In a pre-election challenge to Anthony Albanese, the Greens’ leader said the minor party would adopt stronger policies to fight inequality, strengthen the social safety net and sharpen Australia’s foreign policy independence.

He dismissed the objective of forming an alliance with Labor or installing Greens MPs in cabinet portfolios, making clear the goal was instead to win more seats in parliament and replace the ALP as “the country’s only social democratic alternative”.

Mr Bandt also took aim at the nation’s “two-party system”, arguing the rise of minority governments would better serve Australian democracy by allowing third parties such as the Greens greater influence over legislated policy outcomes.

In an interview with The Australian as part of a special series investigating the Greens’ policy platform, Mr Bandt said the party would release a “list of priorities we will push forward in a minority parliament”.

“In broad terms – make big corporations pay more tax, fund universal services so that everyone can have a better life (and) stop opening coal and gas mines.”

He criticised the Prime Minister for agreeing to outsource “our sovereignty and our ability to make independent decisions” to America, and argued Australia should be “revising our relationship with the United States” in the event of a second Trump presidency. Mr Bandt said the war in the Middle East had become as “significant as the movement against the Iraq War or the Vietnam War” and warned that following the defection of ex-Labor senator Fatima Payman, too many Labor MPs were acting like “lions in their electorate and then mice in Canberra”.

Attacking Labor as a “centre-right party”, Mr Bandt argued the Greens were not just concerned with the environment but were now appealing to a “whole class of people” who had been locked out of the benefits of Australia’s economy. Housing was identified as the new front in the political battle against Labor, as Mr Bandt warned Australia was at risk of “becoming a society where everyone does all the right things that are asked of them, and you still can’t make ends meet or get ahead”.

Green Extremes

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The Greens have accused Labor of abandoning the truth and treaty process after the referendum defeat, but argue a Makarrata commission could help resolve the Australia Day debate.

Your home will be worth less with us: Greens

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather says a plan to address the housing crisis could involve overseeing real declines in the value of the family home.

Jewish community in fear after Greens Mayor’s anti-Israel rant

One of Sydney’s biggest councils will ramp-up security at its next meeting after its Greens mayor accused Israel and its supporters of ‘murdering babies’ in an ‘inflammatory’ speech.

Bandt plan to usurp ALP on left

Adam Bandt says the Greens have replaced Labor as the authentic party of the centre-left and will win over voters by taking a ‘Robin Hood platform to the election’.

Greens’ war on our closest ally

The Greens have attacked the US alliance, claiming it increases the risk of conflict, undermines Australian sovereignty and compromises stable relations with Beijing.

Ambitious Greens must be more than a party of protest

Adam Bandt has clarified the existential challenge to Labor by revealing the Greens’ long-term political objective – to become the genuine party of Australia’s political left.

Extreme Greens call to kneecap the RBA

The Greens have demanded Labor intervene in monetary policy and overturn an August rate hike, triggering warnings the minor party would end of the era of Reserve Bank independence.

Forget Hamas, glass-jaw Green declares war on satire: ‘Cartoon will cost me votes’

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has threatened to sue The Australian for defamation and demanded an apology over a Johannes Leak cartoon.

Greens’ plan would hurt those the party is seeking to help

Nick McKim’s call for Labor to overturn a future RBA rate hike reveals the Greens as a party of grandstanders, keen to win over disaffected voters on radical policies that can never be implemented.

“A third of the country now rents. Neither Labor nor Liberal took any policy to the last election that would back renters,” he said.

Mr Bandt revealed it was a “priority for me as a leader” to ensure more Australians voted for the Greens because of the party’s economic platform, arguing he was passionate about tackling economic inequality and the housing crisis. “That’s our goal,” he said. “A big part of the success in recent elections has been us making clear to people that we have a strong economic offering.”

Mr Bandt revealed the minor party would “take a Robin Hood platform to the election”.

“We’ll tax the big corporations that are price gouging and making people’s lives a misery,” he said. “We will make big corporations pay tax so that everyday people can have a better life. There’ll be a focus on universal services for people, like getting dental into Medicare, like making childcare free – funded by making these tax-dodging, price-gouging big corporations pay their fair share of tax.”

Liberal and Labor were dismissed as the “old parties”, with Mr Bandt arguing that Australians saw little difference between their policy platforms and were increasingly fed up with “a status quo that isn’t working for them”.

“Labor is going to have to respect what people are choosing. They’re going have to respect what people want,” he said. “Increasingly, people don’t want to be represented by the old parties.

“Labor’s vote went backwards at the election. You now have a situation in Australia where less than a third of the country votes for the government. A bit more than a third votes for the opposition and about a third votes for someone else.”

Mr Bandt is targeting a range of lower house seats across the country including Labor-held Wills, Macnamara, Cooper and Higgins in Melbourne; Morton and Lilley in Brisbane; Richmond in NSW and Perth in Western Australia. The Liberals will face attack in Sturt in South Australia and Bonner in Queensland.

He is seeking to win younger voters to the Greens and accuses the major parties of abandoning the next generation, arguing there was now “a whole class of people across society … locked out of housing, locked out of decent jobs (and) put into huge debt with no chance of being able to pay it off”.

“For many people in this country, the system is broken,” he said.

Mr Bandt said the Greens had submitted more than 100 policies for costing to the independent Parliamentary Budget Office and said it was telling that conservative activist groups such as Advance were “turning their fire on the Greens … rather than Labor”.

“They see the Greens as the real alternative,” he said.

The Greens’ strategy to win more lower house seats will hinge increasing their primary vote. Mr Bandt said it was possible Labor might not preference Greens candidates in some electorates amid pressure from the Liberals to put the minor party last.

“We have to win in our own right,” he said. “We have to expect that Labor and Liberal will work together on preferences.”

An opponent of the trilateral AUKUS pact for nuclear submarines, Mr Bandt said the Greens “want to see Australia have an independent foreign policy”.

“With a potential president Trump looming, it is a mistake to shackle Australia to an erratic potential future president and to outsource our defence and military policy to him,” he said.

Mr Bandt also rejected suggestions the Greens’ position on the Israel-Gaza conflict had fuelled social division, arguing they backed peace. He said Labor MPs were not reflecting the views of their communities in community.

“People … want to see MPs vote in accordance with the community’s values. And I think people are increasingly sick of members of parliament who are lions in their electorate and then mice in Canberra,” he said.