‘Focus on climate to be effective’ Christine Milne tells post-Bandt Greens

Former Greens leader Christine Milne is urging the party to rebound from its ‘disappointing’ seats loss to focus on climate issues if it wants to be effective in this parliament.

Former leaders of the federal Greens Bob Brown and Christine Milne. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

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Former Greens leader Christine Milne has warned the party needs to focus on core green issues – climate change, logging and land-clearing – if it is to be effective in the new parliament.

Ms Milne, a pioneering Greens politician who led the party federally from 2012 to 2015, said the loss of Adam Bandt was “devastating” and party’s lower house wipe-out “disappointing”.

However, she said the party retained a high Senate vote, and that Greens senators should use their balance of power “to secure significant climate and environment policy this term”.

“But to get it, they will have to focus on the planetary crisis playing out right around the country: the logging, the landclearing, the new fossil fuel projects,” she said.

As well, the party should focus on “the failure of the Labor Party to address … in any meaningful way or to deliver the comprehensive new environment laws that were promised”.

Some may interpret her comments as seeking to return the party to his environmental roots, after an election marked in part by Mr Bandt’s focus on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

However, Ms Milne said she backed the party’s stance and did not believe it was anti-Semitic.

“The Greens have always stood up for human rights and international law from the Tampa, to the Iraq war and Gaza,” she said.

“We have never and will never tolerate genocide or anti-Semitism. It is appalling to me that so many are turning a blind eye. I am proud The Greens have taken the stand they have.”

Ms Milne, who was part of the first landmark Labor-Greens alliance in the Tasmanian parliament in 1989, also called for a broader rethink within the green movement.

“The climate and environment movement will also need to rethink and take on the Labor Government, instead of turning a deliberate blind eye to new coal and gas projects and always calling on the Greens to ‘just pass it’,” she said.

She accused Anthony Albanese of Trump-like arrogance. “Prime Minister ‘get out of the way’ Albanese is demonstrating extraordinary arrogance for someone whose party secured 34 per cent of the primary vote,” she said.

“The Australian people rejected Trumpism. They did not vote for authoritarianism or steady as she goes.”

She said 34 per cent of Australians did not choose either ALP or LNP. “The so called Labor ‘landslide’ is a redistribution of votes within the 66 per cent,” she said.

“The Greens secured 11.7 per cent of the primary vote and won zero seats whereas Labor secured 34.7 per cent of the vote and won 89 seats.

“I would love to see a concerted effort towards proportional representation in the House of Representatives as well as truth in advertising laws.”

Recognised globally as a climate change campaigner, Ms Milne accused the Liberals and “fossil fuel billionaires” of a “heavily funded barrage of lies about the Greens and independents”.

“Of course it is disappointing to lose seats in any election – I am devastated to see Adam lose and also the loss of other passionate Green MPs in Queensland and not to see Samantha Ratnam win Wills,” she said.

“But they are part of a progressive movement which is unstoppable and only getting stronger. I am more optimistic about the Greens than ever.

“I want to thank Adam Bandt for his leadership of the Australian Greens and his dedicated staff for their super human efforts for the movement.”

She said Mr Bandt was the first Green elected in a lower house seat at a general election and his balance of power role in the minority Gillard government helped the Greens negotiate key climate reforms, including the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

“He has built a people-powered movement with a heartland in Melbourne and it is not going anywhere except to grow even stronger,” she said.