May 6, 2025 • 16 mins
This election was always going to be the test for the Greens.
For the first time, there were more young people voting than baby boomers, and the previous election had shown there was strong support for the party from younger voters.
And, the thinking had for so long been that any election after a Labor government’s first time, would be the party’s moment.
So what happened to the Greens this election?
Today, national affairs editor James Massola argues the Greens’ dream of more seats turned, instead, into a nightmare.
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Cylinder Morris. It's Wednesday,
May 7th. This election was always going to be the
test for the Greens, because the thinking had long been
that any election after a Labour government's first term would
(00:24):
be their moment. This would be when disgruntled labor voters,
disappointed that Anthony Albanese hadn't gone far enough on social issues,
would turn in disgust to the Greens. They would be
absolutely harvesting votes today. National affairs editor James Massola on
why the Greens dream of more seats turned instead into
(00:47):
a profound loss. So, James, just to start off, what
was the position that the Greens held prior to the
election and what was the party actually hoping to achieve?
You know, as the votes were being tallied.
S2 (01:03):
Sure, Sam, and thanks for having me on. Look, before
the election was called, the Greens had 11 seats in
the Senate and four seats in the lower house. They
had started the last term with 12. But of course,
Lidia Thorpe defected to the crossbench.
S1 (01:18):
Okay. And so, I mean, is it safe to say
that their expectations were a bit sky high, like they
were seeking to regain four existing seats and add five more?
S2 (01:27):
Yeah. Look. That's right. Um, like every political party, the
Greens went into this election with high hopes and talking
up big plans and bigger ambitions if you like to
win more seats. So they. The party had been hoping
to win Wills in Victoria, just sort of bordering Melbourne.
So inner city Melbourne they had hoped to win Richmond.
(01:48):
A woman named Mandy Nolan was running for a second
time there. She had a good, they believed, a very
good chance of winning. Uh, Fremantle in WA was another
target seat for them, and there was a couple of
others that, in my view, were perhaps a bit more optimistic.
But yeah, they had five target seats for this election.
That's right Sam.
S1 (02:04):
Okay, so let's talk through the results then. Because before
recording you described it as, you know, mixed. They had
some big swings towards them, but they've also lost key seats.
And at the time that we're recording this on Tuesday morning,
the party's leader Adam Bandt, is perilously close to losing
his own seat in Melbourne. So what's happened.
S2 (02:22):
Like much of this election, Sam, it's a stunning story
and one that I think will be, uh, kind of
looking over the entrails of or reading the tea leaves
or whatever metaphor you want to use for some time
to come. So look, first of all the numbers, it
looks like the greens will win six seats in the
Senate again. So they're not going backwards in the Senate. Um,
(02:42):
but in the lower house it's a different story. And
for the Greens, it's not a great story. As you mentioned,
Adam Bandt is trailing in the seat of Melbourne at
the moment. It's something like a 5% lead that his
labor opponent enjoys at the moment, with about 65, 66%
of the vote counted that, you know, that's not an
insurmountable lead by any means, but it's going to be tough. Um,
(03:04):
I'd say the potential or rather a potential future leader
of the Greens, Max Chandler-mather, you know, very outspoken in
the previous term, very high profile for a first term MP.
He's lost in the seat of Griffith. That was Kevin
Rudd's seat once. Labor has got it back. Similarly, in Brisbane,
Stephen Bates, a much lower profile MP. He's lost his seat. Um,
(03:26):
Samantha Ratnam, who's the former state Greens leader in Victoria.
She was attempting to win Wills and she's not going
to get there. We believe at this point in time.
Similarly with Mandy Nolan in Richmond. So what we are
looking at is a scenario where the Greens most likely
have gone, will go down from four seats in the
lower house to one. Um, the only person who looks
(03:47):
like they're on track to hang onto their seat is, um,
Elizabeth Watson-brown in the seat of Ryan in inner city Brisbane.
