Susie O’Brien: Victorian Greenslide would create nightmare scenario

With less than two weeks to go before the election, Victoria is facing the prospect of a Greenslide delivering the balance of power to the Greens.

This election could end in a Greenslide delivering the balance of power to the Greens.

With less than two weeks to go, it’s time to see exactly what being green will mean.

Take a look at their policies and it’s possible Victoria will head in a very different direction with the Greens calling the shots.

I am progressive politically, want progress on climate change and can’t wait to see the back of Daniel Andrews.

And yet I am ambivalent about some of the Greens’ policies and totally opposed to many others.

For a start, the Greens want to see an end to mandatory sentencing for offences committed against emergency workers, custodial officers and youth justice custodial workers, as well as the offences of aggravated carjacking and aggravated home invasion.

Wouldn’t you think cowardly thieves who attack emergency service workers or violently rob people in their own homes deserve mandatory sentences? Would putting more discretionary power with the judiciary really serve the community’s interests?

Leader of the Victorian Greens Samantha Ratnam. Picture: David Crosling

I also don’t want to see $2.5 billion spent creating more bike lanes to cripple the city and annoy motorists.

I am also against moves to close two state prisons or scrap additional police recruitment.

There are other policies, such as the $1 billion buy-back of sacred Indigenous sites, which are lacking in clarity and detail. Who knows how that would work or who it could impact?

The Greens also want to introduce more First Nations cultural education, which I welcome, but as long as it’s not along the lines of their policy which states that “First Nations people were violently dispossessed, had their children stolen, their families separated and their lands, waters and skies stolen and destroyed”.

There’s a line between education and indoctrination which the Greens would do well to find.

Another problem is their simplistic mantra of taxing billionaires which is sound in theory but can have serious flow-on effects on ordinary people.

For instance, raising the windfall tax to 75 per cent when land is rezoned – up from 62.5 per cent - could unfairly hurt families in the outer suburbs.

There is a lazy indulgence that comes with making policies that will never be tested by being in government.

It’s apparent in their plans to phase out 100 per cent of coal and gas by 2030. This is a big ask given that coal and gas are the source of two-thirds of our power.

The Greens are promising large offshore wind and a new big-battery and pumped hydro storage project, but what happens when that doesn’t pan out? Where’s the detail? Who’s funding it? How will it work?

The Greens have plans to phase out 100 per cent of coal and gas by 2030. Picture: Daniel Pockett

There’s also a fair dose of weird and wacky on the Greens platform. This includes a living wage for artists, a billion-dollar secure arts fund and $100 million to be spent each year on festivals.

What else will we see? Five days of reproductive health and wellbeing leave a year for those who are undergoing gender transitions, doing IVF or have menopause symptoms.

The Greens also want to legalise cannabis and tax its sale. I can think of more important priorities.

The party does have some good policies, however, such as raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14. This overwhelmingly impacts Indigenous children. Regardless of race, no one aged under 14 should end up in jail.

Other positive steps include the Green’s policies on strengthening heritage protection laws, ending native forest logging, increasing taxes for online gambling companies from ten to 20 per cent and making supermarkets more responsible for reducing and recycling soft plastics.

I also agree with their steps to end poker machine losses which have amounted to $66 billion in the past 30 years in Victoria alone.

At this stage there’s a very real possibility of the Greens winning three key lower house seats in Northcote, Richmond and Albert Park. If the polls showing the Labor gap softening are right, preferences are going to be crucial.

The Greens are preferencing Labor and other progressive independents over Liberal.

The Coalition is preferencing the Greens over Labor, which could be very important in close contests.

The Greens want Labor to put them ahead of other independents and Liberals, but this remains to be seen.

The premier has ruled out doing a deal with the Greens.

This week he said “no deal will be offered, and no deal will be done” with the party.

He may not have much choice if he doesn’t win an outright majority of seats.

If this happens, there’s bound to be much more wacky weed, more sacred sites and many, many more bike lanes.

As Kermit once famously said, “It’s not easy being green”.