The Greens’ federal election result has been widely condemned as a “disaster”.

The party has been all but wiped out in the House of Representatives. It has lost three of its four members, including leader Adam Bandt, who has just conceded his once safe seat of Melbourne. This leaves the Brisbane electorate of Ryan as the Greens’ only remaining seat in the lower house.

Yet the tired explanations being rolled out – the party is too extreme, too obstructionist, too distant from a mythical single-issue environmentalist past – misidentify the party’s dilemmas.

And they overlook the fact the Greens’ influence will be greater in the new parliament, at least in the Senate.

(The author seems to be in a pretty unique position to comment, given that they literally wrote a PhD thesis on the Greens a few years ago)

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[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Pretty much this, the Green vote was about stable, the issue was preferences. One Nation, Trumpet, Liberals etc ended up having thier preferences fall through to Labor.

Bandts seat was realigned, he took in a new section around Pahran etc that was traditional Labor.

As a long time Greens voter they're not going to get much further then this, they don't appeal to entitlement and greed and are more science and fact based. An old quote by James Speth sums up why

As Anthony Green pointed out on election night, next election will be worse as the funding laws have now changed and vastly favour LNP and ALP.

I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don't know how to do that." -James Speth

[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 5 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Yeah I'm a little bit doomer about election funding being rigged in favour of the mainstream parties. We'll see how it plays out long term.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

didn’t clive palmer spend millions and got nothing?

[–] lodion@aussie.zone 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, and that has put a smile on my face.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

He still has a giant billboard up on the way to work. It has gone from an irritation to a little ray of sunshine knowing what he got for his millions.

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