S1 (03:54):
Okay, so let's talk about what's happened here because Greens
leader Adam Bandt, you know, he's blamed the mixed results
on Liberal Labor preference deals, which he says were designed
to lock the Greens out. So is he right? Is
this what's happened?
S2 (04:06):
Look, these preference deals have played a part in locking
out the greens and some of these seats. But I mean,
that's my view, Sam. That's part of politics. Adam Bandt
was elected to parliament in 2010 off the back of
Liberal Party preferences. They put him ahead of the then
labor candidate, Cathy O'Toole. I believe her name was. And
you know, she missed out. He got up. So yes,
(04:27):
he can be cranky about it, but it's the ebb
and flow of politics. It's part of the rough and
tumble of politics. Um, another thing I think, you know, personally,
I find quite interesting in that, you know, band has
been quick to point out, is that the Greens have
actually increased their overall vote at this election. You know,
across the country, if you tally it all up, the
problem has been simply Sam. They haven't increased it in
(04:48):
the places it needed to increase. It wasn't concentrated in
the correct seats. It was more of a small surge
or small rise across the country.
S1 (04:57):
Okay. So tell us so where where did they need
to put their focus that they just didn't, you know,
where is the massive mistake here I guess.
S2 (05:05):
Yeah. Look I'm not it's that's a difficult question to answer, Sam,
because I don't know that you could sort of immediately say, well, they,
you know, didn't realize that they needed to win Melbourne or,
you know, they weren't trying in Griffith or anything like that.
I mean, they, they were trying they were campaigning hard.
Max Chandler-mather in particular is a great on the ground campaigner,
as we saw in 2022. So I don't think there
(05:27):
was a strategic failure in the sense that they weren't
doing the work. The work was being done. They were
working hard in their target seats like Wills and Richmond
to there were resources put in on the ground in
those target seats and in the seats that they wanted
to hold on to. What has happened simply is, I guess,
a microcosm or a replication of what's happened around the country,
(05:49):
which is simply that Labor's vote surged, the coalition vote sank. Um,
and and the Greens have kind of been I think
you'd have to say roadkill.
S1 (05:58):
Right. Okay. Well, let's get into the issues here because, well,
for one thing, I'm really fascinated about what happened to
the youth vote here because we know for the first time,
Gen Z millennials, they outnumbered baby boomers in the federal election.
So you would have thought that this might lead to
the Greens doing particularly well this time around. So what happened?
S2 (06:17):
Yeah, again, one of the most fascinating aspects of this result.
And again, they're just there are so many at this election, um,
the Greens identified before the last election, renters as a
growing cohort of mostly younger people that they could target,
that they could harvest the votes of that they could,
you know, they hoped, turn into the next generation of
(06:39):
Greens voters. And that worked in 2022. And we saw
through the 22 to 25 Parliament, the 47th Parliament, that
they maintained that focus on housing and on renters quite successfully. Um,
you know, much to the annoyance of the Prime Minister,
as we saw in some of those exchanges between him
and Chandler-mather in Parliament when the Greens initially blocked the
(06:59):
Housing Australia Future Fund. So what's happened now? I mean,
I'd like to see the data of something like the
Australian National University's election survey. I'd like to see some
of that data to absolutely know for sure that it's correct.
But what I suspect is, is that Labor's policies on
housing were, well, they cut through. They were seen to
be effective. They were seen. I mean, there was a
(07:20):
suite of policies that the government was offering. Right. Um
Housing Australia Future Fund, the government going essentially sort of
guarantor so that you could buy as a first home buyer,
a house with a deposit of just 5%. And the
government would help you with the rest so you could
avoid mortgage insurance. There was a number of other policies too, obviously,
and I think I think it cut through. I think
(07:41):
labor actually, it's just as simple as they ran a
good campaign, they had a good policy offering. Um, housing,
as we know, is one of the most hot button
issues in the country. And it worked.
