These duplicitous modern Greens are wolves in sheep’s clothing

Leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt, at the 'School Strike 4 Climate' at Sydney Town Hall in 2022. Picture: Getty Images

Australians need to be very careful: the Greens are not what their name implies.

Many of us might shrug our shoulders and think little about it, but names and slogans are important. They greatly influence us. Often subliminally. And particularly when they relate to a political organisation.

As Shakespeare’s Juliet remarked: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Political parties are, however, not sweet. In Germany in the 1920s a relatively young Adolf Hitler had political ambitions. A smart politician and astute reader of the German sentiment, he was an impressive speaker who said he had solutions to the massive problems (mostly economic) facing ordinary people in the wake of the punishing Treaty of Versailles that disarmed Germany and forced painful financial reparations on it following the First World War.

Former Greens Leader Bob Brown.

He joined and quickly took over a party whose name was the antithesis to his personal beliefs: the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany. We know it as the Nazi party.

The term “socialist” in the party’s name was intended and did appeal to working-class and economically disadvantaged voters. Hitler used socialist rhetoric and promised to address the economic struggles of the people, leading some to see the party as a form of radical left-wing movement. Indeed, many saw it as possibly communist. It was nothing of the sort – a mere platform to allow Hitler to take control of the government and implement his personal agenda. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The Nazi Party was not socialist in terms of ideology or policies. The party advocated for extreme nationalism, anti-Semitism and a totalitarian state, all fundamentally at odds with the then traditional socialist beliefs of equality and workers’ rights. Ultimately, the Nazi Party’s use of the term “socialist” was a clever but deceptive ploy to attract support for the nascent fascist Nazi party. A pretend socialist workers’ party. And it worked. People believed in it and its values, as they saw them, turning a blind eye to the gradual de-democratisation and eventual dictatorship in Germany and the hatred towards, and attempted elimination of, all Jews.

Australia’s Greens look increasingly like the National Socialist Workers’ Party. The party has a name that attracts young, mobile and relatively wealthy urban Australians. These people want to fix the world and believe the only way to do so is through such things as environmental change and carbon reduction. There are good intentions, but the Greens party of Bob Brown is not the Greens party of Adam Bandt.

In my opinion there appears to be alarming similarities between Adam Bandt’s Greens and Hitler’s National Socialist Workers’ Party of the 1920s and 1930s. Both leaders are ideologues and demagogues. They are anti-Semitic in their rhetoric and this encourages in many a belief that the Jews are the cause of things wrong with society.

Bandt encourages the chant “from the river to the sea”. What does that mean other than the annihilation of the Jewish state and its people? But not just that, he seems through his rhetoric to want more. He encourages and attends pro-Palestinian demonstrations that are anti-Semitic and aimed at intimidating Australia’s Jews as they at least try to go about their ordinary lives whether as university students, workers or business people. Bandt supports gatherings that seem to me frighteningly similar to those pre-Nuremberg rallies in Munich in the 1920s. His rhetoric and actions appear to encourage the anti-Semitic demonstrations at parliament and on our city streets. This was Hitler at his most effective, and Bandt seems to have borrowed his playbook.

Bandt’s rant a few days ago has all the hallmarks of a Nazi rally. He accuses the major parties of “slandering this movement”. He calls on the Israeli ambassador to be expelled. He calls on sanctions against Israeli. He says “enough of the hand-wringing tweets, enough of the words that always come with conditions attached … they are being ignored by an extreme war cabinet that is hellbent on continuing this invasion”. And, like 1930s Munich, police had to move in to quell the violent protesters and use pepper spray (in Munich it was batons).

Bandt doesn’t mention how the Gaza war started, and appears to have no empathy for the abducted Israelis and the rape and killing of women and children. Bandt is a frightening demagogue; he distorts the truth, which suits a political agenda.

Bandt’s support of activists locking politicians out of their electoral offices bears the hallmarks of a potential dictator slowly cutting away at democracy.

Like Hitler, Bandt uses propaganda, discontent and fearmongering to gain support. He finds support among anti-Semites and uses climate action and anti-capitalist rhetoric to feed his supporters. Bandt would massively raise taxes and drive business from Australia. His rhetoric on tax and anti-business plays to his supporter base, much as Hitler did. And, like Hitler, he gets support from some individuals and businesses.

I do not criticise those who truly support the original Greens’ stand: protection of the environment and action to mitigate climate change.

But the Greens are now a party controlled by a rabblerouser who could destroy our way of life.

Francis Galbally is a former lawyer and now a Melbourne based businessman and investment banker.