Greens’ incitement has no place in democratic politics
After decades as a protest party on the political fringes, the Greens have degenerated to embracing thuggery, inciting violent law-breaking and tolerating attacks on police and police horses.
If enough voters think carefully about this week’s events outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre it would be sufficient to sow the seeds of the Greens’ demise. After decades as a protest party on the political fringes, they have degenerated to embracing thuggery, inciting violent law-breaking and tolerating attacks on police and police horses. Demonstrating against an important military expo where technology to improve our national defences was displayed, they have endorsed Islamist extremists campaigning for the destruction of Israel and the far left working for the end of Western civilisation.
In recent months, the Greens’ anti-Americanism and Robin Hood economic nonsense have become more extreme. But in throwing in his lot on Friday with Disrupt Land Forces organisers who urged followers to “come down, mask up, block up, get your goggles”, NSW Greens senator David Shoebridge crossed a Rubicon. Party leader Adam Bandt should have pulled him into line. Instead, Mr Bandt sanctioned the protest, berating “a festival for arms dealers” and Australia’s becoming “a nation known for profiting from death and destruction, especially during a genocide”.
Labor and the Coalition, federally and at state level, must seize the opportunity to highlight the Greens’ betrayal of the national interest, and their efforts to undermine national security. As well as putting the party last at the forthcoming federal and Queensland elections, and subsequent contests, mainstream politicians must make it clear why the Greens are not a legitimate option for disillusioned voters wanting to send a message to the major parties. But there is nothing altruistic about them. The Greens are gambling their credibility in an attempt to win more seats by chasing the pro-Palestinian vote, especially among Arab-speakers, in federal seats such as Wills and Calwell in Melbourne. But as John Ferguson wrote in Friday’s paper: “How will the old-guard Greens voters view cruelty to horses in the name of prosecuting a political argument?” Voters should deplore such behaviour. Likewise teal supporters, whose MPs were quiet as mayhem unfolded, police were attacked with acid, and our second-largest city brought to a standstill. Questioned by The Weekend Australian, Goldstein independent Zoe Daniel lashed the protests in Melbourne, saying they are “likely harmful to social cohesion”. But Kooyong MP Monique Ryan did not respond to requests for comment.
On Friday, Senator Shoebridge was greeted by a crowd of about 50 anti-Israel demonstrators. Addressing the mob, he unleashed a bizarre rant against Defence Minister Richard Marles, accusing him of spending billions of dollars of public money on weapons companies and then looking to take up “lucrative jobs with them afterwards”. Defence procurement is one of Mr Marles’s biggest responsibilities. He insists, wisely, that Australia will continue to buy weapons systems from Israel: “We continue to go forward in a way which seeks to purchase the best equipment possible to enable our sailors, soldiers and aviators to do their job in a way which keeps them safe.”
In refusing to condemn the violence, the hypocrisy of Senator Shoebridge and others who claim to value peace was exposed by Victorian Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt, whose members bore the brunt of the violence. Senator Shoebridge had not discussed the effect of the violence with police, 24 of whom were injured, Mr Gatt said. On Wednesday, protesters squirted an irritant up the nostrils of police horses and at some riders. These events must not be forgotten. As Chris Kenny writes: “We saw a dystopian future of hatred and chaos, Clockwork Orange meets Mad Max, with peacenik sloganeering defiled by anarchic violence and Islamist extremist vengeance. This was more than a disruption; it was a symptom of civilisational decay.”
