New Greens leader can do better

Faced with electoral oblivion, even the Greens can resist making an obviously bad decision. That is one way to look at the rejection of Mehreen Faruqi and the election of Larissa Waters as leader to replace Adam Bandt, whose legacy will be to have strayed too far from his party’s environmental roots towards a socialist dystopia.

Senator Waters was described as the consensus candidate, and in the public mind is a long way from the extremist public persona of her rival candidate, Senator Faruqi, who will continue as deputy leader.

If she is smart, Senator Waters will work hard to dismantle her party’s toxic association with the anti-Semitic forces that helped secure Mr Bandt’s downfall. Rather than follow the Greens’ usual playbook of refusing to compromise and making the perfect the enemy of the good, Senator Waters can choose to play a constructive role given the Greens’ balance of power in the Senate.

This includes dropping her party’s obsession with economy-wrecking demands to reject development of any future coal or gas developments. Instead, she could look to the experience of the Greens party in Germany, where it all began.

There, the Greens are realistic about the challenge of energy security and the need to defend the values of Western democracy. Senator Waters gave some indication that she recognised the prime concerns, saying the party would prioritise “action on the climate crisis” and laws on nature protection that were pulled by Anthony Albanese after former environment minister Tanya Plibersek was unable to reach a sensible compromise with the Greens in the previous parliament.

“There’s a chance now for real reform that helps people, and that’s what the Greens want to encourage and work with the Labor government to do,” Senator Waters said on Thursday. “They (Labor) can’t blame anyone else now because we’re saying here: We will give you the numbers in the Senate to pass good reforms that help people and help the planet.” Maybe.

By contrast, Senator Faruqi said: “To the right-wing media, the billionaires, the big corporations and the Albanese government, this is my message: We will not be taking a step back on climate action, on the environment, on housing and on Palestine. People want us to fight for them and the planet, and that is exactly what we will be doing.” In the words of French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose – the more things change, the more they stay the same.