Greens’ Melbourne rally antics embolden base and deter ‘mainstream Australians’, poll finds

While the Greens’ support of violent Melbourne protests may embolden its younger hard-left base, it would also deter those intending to vote for the party and keep swing voters away, new polling suggests.

Greens senator David Shoebridge at the Melbourne protests. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

While the Greens’ support of ­violent Melbourne protests may appease and embolden their new hard-left base it may also deter those intending to vote for the party at the next federal election and keep swing voters away, new polling suggests.

Last week, federal and state Greens members skipped parliament to instead attend the rally, at which protesters threw acid and rocks at officers and attacked police horses.

The scenes were slammed across the political spectrum – the Greens’ criticism instead took aim at Victoria Police – and recent polling conducted by conservative group Advance suggests the party’s protest endorse­ment may harm it at the ballot box next year.

The polling found that one in five voters who intended to vote for the Greens at the next poll would now be less likely to after the party’s endorsement of and attendance at the rallies, and about 26 per cent of those who voted for the Greens in 2022 said they were also less likely to.

But nearly 40 per cent of those intending to vote for the Greens said they’d be more likely to vote for the party after its protest support, as an internal fissure between old and new members appeared to widen.

The Australian revealed in July how longstanding Greens members felt forced out of a party they had joined for its green policies as the party courted a younger, more radical demographic whose primary concern was Palestine and foreign policy.

Of the 1000 people surveyed, which also included those intending to vote for Labor, the Coalition, independents and One Nation, more than 70 per cent said they’d be less likely to vote for a party whose members ­attended or supported Melbourne’s rally.

Protesters clash with police at the Melbourne rally on September 11. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Advance has campaigned heavily on “debunking” what it say is an outdated notion of the Greens’ priorities, and its spokeswoman Sandra Bourke said the group was “ratcheting up the pressure” on the minor party.

“Our research is showing that a good chunk of Greens support comes from Australians who think they’re just nice people who want to look after the environment,” she said.

“When the truth is revealed that this is no longer the case, their support folds.

“An elitist activism machine providing moral and political covering fire for ­violent protesters who throw rocks, acid and urine at police is not who the Greens used to be.”

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was obvious that mainstream Australians “don’t like extremist rallies or MPs who attend them”.

“That’s hardly surprising given the shocking scenes we have witnessed on our streets since October 7, including hateful chants about abolishing Israel and people wearing symbols of terrorist organisations,” Senator Paterson said.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin called the Greens the “most dangerous force in Australian politics” and said the party had long been formed of a “hard-left group of campus-grade ideologues”.

The Greens have a police ‘in and out problem’, political strategists believe. Picture: Martin Ollman

On Friday, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten called the Greens “destructive” and an “outrage factory”.

Political strategist Kos Samaras said the Greens had an “in and out problem”, citing his organisation RedBridge’s own polling and a recent “live example”, the NSW local government elections, in which the party went backwards in areas where it made foreign policy a focus.

The former Labor strategist said the Greens were successfully courting a younger demographic but at the expense of older millennial and Gen X voters, who were jumping ship due to the party’s radical lurch, saying its support was “flattening”: spreading geographically but becoming more “shallow” in certain electorates.

At the protest, Greens senator David Shoebridge said that while there was “no place for ­violence” in public gatherings the party condemned Victoria Police’s “extreme violence”.