Electorate signals peak Greens and Bandt exposed

Greens leader Adam Bandt has taken the wrong message from the slump in his party’s electoral fortunes, in which voters rejected its transformation from one focused on the environment to one espousing anti-Semitic, far-left socialist dreams. On Monday, having lost two out of three Brisbane seats and received fewer votes for all four Greens lower house MPs, the party’s leader was talking up his demands to shape policy through the party’s balance of power position in the upper house.

Ironically, Mr Bandt can blame the Greens’ poor showing in part on the principled stand of the Liberal Party in directing its preferences to Labor. But the reality is that under Mr Bandt the Greens strayed too far from what voters thought they stood for. The electorate has signalled peak Greens and the Bandt experiment has been exposed.

The defeated Greens MP in the Brisbane seat of Griffith, Max Chandler-Mather, was a voice of the new Greens under Mr Bandt. Mr Chandler-Mather still insists that rather than the environment, the Greens’ project is to “fundamentally transform Australian politics, economy and society in favour of ordinary working people”.

Voters were able to see through the Greens’ claims on housing and were repulsed by the party’s weaponisation of the tragic circumstances in the Middle East for political advantage. Mr Bandt has been unable to accept that his party’s views on the Middle East conflict, which was sparked by the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, is seen as a threat to national cohesion. Addressing reporters on Monday, Mr Bandt denied his hard line position on Israel cost him votes. Instead, he said he would use the Greens’ balance of power position in the Senate to push Labor to introduce dental cover into Medicare, free childcare and an end to new coal and gas mines. Mr Bandt said his aim was to make this “the most progressive parliament that Australia has seen”. If there is a silver lining from the election result, it is that the Greens’ wings have been clipped. The primary vote drop was most severe for Mr Bandt himself, with a 3.3-percentage-point fall in his seat of Melbourne, which he is in danger of losing. The Greens leader received 50 per cent of the primary vote in 2019 but has seen that drop to 41.4 per cent at this poll.

Anthony Albanese will not have to rely on the Greens to form government and has the room electorally to stare down the extreme demands of the protest party and other independents. This will be particularly important in the area of energy and the environment. Mr Albanese made it clear through the final days of the election campaign that gas would be a major component of the Labor Party’s energy transition. This message was reinforced by the Australian Energy Market Operator, which said gas would play a “critical role” and be the “ultimate backstop in a high-renewable power system”.

The Coalition has an opportunity to co-operate with Labor in the Senate to defang the Greens. This includes working with Labor to finalise changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act that remain unfinished business from a report first delivered by former competition tsar Graeme Samuel to the Morrison government. The Albanese government was unable to progress the reform in its first term because of the unreasonable demands of the Greens. Business and environment groups agree that change is required to streamline the approvals process and protect the environment, but it must not be hijacked by the maximalist demands of the Greens.

From the first utterances in defeat from Mr Bandt, it is clear the Greens will continue to play an uncooperative role in shaping good policy, whether it be on tax, economic development or the environment. Mr Albanese can afford to stick to the mainstream with a long-term view in mind.