Joe Hildebrand: Local government elections not good sign for Greens at federal level

The poor showing of the Greens in the NSW local government elections prove Australians don’t like war – class war or the other kind, writes Joe Hildebrand.

They say all politics is local and so what do the NSW local government elections say about the politics of Australia?

Well for one thing, we don’t like war – class war or the other kind.

In a stark warning for the Greens and the nascent Muslim Votes movement, parties and candidates who sought to turn an election about rates, roads and rubbish into an attack on the rich or a referendum on Palestine were shown the back door.

In the days after the vote last Saturday, I was contacted by three extremely well placed sources who were both stunned and relieved by the message voters sent.

In the Muslim stronghold of Canterbury-Bankstown, the Labor councillor who proposed the flying of the Palestinian flag at two council sites – which was unanimously supported – copped a huge swing against the ticket he led in the Roselands ward.

Voting in last week’s NSW Local Government Election. Picture: Tim Hunter

There Labor went from 53 per cent in 2021 to just 38 per cent on the weekend, with votes haemorrhaging to the Our Local Community ticket on 17 per cent and the Libertarian Party on over 9 per cent.

Even if you take in the new Greens vote of 10.5 per cent, it does not quantify the loss.

In the Bankstown ward, the collapse was almost as bad, with Labor dropping from 58 per cent in 2021 to 46 per cent to the ticket headed by Mayor Bilal El-Hayek – a good bloke incidentally.

Canterbury Bankstown Mayor Bilal El-Hayek. Picture: Supplied

Here the Libs managed more than 30 per cent and the Libertarians around 10 per cent while the Greens got a mere 8.8 per cent.

Clearly even the Labor and Muslim voters of South West Sydney have more pressing concerns than importing foreign wars into our suburbs.

In their leafy inner city heartlands, the Greens crusade against Israel proved even more disastrous.

They appear to have lost the mayoralty in Randwick, whose mayor was infamously obsessed with the Palestinian cause, and failed to gain it in the Inner West.

I observed to a senior Labor figure that the only Inner West ward where the Greens had received a higher primary vote than Labor was the socialist hotspot of Stanmore. He politely informed me that the prepoll vote had since come in and Labor had won that too – 43.9 to 41.8 per cent at the last count.

If the Greens can’t win in the leftiest ward of the Inner West, they might as well pack up their rainsticks and go home.

As for Woollahra and Waverley – the even more glittering prizes of the east – well, you can only imagine how their anti-rich and anti-Semitic – Sorry! Anti-Zionist! – rhetoric went down.

Their campaign against investment property owners – or evil landlords as they are typically characterised – also hurt them in the regional tree-change hotspots where so many of their voters no doubt have a nice little weekender.

As one former party insider unleashed, it was a self-inflicted bloodbath. “The Greens have stupidly swapped out their loyal tree-change, middle-class, Tesla-driving base in favour of inner-city, teeth-gnashing socialists,” they said.

And it goes on.

“The hippies and environmentalists are turned off by the anti-Semitic aggro, the Balmain basket-weavers sitting on an investment property or four are rightly concerned by the ‘let’s lynch the landlords’ Marxism, while the feminists and lesbians have exited stage right after having to attend women’s group meetings chaired by ladies called Geoff.”

The Greens have supporters for their Gaza stance but it did not prove a winner in the recent local government elections.

On the cold hard political analysis it also bodes badly for the party, which increasingly relies on youthful revolutionary anger without realising that those youths eventually grow up.

“Long-term it is a dumb play as this year’s identity warrior is next year’s dad in the burbs paying a mortgage and getting serious about practical solutions to real problems,” my source says.

“The Greens have lost or failed to regain mayoralties in Randwick, Byron, Tweed, Bellingen and Shoalhaven, and missed the mayoralty in Inner West too.

“They polled badly in the eastern and northern suburbs which used to be very strong for them and a growth area.

“The South and North Coast used to be a growth area but they’ve been kicked out or stagnated.

“The same for Wollongong, Newcastle, Port Stephens, Cessnock, Maitland and Coffs Harbour.”

I have not been able to run my Rain Man ruler over all of those results but it seems pretty plausible to me.

Meanwhile a highly-placed Labor source says any attempt to make the next federal election a referendum on Gaza will go the same way. For one thing, it will effectively force Liberal votes to be directed to Labor over any Greens or Muslim Votes candidate.

Never forget it was Liberal preferences that got Greens leader Adam Bandt into parliament in the first place – and rest assured plenty of Liberals haven’t forgotten it either.

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