The sudden and unexpected departure of Senator Bob Brown has unleased quite a torrent of commentary, but a lot of it has been clearly more emotional than analytical. Some of the statements have even been a little silly. Take Laurie Oakes for example, who said (correctly) that  Brown has more parliamentary experience than Julia Gillard and Tony Abbot combined. Bob Brown has never been a minister nor been in any senior parliamentary position other than leader of his own party and even in that case the Greens only recently achieved party status in the Senate. Any comparison between years spent on the crossbenches and time spent on the front bench and cabinet are quite silly.

Bob Brown’s achievements have been quite significant. He took a group of disparate green activist groups and turned them into a loosely connected federation of state Green parties which have had some considerable success. In a county and political system that does not handle or accept third parties easily, the Greens have done exceptionally well. Only the long success of the Democrats compares .

We are facing some unusual political times. The unforgiving spotlight on the Gillard minority government has laid bare many of the weaknesses in both the ALP and the Greens. The unhappy coalition that they find themselves in could hardly be called a success. While Gillard was successful in putting a minority government in place, the party’s vote has plummeted ever since.  A number of Labor luminaries have called the effective coalition with the Greens, an ‘unholy alliance’. And based on polling numbers, it would be hard to disagree. But then how does Bob Brown’s resignation affect the minority government and the ALP?

In the short term, nothing changes. The senate will remain the same and in terms of this government, it is no more than an interesting sideline. But what happens to the Greens themselves?  Gillard and Abbott are leaders of their respective parties, but if either were replaced, not a great amount of long -term change would ensue. These are parties that have changed leaders dozens of times and kept on going. The parties are solid regardless of who leads them. Not so with the Greens. Bob Brown IS the Greens, not just its leader. He not only brought it into being, but he keeps it together. The Greens do not have a federal body as such, but rather a connection of state Green parties. Such a weak structure requires a very strong and charismatic leader to hold it altogether and Brown has done an admirable, even stellar, job in that regard. But can Christine Milne do the same? Almost nobody thinks so.

Despite her years in politics, Milne remains a lightweight contender in the heavyweight division. The same is even more true of her deputy Adam Bandt whose ego is far in excess of his ability or influence. And as Laurie Oakes also opined, there is the very long and dark shadow of NSW Greens  Senator Lee Rhiannon to contend with. Bob Brown has only barely been able to keep her under control and there is every chance Milne will fail completely. Rhiannon’s unrepentant pro-soviet socialist past combined with her vocal support for the blatantly racist BDS policy are the stuff of nightmare for the Greens. An example of her toxic influence was seen in last year’s NSW state election. Labor was on the nose with the electorate and suffering a massive lose of voter support. All the other parties - including the Greens - were picking up Labor’s lost votes. The Greens hit an unprecedented 17% level of support which would have given them their goal of four or five lower house seats. Then came Rhiannon and her BDS with the fine support of Marryatville council.

Defying her federal leader, Rhiannon proposed (and still wishes) to push a policy that would deny any Israeli business access to government contracts and any products built even in part using Israeli components were to be banned.  Such blatant racism which many called ‘thinly disguised anti-semitism’ was extraordinarily unpopular. In a rare show of unity, Labor and Liberals united to oppose this destructive policy. And the polls took a huge plunge dropping to just 10% in the election itself. Using spectacularly bad judgement, Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon skewered the Green vote and delivered defeat from the Jaws of Victory. And now Milne has to contend with her in the Senate, still proposing the same policies, but without a Bob Brown to keep her in place.

The NSW election was a huge disappointment for the Greens. While polling better than the previous state election, the final result was lower than the federal election of just seven months prior and way below expectations. With the ALP shedding 16% of its vote, the Greens should have been able to pick up at least half of that and probably more. As the party that disaffected Labor supporters traditionally gravitate to, the Greens should have doubled their vote, but didn’t. In fact, it increased by less than 2% and more importantly was 1% lower than the support they received in the federal election. If the disaster of the NSW Labor party hid the decline of the Greens from many analysts, the Queensland election laid it out for all to see.

