Bandt will demand Medicare expansion from Albanese in hung parliament

Putting dental and mental health into Medicare will be the Greens’ first demand in a hung parliament, but the party will not push to sit in Labor’s cabinet as leader Adam Bandt promises a new spirit of bipartisanship after blocking key bills during Labor’s first term.

Bandt admitted in an interview with this masthead that contentiously stymying Labor’s housing bills and other pieces of legislation had “not always been pretty”, arguing it was for the greater good of creating progressive solutions to what he described as crises for housing, the environment and inequality.

Greens leader Adam Bandt says he would seek to to expand Medicare in exchange for guaranteeing support to Labor on votes on supply and confidence.Credit: PENNY STEPHENS

“Whether that is what came across”, Bandt said, was up for debate, but the firm stance was made necessary by what he felt was Labor’s unambitious governing style.

“We’ve pushed them and got some pretty good outcomes.”

The Melbourne MP cited Labor-Greens deals on the climate safeguard mechanism, money for public housing, vaping, and the right to disconnect, as he confirmed his party would swing the spotlight away from Anthony Albanese and towards Peter Dutton to rouse left-wing antipathy against the conservative party.

The Greens’ joust with Labor on housing, the conflict in the Middle East and environmental laws in 2024 placed more scrutiny on the third force in Australian politics than at any time since the 2010 hung parliament, when Greens founder Bob Brown secured dental care for children in a deal to support then-prime minister Julia Gillard.

Several lower house independent MPs secured Gillard’s path to form government, although Andrew Wilkie told this masthead that he would not do formal deals with major parties in a possible hung parliament after the next election.

However, Bandt, in his clearest comments to date on his plans for a hung parliament, said he would seek to emulate his party’s founder by doing a deal with Labor to expand Medicare in exchange for guaranteeing support on votes on supply and confidence (passing budgets and maintaining the government’s status on the floor of parliament).

The Parliamentary Budget Office said in a report prepared for Bandt that adding dental work to Medicare would cost $45 billion over four years, a weighty addition to an already haemorrhaging budget.

Bandt has ruled out a more formal Labor-Greens coalition deal. This is despite Brown, in an interview with this masthead in October, arguing the future of progressive politics lay in the two left-wing parties dropping their antipathy and governing as a bloc. Bandt said Labor was too far to the right on climate change, emphasising the fact that emissions had risen this term.

Bandt said if he could not secure some sort of policy win in a negotiation with Albanese on supply and confidence, he would be open to not guaranteeing “confidence and supply” – where a minor party agrees to vote with the government on budget bills – and taking each vote on its merits.

“We’ve had to push the government to act on the big issues and today’s Labor is not the party of Whitlam. They seem to be wedded to being quite tepid,” he said. “I hope that going into the next parliament, the government realises that we need more than Band-Aid answers.”

“I really think [a hung parliament] would be an opportunity.”

Government sources said Albanese’s preference is to use teal MPs and other independents to secure government if Labor falls below the 76 required for a majority. Because there are more progressive crossbenchers than conservatives, Labor may be able to form government even if it loses about 10 seats, dropping from 78 to the high 60s.

Anthony Albanese and Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather have sparred regularly this term.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Conversely, the Coalition would probably need to secure about 72 seats to be close enough to form government with possible independent allies in Bob Katter, Dai Le, Rebekha Sharkie, Helen Haines and Allegra Spender.

This masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor showed a tight race between Albanese and Dutton with neither in an election-winning position, with Dutton starting from well behind with a notional 57 seats.

The Greens have a realistic chance of expanding from four to six lower house seats but are facing intense challenges in its three Brisbane-based electorates. Either way, it will gain a powerful foothold in dictating the national agenda if Labor loses its majority.

A minority government would trigger a new atmosphere in Canberra, Bandt claimed.

“If we end up in a minority parliament, it’s because the Australian people have said we want more voices in parliament,” he said.

“As a practical example, one of the things that happened in the 2010 parliament is that before contentious issues came to the fore of parliament, there were a lot of discussions beforehand about what approach the government intended to take, did anyone have concerns. There was a spirit of respect and a lot of things were thrashed out beforehand.”

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