With Labor and the Coalition locked-in a pugilistic, winner-takes-all generational battle for power, the Greens have been allowed to skate from the back waiting to pounce like Steven Bradbury.
Australians disillusioned with the major parties have been parking their votes with the Greens at successive elections, believing the left-wing party stands exclusively for the environment and climate action.
While many protest voters don’t delve deeper into the economy-wrecking and socially extreme policies of the Greens, the party built on protecting old growth forests and founded by Bob Brown and Drew Hutton is long gone.
The core principles of the traditional Greens have been replaced with cheap, vote-grabbing, populist policies aimed at picking off young Australians from Labor and inner-city swing voters grumpy with the major parties.
Adam Bandt has made no secret of his empire-building focus aimed at winning more seats from Labor and the Liberals, under a grand plan to replicate the Labor-Greens coalition government in the ACT.
With the major parties focused on each other and the three-year fight to control the ministerial wing’s blue carpets, the Greens have managed to escape scrutiny, despite holding the balance of power in the Senate.
The Greens have become a party of protest, threatening to blow-up government legislation unless their demands are met.
With 15 senators and MPs, the Greens aren’t far off eclipsing the Nationals.
The growth in parliamentary members warrants a closer inspection of the Greens’ electoral march across the country.
Advance, the conservative activist group set up to combat left-wing organisation GetUp and the unions, is promising to dig deep into the Greens and warn voters about how the party is run, its radical policies and growing political influence.
The cashed-up, grassroots organisation has emerged as a major player in Australian political campaigning following its role in undermining Anthony Albanese’s Indigenous voice referendum last year.
Through the voice campaign, Advance has established a third party conservative machine long coveted by Liberal and Nationals strategists.
Advance now boasts 306,000 supporters, 32,000 donors and a campaign team with experience across data analytics, fundraising, communications, political strategy, software, digital platforms and creative.
While the Coalition fell short in the Dunkley by-election on March 2, Advance poured resources into the electorate railing against left-wing policies. Labor’s Jodie Belyea recorded a 3.6 per cent swing against her on two-party-preferred vote and the Greens dropped by 4 per cent.
The Greens Truth campaign launched by Advance is fuelled by several factors, including preference flows that delivered Anthony Albanese government, despite Labor winning only 32.6 per cent of the 2022 election primary vote. The major parties also copped their worst combined result in a century, with almost 32 per cent of people voting for a minor party or not voting.
While some will question whether Advance should throw its resources at the Greens, the left-wing party should not be allowed to continue its political rise without having a blowtorch applied.
Imagine if the federal Greens entered into a formal power-sharing arrangement with Labor and held serious ministerial portfolios, as the party does in the ACT. Bandt would be the climate change and energy minister, Mehreen Faruqi the education minister, Jordon Steele-John the health and foreign affairs minister.
The Advance campaign, which under phase one is backed by $5m, will ironically be backed by some Labor MPs under threat from the Greens.
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