Just like what happened in NSW, the electorate savagely attacked the ALP with a swing of more than 15%. But even worse than in NSW, the QLD Greens lost ten percent of their previous support. With 15% of votes up for grabs, the Greens scored none at all. The Victorian state election also yielded disappointing results for the Greens failing to get even close to expectations.

The Federal Greens polls are holding up at just lower than the last election and while that might look okay to some analysts, it ignores the fact that the ALP has shed a full 10% of its votes and in net terms, not one has gone to the Greens. This should be of enormous concern to Green political advisors. The current climate is about as good as it is ever going to get for the Greens.  Brown might claim that the Greens are on a ‘trajectory to government’ but the results say the absolute opposite. To get into government, the Greens need to displace the ALP as the second major party in Australian politics and launch an assault at the Treasury benches from there. While the ALP is doing the very best it can to destroy themselves they still remain at three times the poll numbers of the Greens.  To overtake the ALP, the Greens need to move Labor voters over to them. They won’t get Coalition voters and they know it. But they are failing miserably in getting disaffected Labor voters. Instead, they are moving en masse to anywhere but the Australian Greens. So what happens when the ALP finally gets its problems sorted out?

The ALP is obviously intent on staying the course, Titanic-like towards the next election where they will undoubtedly sink with great loss of political life. But they are a great party with great traditions and the lifeboats will certainly contain enough people to recreate an ALP that connects with its constituency better than the current bunch. With apologies to Arnie, ‘they’ll be back!’. And what then for the Greens? They have filled their ranks with the disaffected. While the Greens undoubtedly have a core of solid true believers, a large number vote Green simply because they are not Liberal and they cannot stomach what they see as a Labor party that has abandoned its core values.

All of this weakness in the Green support  is happening under Bob Brown’s superb leadership. So if he cannot lead the Greens to take advantage of the unique opportunities available now, what hope is there for the lesser lights such as Milne and Bandt?

If Rhiannon keeps her mouth shut for the remainder of the current government, the Greens may retain most of their current level of support federally, but in the face of an incoming Abbott majority government, will it be enough? Having the power to block legislation in the Senate when supported by the ALP can seem like ‘ultimate power’ but it remains nothing more than the ability to block, not create.

For what it is worth, I expect the Greens to have a small slump in their support at the next election that will cost them their sole lower house and possibly their QLD senator. But it’s what happens after the next election that will truly determine the Green’s trajectory. If the ALP starts the process of reconstruction and is headed by a yet-to-be-discovered Hawke-like leader, they will gut the Greens as they take back their constituency.

The opportunity for the Greens to become the second party in Australian politics is rapidly passing and they have failed. Without a Bob Brown to unite the team and give it a gentle face, the party will start the long slow slide to Democrat-like oblivion. Unless of course Lee Rhiannon tries her old tricks. Then it will be a free fall.

progressiveslol wrote on Apr 16^th, 2012 at 12:17pm:



You mean like the crap spouted by Abbott's rabbits?

Kat wrote on Apr 16^th, 2012 at 12:19pm:

Well if that were the case then they could expect to be the leading party, so no, that is obviously not what I meant.

Senatrix Milne is overdoing the new broom syndrome a bit and clearly demonstrating why Uncle Bob was always the spokesman for the Communist Greens.

It seems Senatrix Milne opens her mouth only to change feet. Senatrix Milne's understanding of economics makes Swanny look positively brilliant. Senatrix Milne seems to have carbon on the brain.

Senatrix Milne will guarantee the Communist Greens will slip rapidly into obscurity as people hear more and more of Senatrix Milne's looney delusional green dreem schemes.

Is a leadership spill coming for the Commo Greens as there are all those other Greenies gazing enviously and wistfully and getting encouraged daily as Senatrix Milne shows just how far above them in ability that old Uncle Bob really was.

