Peter Dutton’s Coalition won’t negotiate minority rule with ‘extremist’ Greens

Peter Dutton and Adam Bandt have both ruled out any chance their parties would do a deal to form minority government, as the Greens leader outlines his priorities.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, left, and Greens leader Adam Bandt.

The Greens have formally ruled out a deal with the Coalition in the event of a hung parliament and laid out three demands for Anthony Albanese if he is forced to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with the minor party.

With the latest Newspoll showing Labor and the Coalition locked in a dead-heat battle that would produce a hung parliament, Greens leader Adam Bandt declared “we wouldn’t work with the Liberals”.

“The Australian people are wanting more third voices like the Greens in their parliament and that’s because they look at the major parties and see that they’re just not tackling the problems people are facing,” Mr Bandt said.

“What I can say is that if we were in that situation (of a hung parliament), we can’t see ourselves supporting the Liberals, and I suspect the feeling would be mutual there. But in that scenario we would be pushing the next government to make big corporations pay their fair share of tax, wind back those tax breaks for wealthy property investors, deliver some relief to renters and stressed mortgage holders.”

Peter Dutton also rejected any Coalition-Greens government, saying the Greens were once a party of the environment but had become “just a party of extremism”.

“The Coalition will never form government with the Greens. A vote for the Greens or the Green teals is a vote for an Albanese minority government,” the Opposition Leader said.

While Mr Bandt talked up the Gillard minority government, in which Labor did a deal with the Greens and three independent MPs to scrape back into office, Mr Dutton said it had been a disaster for the country.

“We do not want a repeat,” the Liberal leader said. “The Prime Minister talks a big game on the Greens, but the reality is that he’ll do a preference deal with the Greens ahead of the next election.

“And if he gets into a position after the election to form a minority government, he’ll do so with Adam Bandt. So, all his tough talk against the Greens counts for nothing.”

Mr Bandt said the Greens in the last hung parliament had managed to get dental for children into Medicare and $13bn for clean and renewable energy, as well as put a price on pollution “that saw pollution in this country start to come down”. “That delivered really good outcomes for people last time,” he said.

Before the 2022 federal election, Anthony Albanese ruled out negotiating with “fringe” parties in the event of a hung parliament, and said after the last Newspoll that he was determined to add to his 78 seats in the House of Representatives.

“We haven’t lost a Newspoll, unlike every other government during every term since Newspoll started, I think, certainly since the last few decades. So we understand that Australians are doing it tough, a lot of them with cost-of-living pressure on them,” he told 6PR radio.