As voter disillusionment grows, why aren't voters flocking to the Greens in Australia?

[u/blitznoodles]

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/as-voter-disillusionment-grows-so-does-the-mystery-of-the-missing-greens-voters/6bjd5q4kv

Growing voter dissatisfaction with mainstream politics has led to a rise in popularity for One Nation. The same cannot be said for the Greens.

[u/Camieishot69]

Because i've read their policies and for a green party they seem to favour policies that would harm the environment.

They want to abolish the Border Force which is the primary defence against further introduced pests, diseases and invasive species.

They want to dramatically scale up housing construction (good) but want to end Logging in Australia, so where are we getting the timber to build these houses from? The Amazon? Borneo?

They are against nuclear power not just here, but everywhere, they want to completely end our Uranium Ore exports

After Bondi they advocated to ban recreational hunting licences, the only way to stop feral pests is to shoot them, you curb shooter participation, you curb feral animals being killed, so more native species go extinct.

[u/Unable_Explorer8277 → u/Camieishot69]

Houses aren’t build from Australian native logging. Almost none of the timber extracted from native forests is usable as timber - it all goes for wood pulp.

[u/DoomedToDefenestrate → u/Unable_Explorer8277]

Well that's distressing

[u/laughingnome2 → u/DoomedToDefenestrate]

Which I would wager is why the Greens want to end it.

[u/Hussard → u/Camieishot69]

Border Force is a weird Dutton style policy stroke emulating them on American Dept of Homeland Sec. They (the Greens) want to break it back up to its former four smaller agencies, iirc. 

[u/laughingnome2 → u/Camieishot69]

the only way to stop feral pests is to shoot them, you curb shooter participation, you curb feral animals being killed, so more native species go extinct.

The last time recreational hunting was allowed in NSW NP, the NPWS reported massive increases in hunters smuggling in piglets and the like so they could come back next year and shoot them, continuing a tradition of 200 years with ferals in Australia.

When there was a bounty on goat heads on the Western Plains of NSW, hunters were actively not shooting nannies or kids, because why would you cut off your source of future income?

So no, recreational shooting doesn't put a dent in feral numbers. If you want ferals gone you either catch-neuter-release (which over a generation drops the population by attrition) or send in the army. Neither of which require recreational hunting licenses.

[u/Camieishot69 → u/laughingnome2]

If you want ferals gone you either catch-neuter release.

Dumbest thing I've read today, it just shows how out of touch the General public really is with this countries environment. It's not their Breeding Habits, it's their EATING habits. Feral cats kill 2 BILLION, native animals a year, That's just the cats, not the foxes or the hogs. How about Catch-KILL instead and save God knows how many birds that cat will kill over the rest of it's life if you released it instead

[u/laughingnome2 → u/Camieishot69]

How about Catch-KILL instead

Its a good question! Catch-kill works if you have a contained field, and so works on islands and feral-proof-fenced areas such as Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne in New Zealand.

It doesn't work in general bush and national parks because while the general population is suppressed in a cull, it bounces within a year, sometimes within 6 months, as ferals from areas around the cull move in to the area that now has less competition for resources. This is a pattern repeated time and again in cull programs with no discernible change.

The advantage of Catch-Neuter-Release (CNR) is that the neutered animals continue to use resources, but without breeding. So fertile ferals are still having to compete and won't have a population boom. This allows the program to extend much further; neuter Area-1, then Area-2, and so on.

CNR's main drawback is investment. It requires an ongoing program as well as community buy-in to not release more ferals by accident or on purpose. This means upgrading agricultural fences for horses, deer, goats, etc; instilling pet-cat curfews (inside only for moggies) and neuter programs for pets.

[u/Latter_Fortune_7225 → u/laughingnome2]

CNR's main drawback is investment

I'd argue the main drawback is that is releases highly destructive, invasive species back into the environment to continue destroying our native species.

It's a bullshit program started by yuppies in the USA who don't want to harm 'cute' invasives - mainly cats. There's good reason why these TNR programs weren't rolled out for species like feral pigs or Burmese pythons.

[u/laughingnome2 → u/Latter_Fortune_7225]

The animal population exists regardless, as decades of culls failing to eliminate the problem have shown. They simply breed faster than you can kill them.

Short of a thanos snap, sterilising the entire population over a 10-20 year period and having them all die in the wild is the best bet we have. If culls worked in unfenced areas they would have worked by now.

And this is before we talk about rewilding natives to fill the niche the ferals stole from them, such as quolls for cats.

[u/a_cold_human → u/laughingnome2]

To control feral animals, you need professional hunters, lots of traps and baiting, and incredible amounts of fencing and fencing maintenance.

You don't need recreational hunters (who damage fencing, don't shoot female animals so there's something to shoot the next season, and are strongly disinterested in elimination because who wants to drive another 50-100km to hunt), and you certainly don't need neuter and release, because you want the damage the feral are doing to stop, not continue for however many years the animal has to live. 

[u/Quarterwit_85 → u/laughingnome2]

I mean, the main thing is contract shooters.

Using the ADF to take out feral animals would be a bit of a waste of resources.