Advance Australia anti-Greens campaign a ‘Liberal, fossil-fuels plot to secure minority government’, says Christine Milne

Christine Milne says conservative activist group Advance Australia is a front for fossil fuel interests and wants to suppress the Greens vote to give Peter Dutton a shot at minority government.

Former federal Greens leader Christine Milne. Picture: Sam Rosewarne

Christine Milne says conservative activist group Advance Australia is a front for fossil fuel interests and wants to suppress the Greens vote to give Peter Dutton a shot at minority government with the teals.

The former Greens leader told The Australian that Advance, waging a “Greens Truth” election blitz targeting what it calls “extreme” Greens policies, represented “the right wing and fossil fuel sector”.

“The right wing has now decided to try to diminish the Green vote by attacking the Greens in order to reduce the numbers in the event of minority government,” Ms Milne said.

“People are disaffected with Labor and Liberal and there’s a high probability that there will be a minority government after the next election. (Advance) is going to try to make sure that the Liberal Party has an equal opportunity to form a minority government.

“Teals (green-tinged, Liberal-leaning independent MPs) are small l Libs for the most part.

“The Liberal strategy is to satisfy their donors that they will support ongoing coal and gas, and won’t strengthen the climate target, and to try to form minority government.”

The longstanding climate action campaigner and former politician said the Advance push to nobble the Greens at the coming federal election was an “exact re-run” of a 2006 Tasmanian election campaign by then-lobby group Tasmanians for a Better Future. “The major parties were on the nose and it looked like it would be a minority government (in Tasmania) and so suddenly out of nowhere came a group of businesspeople … to run a vicious campaign against the Greens,” Ms Milne said.

“Instead of debating the environment … they pooled their money and produced advertisements that attacked the Greens on drugs, on sexuality.

“This is exactly what Advance Australia is now doing … They are going to try to minimise the number of Greens to maximise the Liberals’ chances (of forming minority government).”

An Advance spokesman dismissed Ms Milne’s analysis and claims of ties with the fossil fuel industry. “The Greens Truth campaign will be entirely funded by supporters,” a spokesman said.

“Christine Milne’s claims about ‘fossil fuel interests’ are just lies. She can rest assured that Advance will be letting every Australian know what the Greens now stand for. De-funding non-government schools, inheritance taxes, decriminalisation of hard drugs, and increasing immigration … this is the truth about the Greens agenda.”

Despite its low carbon credentials, Ms Milne said nuclear power was “too slow, too expensive and too dangerous” to be a solution to climate change.

She said she believed the best election outcome for the climate was a minority Labor government supported by the Greens, who could use the situation to force Anthony Albanese to strengthen Australia’s climate ambitions.

Almost 10 years after she quit the Greens leadership and politics, Ms Milne said the 2010 Gillard-Greens power sharing deal demonstrated her point. “We got a carbon price in Australia … we got Arena, we got the Climate Change Authority, because the Greens were in balance of power.”