin]

A few of them also worked with advance on their anti greens campaign

 

[sherb]

AJP I have more time for but still they're really only there for one thing at the end of the day

That may be the case, but that one thing is significant. It's not "one thing" like, say, legalizing cannibas is. It's far wider than that.

People don't seem to realize, or at least think about, how big a part that animals play in our culture. They are companion animals, in entertainment, work animals, farm animals, native wildlife, they've served in war, they are used in experimentation, etc. They are even vital for our survival (eg bees).

I once asked a former AJP politician about the perception that the party is only there for one reason. He said that whilst animals are the obvious focus, all legislation was considered on its merits within the wider party philosophy - but with animals in mind. He came up with a surprising figure - 70% springs to mind but don't hold me to that - of how much legislation has an "animal component" to it.

As for the broader AJP policy platform, here is a rundown on their website. Obviously, again, there is a focus on animals, but there is plenty of other stuff there too. Which I would think would align somewhat with a Greens supporter philosophically.

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www.animaljusticeparty.org

 

[Baltimore Jack]

The failure of the Greens to win more votes should be concerning. Are the Greens interested in self-reflection or do they view their ability to attract robust opposition as a badge of honor?

The LNP is leaking votes and they're not going to the Greens.

Wokeism and the pro-Islam stance is a big factor. Every man and his dog favors environment causes and public healthcare.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

The rise and fall of Adam Bandt: the Greens leader who embraced a different approach to politics | Paddy Manning

The outgoing member for Melbourne understood if the Greens genuinely want to be a party of government they have to win lower house seats

www.theguardian.com

 

[PJays]

View attachment 2310085

The point is the Greens primary was 11.8% in 2010. Same as 2025.

Since 2010 the major party vote has dropped from about 81% to about 67%.

So 1 in every 7 votes has shifted away from the two major parties, yet the Greens haven't managed to capitalise one bit.

They haven't managed to move the needle, in an era with a mass exodus away from the majors.

Why?

 

[Baltimore Jack]

The point is the Greens primary was 11.8% in 2010. Same as 2025.

Since 2010 the major party vote has dropped from about 81% to about 67%.

So 1 in every 7 votes has shifted away from the two major parties, yet the Greens haven't managed to capitalise one bit.

They haven't managed to move the needle, in an era with a mass exodus away from the majors.

Why?

 

[Caesar]

Drew Hutton is a founding member of the Greens and played a crucial role in the party's formation- first in Queensland, then as a co-founder of the national party alongside Bob Brown.

IMO he has made some excellent comments about the need for the Greens to fundamentally rethink the way it communicates with Australian voters.

“The Greens have experimented with what I would call a hyper-militant approach during the last three years,” says Hutton, who was suspended from the Queensland branch in 2023 over a debate over trans rights and free speech.

“I’m a bit of a hyper-militant myself, in many ways, but you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them."

“They also overplayed their hand on Gaza and needed to make it a bit clearer they were totally opposed to the politics of Hamas,” Hutton says.

This comment in particular is one that I think resonates with a lot of swing voters and reflects on the dialogue and commentary of many Green politicians and their most vocal supporters on both traditional and social media platforms:

“What will broaden their base is if they lose this terrible way they have of expressing their moral superiority over everyone else and their refusal to talk meaningfully with ordinary Australians.”

No surprises though that Hutton's perspective is not shared by many other current and past Green leaders, including Bob Brown who, when asked if the party has been too hardline in recent years, says “I don’t think they were hardline enough.”

Will be interesting to see which perspective holds sway as the Greens review the election results and their strategies going forward under a new leader.

How the war between ‘watermelons’ and ‘tree-Tories’ brought down the Greens

Party veterans are calling for the Greens to ditch its “hyper-militant” style and return to its environmental roots after the shock loss of Adam Bandt’s seat.

www.theage.com.au

The problem is that the ‘Australian Greens’ doesn’t really exist - the state ‘branches’ are really separate organisations who own the Greens brand independently in each state, and essentially have an agreement to caucus together in the federal parliament

I come from New South Wales, where the activist Greens are quite literally communists. Like, a significant percentage of them openly identify as Trotskyites. The party has a close working relationship with the Socialist Alliance, often coordinating on protests and speaking at each other’s events. People move fluidly between the two parties.

This is very different to (say) WA, where the Greens are fundamentally environmental activists who grew out of the anti-nuclear movement and do not really interact with the Socialist Alliance at all

The composition of these state Greens parties, the way they operate and set policy, even what they believe the ‘Green movement’ is - it is very, very different from any other party, much more fractured, and it makes their federal caucus dynamics very weird.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Larissa Waters won't rule out leadership tilt as Greens claim sole election victory

Elizabeth Watson-Brown has claimed Ryan in inner-Brisbane. She's the only Greens MP to retain their seat.

www.abc.net.au

I would like Waters to make it, she seems more acceptable to middle Australia than Faruqi or Hanson-Young would be.

 

[Proper Gander]

ABC’s Vote Compass of course being the unimpeachable authority on where the political left, right and centre are.

I’ve always hoped it was. The thing stuck me a good cm (on IPad) left of the greens which was entertaining.

If the political spectrum is actually a circle, I’m probably in with the cookers at this point

 

[Proper Gander]

After reading doubt about the Greens in earlier posts. I read this from Abbott and I'm reassured the Greens are needed now, as ever.

They are growing as a 3rd party force to the point that even though the ALP won a huge swing, they didn't get near a majority in the Senate.

I agree their main problem is that they're progressive on everything and don't really seem open to being very progressive on some things but not others. They seem too uncompromising.

For example, I'm a Greens voter/supporter and I love horse and dog racing, know lots of people in the industry who love animals and they and the animals would suffer if it was banned like the Greens want.

Maybe it's the trade-off between wanting them to be perfect for me, but others in the party want it to be perfect for them...

That’s the problem with voting anything. Social policy is aspirational, governing is pragmatic. But you need them around to prevent a Government damping down every mandate to the point of minimal to meaningless change.

I reckon they’ve got a kick in them yet.

 

[Proper Gander]

Labor has to negotiate with the senate to pass legislation

The greens have always been willing to negotiate, the issue has been labor not wanting to and acting like the greens not passing their legislation unchanged is undemocratic

A fair bit of this is about the optics. All of the LNP and a decent few in Labor have become persuaded that publicly aligning themselves with the greens is electoral poison. Dumb on both parts, particularly Labor whose voter base is less concerned about the matter.

Necessary for the libs who have run a scare campaign for so long that they can’t even contemplate compromise. And of course, in being that way, they left what they thought were blue ribbon seats open for the teals to just pluck out of their hands.

Fear of the Greens is utterly unreal.