Greens call on defector to do ‘honourable thing’ and resign

Greens MP Sarah Hanson-Young says Senator Dorinda Cox should have quit parliament when she defected to join Labor earlier this week, escalating the minor party’s criticism of its former First Nations spokeswoman.

The comment reflects the anger towards Cox from the Greens and goes further than comments made by party leader Larissa Waters, who said earlier this week that she wished her former colleague well.

Dorinda Cox said she had lost confidence in the Greens and felt her values aligned with Labor.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Hanson-Young said that for an MP to be elected to represent one party and then shift to another was unfair on the people who voted for them.

“I do think the honourable thing is to resign from the parliament,” Hanson-Young said in Canberra. “But, you know, they are not the rules, and so we’re left where we are.

“Anthony Albanese helped secure Cox’s defection. But last year, he criticised Senator Fatima Payman for doing the same thing as Cox by leaving the party under whose banner she was elected, but retaining her position in the Senate.

“There is a bit of hypocrisy, of course, about how Labor has responded to this. It wasn’t OK to jump ship for Fatima Payman, but apparently when it’s people coming to them, it’s all OK.

“There is a bit of rank arrogance and cockiness that is creeping in to the Labor Party after this election.”

The Greens praised Payman when she left the Labor Party last year. Former leader Adam Bandt said at the time: “I think it’s a very courageous move from her, and I think you can see from all of the media that she’s given that it is being done on a matter of principle.”

Albanese has defended Cox’s decision to join Labor this week, arguing she would face voters at the next election if she won preselection, and on Thursday dismissed the Greens’ calls.

“It is not surprising that the Greens political party will put forward some opposition to what has occurred, but Senator Cox has made a decision, and she has decided that the way that she will advance her values is through a party of government,” Albanese said.

He said bullying allegations against the senator, which Cox has consistently denied, had been “dealt with”.

“There is an independent process for those things to be dealt with,” Albanese said.

Cox said on Monday that her “values and priorities are more aligned with Labor than the Greens”.

“I’ve worked hard to make Australia fairer and much more reconciled. But recently, I’ve lost some confidence in the capacity for the Greens to assist me in being able to progress this.”

This masthead revealed on Wednesday that Cox had made withering criticisms of Labor when she applied to the Greens to run as a senator in 2020.

“I was let down by what I found to be a patronising attitude towards women and people of colour,” she wrote that year. “Finally, leaving when it became clear that they cared more about election donors that [sic] the views of members.”

On Tuesday, a text message from 2023 where Cox called One Nation leader Pauline Hanson a “f---ing retard” was leaked, in a further sign of the depth of anger felt by the Greens toward the party’s former senator.

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