S1 (07:54):
And do you think that maybe the reason the Greens
haven't succeeded here is because they wanted the perfect solution
for housing, and perhaps they were just not seen as
a very serious policy platform, you know, because they would
accept nothing less than perfection, perhaps.
S2 (08:08):
Yeah, exactly. It was a case of the greens making
the perfect the enemy of the good in some ways.
And there'll be Greens supporters listening to this who will
resent me saying this. But in some ways it's analogous
to their decision to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
towards the end of 2009, when they voted with the
Liberal Party, they defeated Kevin Rudd's CPRS, and that then
(08:31):
kicked off the whole sequence of events that led to
the change to Julia Gillard, the very poor 2010 election
for labor, a whole series of of, you know, issues, problems,
whatever you want to call them flowed from that. And
I think that's happened here too. You know, personally, Anthony
Albanese and I do mean personally was determined to defeat
Max Chandler-mather. He, as we all know, grew up in
(08:54):
public housing. He was, you know, personally offended that the
Greens decided to delay legislation that would have facilitated the
building of more public housing. You know, the sort of
housing he grew up in. So he made it his
mission to to sort of not compromise with the Greens
to get that legislation through which they eventually did, and
to go after the people led by Max, who'd blocked
(09:15):
him from implementing his agenda. And it worked, right?
S1 (09:18):
It did. And let's get on to, I guess, you know,
another signature policy or platform, I guess for the Greens,
of course, was their hardline stance on Gaza. They went
hard backing Palestinians and the war with Israel. Did this
hurt the party in this election?
S2 (09:32):
I think this definitely hurt the party. And I think
that the optics of their close alignment with the construction, forestry,
Mining and Energy Union when there were allegations, serious allegations
being made in these, you know, published in the Sydney
Morning Herald and The Age about the conduct of some
union officials that led to the union being placed in administration.
I think their decision to stand so closely with the
(09:53):
CFMEU probably put a few voters off as well. You know,
in in seats like Griffith where they may have gone,
or Ryan or Brisbane straight from the Liberal Party to,
you know, people might have gone straight from the Liberal
Party to voting for the Greens. And then, you know,
through the course of that three years, I think some
people saw that and said, you know what, I don't
that doesn't represent my views at all on Gaza or
(10:14):
on the CFMEU, and they've been punished for that.
S1 (10:18):
And perhaps no surprise there. It was Max Chandler-mather who
very prominently stood up, I believe, at a CFMEU rally.
And I think a lot of people were quite shocked.
Is that right?
S2 (10:28):
Yeah. I mean, labor couldn't believe their luck that that
had happened and that that moment, that rally, that appearance
by Max Chandler-mather, um, they made use of that to
remind or rather to paint, uh, that particular MP, former MP,
as extreme and as sort of out of touch with the, uh,
the views of the people of Griffith.
S1 (10:49):
Okay, so what now? I've got to ask for the
party's leadership, you know, is, is the party still going
to support Adam Bandt in this new Parliament because I,
I noted when you spoke on the pod, I think
it was November last year. At that time, Adam Bandt
was polling, I think, in a Resolve political Monitor poll.
He was judged as the third least popular politician in Australia.
(11:11):
I think he was trailing only behind Lidia Thorpe at
number one and then Pauline Hanson, and then he was
equal third least liked politician along with Bob Katter. So
is the Greens going to stick with that band?
S2 (11:22):
I think that's very much an open question, Sam. Um,
the Greens party room process is how they pick leaders,
how all that goes down. It's not particularly opaque. I
remember a few months after the 2010 federal election, Bob Brown,
who was then still the leader of the party, was
holding a press conference about something or other, and he
just casually let slip that, uh, the then quite young
(11:45):
senator Sarah Hanson-Young, had challenged Christine Milne for the deputy's
job and lost. No one had any idea for four months.
And we all our jaws all hit the floor What? Sorry. Um, look,
Adam Bandt is seen generally as, uh, having been a
pretty good Greens leader. He, uh, improved their seat count
in 2022 in the lower house. It's gone backwards this
(12:08):
time round, but the national vote has grown. Bandt, if
he wants, it, will be arguing that the overall Greens,
you know, number of votes collected harvested has increased. There's
been stability for the last 4 or 5 years. Uh
and that they should stick with him. Right. Um, but
there will be and I mean, I know there are
other ambitious people in that party room, and I am
(12:28):
sure that they are making phone calls at the moment. Um, and, uh,
you know, testing the waters, uh, sizing up whether to
challenge Adam Bandt when the greens, you know, the ones
who have been elected return to their party room in Canberra.
It's a wait and see at this stage.
S1 (12:44):
Okay, so give us the names though, James. Which which
names should we be looking out for? Who? Who might
just be challenging for the leadership in the future?
S2 (12:51):
Sure. Look, we're not suggesting that these not suggesting that I'm,
that I know for sure that these people you know
are going to contest. But there are talented MPs in
that party room who could run. Um, Larissa Waters, the
deputy leader, um, from Queensland, Sarah Hanson-Young, who I mentioned
a moment ago, who's still, I think, you know, young
but has been in Parliament now for 18 or 19
(13:12):
years and has a stack of experience. Um, Mehreen Faruqi,
the the sort of overall deputy rather than the Senate leader,
which is waters she could challenge for the position and
even someone from left field like a David Shoebridge. Um,
maybe he'll put his hand up. I'm not saying that
I know that any of those people will, but they're
all in my mind. People with the potential to lead
(13:32):
the party.
S1 (13:33):
Okay, now just to wrap up, James, I've got to
ask what role the Greens will be able to play
going forward because despite losing seats, the party says it
has a record vote in the Senate. So what's going
to go on there? Will the Greens help or hinder labor?
S2 (13:47):
Uh, that's I mean, that for me is perhaps the
most interesting question because and I say that because of this, Sam,
all through the last parliament, Albanese, you know, who spent decades,
you know, fighting the Greens off in his own seat
of Grayndler, spoke about how he didn't want to do deals.
He wasn't going to kowtow. You know, he didn't compromise
on the housing legislation. And eventually he got through exactly
(14:08):
what he wanted to get through with a couple of
minor tweaks. I think we're going to see more of
the same. And we know that Adam Bandt has been
out in recent days saying now the Greens have sole
balance of power. Labor must put dental into Medicare and
they must revise the Aukus plan, and they must do
this and they must do that. There's no musts that
Anthony Albanese is going to acquiesce to there. And what
(14:29):
I think Bandt is at risk of doing already is
sort of overplaying his hand, because he's forgetting that there
is actually another party that has the balance of power
in the Senate, and that's the coalition. Labor can team
up with the coalition and pass legislation at any time
all through the 1980s. Once, once, uh, John Howard took
over from Andrew Peacock, Howard actually supported some of Labor's
(14:52):
biggest reforms in, you know, in a policy sense. And
while it arguably extended the coalition's period of time in opposition,
it also allowed the coalition to rebuild its credibility as
a serious party that was working towards being ready to
govern again now. Such was the result on Saturday night.
(15:14):
It will be tough for the liberals to win in 2028.
They might even have to be thinking about 2031. So
that means there's an opportunity for the next leader of
the liberals to really think about, well, what do we
want to do with the next 3 to 6 years?
Where do we want to position ourselves on policy, and
do we want to remake ourselves as a slightly less
hardline oppositionist to everything party? And if they do that,
(15:36):
then the Greens will be irrelevant. And certainly Anthony Albanese
will be looking to do deals with the liberals, at
least on some legislation, say on national security type legislation,
because he doesn't trust them, you know, their instincts on
these sorts of matters. So Bant is already talking a
big game, but I think he needs to be a
bit more circumspect at this early stage.
S1 (15:58):
Sam, this is so fascinating. I hope we get to
speak about this sometime soon. James.
S2 (16:03):
Thanks, Sam. Pleasure.
S1 (16:07):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Josh towers.
Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is our
head of audio. To listen to our episodes as soon
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(16:29):
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Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris.
Thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Cylinder Morris. It's Wednesday,
May 7th. This election was always going to be the
test for the Greens, because the thinking had long been
that any election after a Labour government's first term would
(00:24):
be their moment. This would be when disgruntled labor voters,
disappointed that Anthony Albanese hadn't gone far enough on social issues,
would turn in disgust to the Greens. They would be
absolutely harvesting votes today. National affairs editor James Massola on
why the Greens dream of more seats turned instead into
(00:47):
a profound loss. So, James, just to start off, what
was the position that the Greens held prior to the
election and what was the party actually hoping to achieve?
You know, as the votes were being tallied.
S2 (01:03):
Sure, Sam, and thanks for having me on. Look, before
the election was called, the Greens had 11 seats in
the Senate and four seats in the lower house. They
had started the last term with 12. But of course,
Lidia Thorpe defected to the crossbench.
S1 (01:18):
Okay. And so, I mean, is it safe to say
that their expectations were a bit sky high, like they
were seeking to regain four existing seats and add five more?
S2 (01:27):
Yeah. Look. That's right. Um, like every political party, the
Greens went into this election with high hopes and talking
up big plans and bigger ambitions if you like to
win more seats. So they. The party had been hoping
to win Wills in Victoria, just sort of bordering Melbourne.
So inner city Melbourne they had hoped to win Richmond.
(01:48):
A woman named Mandy Nolan was running for a second
time there. She had a good, they believed, a very
good chance of winning. Uh, Fremantle in WA was another
target seat for them, and there was a couple of
others that, in my view, were perhaps a bit more optimistic.
But yeah, they had five target seats for this election.
That's right Sam.
S1 (02:04):
Okay, so let's talk through the results then. Because before
recording you described it as, you know, mixed. They had
some big swings towards them, but they've also lost key seats.
And at the time that we're recording this on Tuesday morning,
the party's leader Adam Bandt, is perilously close to losing
his own seat in Melbourne. So what's happened.
S2 (02:22):
Like much of this election, Sam, it's a stunning story
and one that I think will be, uh, kind of
looking over the entrails of or reading the tea leaves
or whatever metaphor you want to use for some time
to come. So look, first of all the numbers, it
looks like the greens will win six seats in the
Senate again. So they're not going backwards in the Senate. Um,
(02:42):
but in the lower house it's a different story. And
for the Greens, it's not a great story. As you mentioned,
Adam Bandt is trailing in the seat of Melbourne at
the moment. It's something like a 5% lead that his
labor opponent enjoys at the moment, with about 65, 66%
of the vote counted that, you know, that's not an
insurmountable lead by any means, but it's going to be tough. Um,
(03:04):
I'd say the potential or rather a potential future leader
of the Greens, Max Chandler-mather, you know, very outspoken in
the previous term, very high profile for a first term MP.
He's lost in the seat of Griffith. That was Kevin
Rudd's seat once. Labor has got it back. Similarly, in Brisbane,
Stephen Bates, a much lower profile MP. He's lost his seat. Um,
(03:26):
Samantha Ratnam, who's the former state Greens leader in Victoria.
She was attempting to win Wills and she's not going
to get there. We believe at this point in time.
Similarly with Mandy Nolan in Richmond. So what we are
looking at is a scenario where the Greens most likely
have gone, will go down from four seats in the
lower house to one. Um, the only person who looks
(03:47):
like they're on track to hang onto their seat is, um,
Elizabeth Watson-brown in the seat of Ryan in inner city Brisbane.
S1 (03:54):
Okay, so let's talk about what's happened here because Greens
leader Adam Bandt, you know, he's blamed the mixed results
on Liberal Labor preference deals, which he says were designed
to lock the Greens out. So is he right? Is
this what's happened?
S2 (04:06):
Look, these preference deals have played a part in locking
out the greens and some of these seats. But I mean,
that's my view, Sam. That's part of politics. Adam Bandt
was elected to parliament in 2010 off the back of
Liberal Party preferences. They put him ahead of the then
labor candidate, Cathy O'Toole. I believe her name was. And
you know, she missed out. He got up. So yes,
(04:27):
he can be cranky about it, but it's the ebb
and flow of politics. It's part of the rough and
tumble of politics. Um, another thing I think, you know, personally,
I find quite interesting in that, you know, band has
been quick to point out, is that the Greens have
actually increased their overall vote at this election. You know,
across the country, if you tally it all up, the
problem has been simply Sam. They haven't increased it in
(04:48):
the places it needed to increase. It wasn't concentrated in
the correct seats. It was more of a small surge
or small rise across the country.
S1 (04:57):
Okay. So tell us so where where did they need
to put their focus that they just didn't, you know,
where is the massive mistake here I guess.
S2 (05:05):
Yeah. Look I'm not it's that's a difficult question to answer, Sam,
because I don't know that you could sort of immediately say, well, they,
you know, didn't realize that they needed to win Melbourne or,
you know, they weren't trying in Griffith or anything like that.
I mean, they, they were trying they were campaigning hard.
Max Chandler-mather in particular is a great on the ground campaigner,
as we saw in 2022. So I don't think there
(05:27):
was a strategic failure in the sense that they weren't
doing the work. The work was being done. They were
working hard in their target seats like Wills and Richmond
to there were resources put in on the ground in
those target seats and in the seats that they wanted
to hold on to. What has happened simply is, I guess,
a microcosm or a replication of what's happened around the country,
(05:49):
which is simply that Labor's vote surged, the coalition vote sank. Um,
and and the Greens have kind of been I think
you'd have to say roadkill.
S1 (05:58):
Right. Okay. Well, let's get into the issues here because, well,
for one thing, I'm really fascinated about what happened to
the youth vote here because we know for the first time,
Gen Z millennials, they outnumbered baby boomers in the federal election.
So you would have thought that this might lead to
the Greens doing particularly well this time around. So what happened?
S2 (06:17):
Yeah, again, one of the most fascinating aspects of this result.
And again, they're just there are so many at this election, um,
the Greens identified before the last election, renters as a
growing cohort of mostly younger people that they could target,
that they could harvest the votes of that they could,
you know, they hoped, turn into the next generation of
(06:39):
Greens voters. And that worked in 2022. And we saw
through the 22 to 25 Parliament, the 47th Parliament, that
they maintained that focus on housing and on renters quite successfully. Um,
you know, much to the annoyance of the Prime Minister,
as we saw in some of those exchanges between him
and Chandler-mather in Parliament when the Greens initially blocked the
(06:59):
Housing Australia Future Fund. So what's happened now? I mean,
I'd like to see the data of something like the
Australian National University's election survey. I'd like to see some
of that data to absolutely know for sure that it's correct.
But what I suspect is, is that Labor's policies on
housing were, well, they cut through. They were seen to
be effective. They were seen. I mean, there was a
(07:20):
suite of policies that the government was offering. Right. Um
Housing Australia Future Fund, the government going essentially sort of
guarantor so that you could buy as a first home buyer,
a house with a deposit of just 5%. And the
government would help you with the rest so you could
avoid mortgage insurance. There was a number of other policies too, obviously,
and I think I think it cut through. I think
(07:41):
labor actually, it's just as simple as they ran a
good campaign, they had a good policy offering. Um, housing,
as we know, is one of the most hot button
issues in the country. And it worked.
S1 (07:54):
And do you think that maybe the reason the Greens
haven't succeeded here is because they wanted the perfect solution
for housing, and perhaps they were just not seen as
a very serious policy platform, you know, because they would
accept nothing less than perfection, perhaps.
S2 (08:08):
Yeah, exactly. It was a case of the greens making
the perfect the enemy of the good in some ways.