Greens' economic vision needs sharp reality check
From: The Australian April 16, 2012 12:00AM

Christine Milne says Tony Abbott is to blame for Labor feeling locked into delivering a budget surplus.

NEW Greens leader Christine Milne has promised "a stronger articulation not only of our vision for the country, but how our economic strategy would support it".

From what she has said so far, that vision mainly amounts to spend, spend, spend -- on the National Disabilities Insurance Scheme, the Gonski education reforms, making sure Australians are "happy and healthy", reducing inequality, Denticare, funding renewable energy businesses, high-speed rail links between cities, increasing the Newstart allowance and research and development.

To date, Senator Milne has nominated two revenue streams to fund her wish list, "fairly taxing" carbon polluters and "rapacious miners" -- out of existence, judging by the Greens' policies.

Senator Milne is right that the Gillard government's drive to return the budget to surplus in the new financial year is more of a political than an economic imperative. But more prudent fiscal management is required if the government's underlying structural deficit is to be repaired.

The Greens will be taken seriously only when they grasp the reality that prosperity, opportunity and quality of life are brought about not through redistribution and burdening Australia's most productive industries with ever-higher taxes, but through economic growth that builds higher GDP.

To that end, in the "conversation" she wants to have with the electorate, Senator Milne should address issues such as containing public spending, investment in productive infrastructure and improving productivity through reform of federal-state relations, industrial relations and building greater incentives into the tax and welfare systems.

She can expect no thanks from voters for the Greens' role in pushing the carbon tax, which will start on July 1 at a rate several times that of the carbon price in Europe. Thankfully for Australia's reputation among investors, they did not get their own way over imposing an even higher carbon price or the original super-profits mining tax proposal.

As they stand, the Greens' litany of irrational, left-wing policies would set Australia on the road to higher unemployment, lack of revenue for investment in health and education and even greater hardships for many indigenous people whose lives are slowly improving as they begin to access the real economy in remote areas through the resources boom.

Does Senator Milne really think she will be taken seriously advocating a top personal tax rate of 50 per cent, death duties, increasing company tax to 33 per cent, putting essential services under public ownership, discouraging foreign investment, banning live animal exports and no new dams?

The Greens' hostility to the resources sector, which produces 54 per cent of Australia's exports in goods and services and leads the world in mining technology, is the largest hole at the heart of the party's economic outlook.

Demands for no new coalmines, no extension of existing coalmines, no new coal-seam gas facilities and prohibiting the mining and export of uranium, at a time when nuclear power is the only viable large-scale alternative to the use of fossil fuels to power the developed and the developing world, are senseless and dangerous.

Senator Milne has fashioned herself as "a country person" for her "listening tour" of the bush, during which she hopes to take advantage of the friction between farmers and the coal-seam gas industry on Queensland's Darling Downs.

However, both country and city voters who understand cost-of-living pressures and the benefits of the resources sector and the development it is bringing to remote and regional areas and port cities such as Gladstone are unlikely to be taken in.

On either side of the divide, Senator Milne's real problem is that the Greens' economic policies don't add up. But voters can.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/greens-economic-vision-needs-sharp-...

Skippy I expect you will smell this bucket of manure and you will buzz over and do your blowfly thing.

As much as losing Bob as a leader is a blow, it is an opportunity.


Can see 20% plus in primary as a target that is achievable.

Yes, I realise there will be some that disagree. Probably as much as I disagree with people's views, such as the propagator of this thread.


Time will tell. And rather than chase tails, I will focus my attention where all Greens supporters attention should be. Educate the wider community on Greens economic credentials.

i.e Greens Senate replacement for Bob. Candidates like David Whish-Wilson.

longweekend58 wrote on Apr 16^th, 2012 at 12:39pm:

Stop supporting paedophiles

juliar wrote on Apr 16^th, 2012 at 12:32pm:



Looks about the same as Abbnott's position - it seems to be working OK for him.

longweekend58 wrote on Apr 16^th, 2012 at 12:21pm: