Greens’ power move could be biggest laugh of the campaign

You can bet Mamma’s last drop of gin that for all their moral posturing no teal would touch negative gearing or capital gains tax with a barge pole, writes Joe Hildebrand.

It’s the ultimate answer to a question nobody asked: The Greens announcing their demands from Labor in minority government.

Yes, in the least surprising development of the election campaign thus far, Greens leader Adam Bandt today rematerialised into the public consciousness to demand the abolition of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions.

This is something he said he would extract from the ALP as a condition of Greens support in the lower house.

There was just one small glitch in this otherwise ingenious strategy, which is that the way things are tracking Labor won’t need the Greens’ support in the lower house, with increasing confidence that Anthony Albanese can once more win majority government or at least a minority slim enough that he can govern with independents who are any other colour.

And you can bet Mamma’s last drop of gin that for all their moral posturing no teal would touch negative gearing or capital gains tax with a barge pole. Their supporters are all too — how can we put this delicately? — rich.

And even if Labor did have to do a deal with the Greens it still wouldn’t have to do a deal with the Greens, which is why it will never do a deal with the Greens.

Because unlike other independents the Greens have nowhere else to go.

The humourless little hippies can hardly form government with the Coalition and even when they join forces with them to block Labor policy — as they did with the government’s housing package — it completely trashes their commie cred.

In fact ALP sources tell me that the Greens blocking the housing rescue scheme for so long is the one thing that’s hurting them most in Brisbane, where Labor and the LNP are trying to win back the three seats they gained in 2022.

And of course that’s up to three fewer seats the Greens will have to negotiate with if they are successful.

Meanwhile the government has just extended its lead over the opposition to 52-48 according to both the two most respectable published polls — Redbridge and Newspoll — and Albanese decisively beat Peter Dutton in the first leaders debate 44 to 35, with 21 voters undecided.

In short, the Greens are currently in the weakest negotiating position they have been in for years and it is now that they choose to make their power move?

Curious.

Because the other thing about negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms is that it was this policy more than any other that single-handedly cost Bill Shorten the 2019 election.

So the Greens bringing it up now could be designed to scare voters off Labor and put it in a weaker position, from which they and the Coalition would be the beneficiaries.

Or the dopey little Trots might just be reciting it by rote.

Either way, they are best to be simply ignored and that is precisely what Labor will do.

Originally published as Greens’ power move could be biggest laugh of the campaign