One of the outcomes of last Saturday’s federal election in Australia, was the failure of The Greens to retain their seats in the House of Representatives, they only managed to elect one MP in Brisbane, and the electoral demise of their leader Adam Bandt.
Right wing and conservative Australia (Murdoch media, Advance, Coalition), may be others as well, are celebrating the demise of this far-left political party, as the editorial of Rupert Murdoch’s THE AUSTRALIAN called it the other day, or of this “extremist” party, as Sky News Australia calls them.
Is this the case though? Are The Greens on the nose because they overlooked the environment, or because they supported the slaughtered Palestinians and other “radical” causes such as more public housing, more rental assistance, or the inclusion of dental care into Medicare? I don’t think so.
To start with, Adam Bandt lost his Melbourne seat not because of the collapse of his vote, but primarily because of the new boundaries of his electorate. He lost part of Carlton and Fitzroy, both Greens strongholds and he picked up Prahran and other areas, with more conservative voters. The distribution of second and third preferences did the rest…
Secondly, the overall electoral performance of the party is not all that bad. They attracted the first preferences of more than 1. 6 million voters, that is almost 12 per cent, as opposed to Labor’s roughly 35 per cent of the primary vote, for the House of Representatives. Their overall vote in the House fell by 0.5 per cent. They also managed to retain 11 senators in the Senate, by winning again roughly 12% of the popular vote.
I don’t think The Greens will wither away, or that their defeat was a strategic one. Why? Because their values and their policies are values and policies shared and wanted by a significant number of Australians. The Australian Greens were officially formed in 1992, but their ideological and political roots are older. They can be traced back in the environmental, peace and other social movements of the 1960s.
Finally, I am of the opinion that The Greens have a future in Australia, because they are also supported by a sizable number of younger voters. However, if they wish to become more influential to the left of centre of Australian politics, they need to become more representative of the current sociological makeup of the country.
Labor did extremely well, in term of votes and seats on May 3, by managing to win essentially two terms in government, however…
The Australian Labor Party, now that it has some extra time on its hands, needs to work out a long -term strategy, not only on how to deal with The Greens, but also on how to deal with the more socially conservative outer suburban voters. If the outer suburban voters do not become a priority, what happened to the Liberal party in 2022 with the Teals, might also happen to Labor in future elections, with outer suburban electorates…