And there'll be Greens supporters listening to this who will
resent me saying this. But in some ways it's analogous
to their decision to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
towards the end of 2009, when they voted with the
Liberal Party, they defeated Kevin Rudd's CPRS, and that then
(08:31):
kicked off the whole sequence of events that led to
the change to Julia Gillard, the very poor 2010 election
for labor, a whole series of of, you know, issues, problems,
whatever you want to call them flowed from that. And
I think that's happened here too. You know, personally, Anthony
Albanese and I do mean personally was determined to defeat
Max Chandler-mather. He, as we all know, grew up in
(08:54):
public housing. He was, you know, personally offended that the
Greens decided to delay legislation that would have facilitated the
building of more public housing. You know, the sort of
housing he grew up in. So he made it his
mission to to sort of not compromise with the Greens
to get that legislation through which they eventually did, and
to go after the people led by Max, who'd blocked
(09:15):
him from implementing his agenda. And it worked, right?
S1 (09:18):
It did. And let's get on to, I guess, you know,
another signature policy or platform, I guess for the Greens,
of course, was their hardline stance on Gaza. They went
hard backing Palestinians and the war with Israel. Did this
hurt the party in this election?
S2 (09:32):
I think this definitely hurt the party. And I think
that the optics of their close alignment with the construction, forestry,
Mining and Energy Union when there were allegations, serious allegations
being made in these, you know, published in the Sydney
Morning Herald and The Age about the conduct of some
union officials that led to the union being placed in administration.
I think their decision to stand so closely with the
(09:53):
CFMEU probably put a few voters off as well. You know,
in in seats like Griffith where they may have gone,
or Ryan or Brisbane straight from the Liberal Party to,
you know, people might have gone straight from the Liberal
Party to voting for the Greens. And then, you know,
through the course of that three years, I think some
people saw that and said, you know what, I don't
that doesn't represent my views at all on Gaza or
(10:14):
on the CFMEU, and they've been punished for that.
S1 (10:18):
And perhaps no surprise there. It was Max Chandler-mather who
very prominently stood up, I believe, at a CFMEU rally.
And I think a lot of people were quite shocked.
Is that right?
S2 (10:28):
Yeah. I mean, labor couldn't believe their luck that that
had happened and that that moment, that rally, that appearance
by Max Chandler-mather, um, they made use of that to
remind or rather to paint, uh, that particular MP, former MP,
as extreme and as sort of out of touch with the, uh,
the views of the people of Griffith.
S1 (10:49):
Okay, so what now? I've got to ask for the
party's leadership, you know, is, is the party still going
to support Adam Bandt in this new Parliament because I,
I noted when you spoke on the pod, I think
it was November last year. At that time, Adam Bandt
was polling, I think, in a Resolve political Monitor poll.
He was judged as the third least popular politician in Australia.
(11:11):
I think he was trailing only behind Lidia Thorpe at
number one and then Pauline Hanson, and then he was
equal third least liked politician along with Bob Katter. So
is the Greens going to stick with that band?
S2 (11:22):
I think that's very much an open question, Sam. Um,
the Greens party room process is how they pick leaders,
how all that goes down. It's not particularly opaque. I
remember a few months after the 2010 federal election, Bob Brown,
who was then still the leader of the party, was
holding a press conference about something or other, and he
just casually let slip that, uh, the then quite young
(11:45):
senator Sarah Hanson-Young, had challenged Christine Milne for the deputy's
job and lost. No one had any idea for four months.
And we all our jaws all hit the floor What? Sorry. Um, look,
Adam Bandt is seen generally as, uh, having been a
pretty good Greens leader. He, uh, improved their seat count
in 2022 in the lower house. It's gone backwards this
(12:08):
time round, but the national vote has grown. Bandt, if
he wants, it, will be arguing that the overall Greens,
you know, number of votes collected harvested has increased. There's
been stability for the last 4 or 5 years. Uh
and that they should stick with him. Right. Um, but
there will be and I mean, I know there are
other ambitious people in that party room, and I am
(12:28):
sure that they are making phone calls at the moment. Um, and, uh,
you know, testing the waters, uh, sizing up whether to
challenge Adam Bandt when the greens, you know, the ones
who have been elected return to their party room in Canberra.
It's a wait and see at this stage.
S1 (12:44):
Okay, so give us the names though, James. Which which
names should we be looking out for? Who? Who might
just be challenging for the leadership in the future?
S2 (12:51):
Sure. Look, we're not suggesting that these not suggesting that I'm,
that I know for sure that these people you know
are going to contest. But there are talented MPs in
that party room who could run. Um, Larissa Waters, the
deputy leader, um, from Queensland, Sarah Hanson-Young, who I mentioned
a moment ago, who's still, I think, you know, young
but has been in Parliament now for 18 or 19
(13:12):
years and has a stack of experience. Um, Mehreen Faruqi,
the the sort of overall deputy rather than the Senate leader,
which is waters she could challenge for the position and
even someone from left field like a David Shoebridge. Um,
maybe he'll put his hand up. I'm not saying that
I know that any of those people will, but they're
all in my mind. People with the potential to lead
(13:32):
the party.
S1 (13:33):
Okay, now just to wrap up, James, I've got to
ask what role the Greens will be able to play
going forward because despite losing seats, the party says it
has a record vote in the Senate. So what's going
to go on there? Will the Greens help or hinder labor?
S2 (13:47):
Uh, that's I mean, that for me is perhaps the
most interesting question because and I say that because of this, Sam,
all through the last parliament, Albanese, you know, who spent decades,
you know, fighting the Greens off in his own seat
of Grayndler, spoke about how he didn't want to do deals.
He wasn't going to kowtow. You know, he didn't compromise
on the housing legislation. And eventually he got through exactly
(14:08):
what he wanted to get through with a couple of
minor tweaks. I think we're going to see more of
the same. And we know that Adam Bandt has been
out in recent days saying now the Greens have sole
balance of power. Labor must put dental into Medicare and
they must revise the Aukus plan, and they must do
this and they must do that. There's no musts that
Anthony Albanese is going to acquiesce to there. And what
(14:29):
I think Bandt is at risk of doing already is
sort of overplaying his hand, because he's forgetting that there
is actually another party that has the balance of power
in the Senate, and that's the coalition. Labor can team
up with the coalition and pass legislation at any time
all through the 1980s. Once, once, uh, John Howard took
over from Andrew Peacock, Howard actually supported some of Labor's
(14:52):
biggest reforms in, you know, in a policy sense. And
while it arguably extended the coalition's period of time in opposition,
it also allowed the coalition to rebuild its credibility as
a serious party that was working towards being ready to
govern again now. Such was the result on Saturday night.
(15:14):
It will be tough for the liberals to win in 2028.
They might even have to be thinking about 2031. So
that means there's an opportunity for the next leader of
the liberals to really think about, well, what do we
want to do with the next 3 to 6 years?
Where do we want to position ourselves on policy, and
do we want to remake ourselves as a slightly less
hardline oppositionist to everything party? And if they do that,
(15:36):
then the Greens will be irrelevant. And certainly Anthony Albanese
will be looking to do deals with the liberals, at
least on some legislation, say on national security type legislation,
because he doesn't trust them, you know, their instincts on
these sorts of matters. So Bant is already talking a
big game, but I think he needs to be a
bit more circumspect at this early stage.
S1 (15:58):
Sam, this is so fascinating. I hope we get to
speak about this sometime soon. James.
S2 (16:03):
Thanks, Sam. Pleasure.
S1 (16:07):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Josh towers.
Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is our
head of audio. To listen to our episodes as soon
as they drop, follow the Morning Edition on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our newsrooms are powered
by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism, visit The Age
(16:29):
or smh.com.au. Subscribe and to stay up to date, sign
up to our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a summary
of the day's most important news in your inbox every morning.
Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris.
Thanks for listening.
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