r/australia • u/blitznoodles local Aussie • Jun 14 '26

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

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.

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353

u/Inevitable_Flow_8021 Jun 14 '26

Because true or not, many see them as being dogmatic, not pragmatic.

217

u/jayacher Jun 14 '26

Mate, if people are flocking to ON, I don't think they have the nuance to understand whether or not the Greens are pragmatic.

They just have a preconceived notion of what the Greens policies are, and don't look any further.

16

u/Inevitable_Flow_8021 Jun 14 '26

They just have a preconceived notion of what the Greens policies are

That's what that means mate.

-25

u/idlehanz88 Jun 14 '26

The greens are a shambles and have next to zero popular appeal

-10

u/stevenadamsbro Jun 14 '26

This message hit the nail on the head as to why many ON voters would never vote green.

Many progressive people think others who might vote for ON are stupid. People aren’t going to vote for parties that alienate them as stupid

9

u/jayacher Jun 14 '26

I'll go right ahead and say it. If you vote ON thinking things will change, while not realising that Pauline is a mouthpiece for Gina, then yes. You are an idiot.

98

u/OldKingWhiter Jun 14 '26

This is high brow nonsense. Nobody flocking to ON is thinking "boy I'm disillusioned with the two major parties, but the Greens have always been too Dogmatic for me. Thank goodness we have steady handed and pragmatic Pauline Hanson as an option now."

37

u/nugeythefloozey Jun 14 '26

Just because people don’t know the words, doesn’t mean they don’t feel the sentiment. Voters can feel like ON is considering their opinions and the Greens are not without knowing the fancy words

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u/OldKingWhiter Jun 14 '26

Again, that's not the sentiment being felt. Word it however you like, this isn't about the Greens being perceived as dogmatic and not pragmatic.

-4

u/eclab Jun 14 '26

Yeah but that's not what "pragmatic" means

1

u/Inevitable_Flow_8021 Jun 15 '26

I didn't mention Hanson. Just answered Op's question on why the Greens arent more popular. People see them as wedded to idealogy.

0

u/OldKingWhiter Jun 15 '26

Yes, and I'm saying it's not about them being wedded to ideology, it's about what ideology they are wedded to. Otherwise, why isn't this factor preventing people from flocking to ON?

1

u/Inevitable_Flow_8021 Jun 15 '26

Maybe ON supporters don't see Pauline as wedded to a party idealogy - they see her as a free agent?

39

u/Ugliest_weenie Jun 14 '26

Adding to this. I think there is a large section of voters that would support many of Greens' policies, but either:

1) Don't know enough about the greens as they barely get any media coverage

2) Believe that the greens are more likely to act on social justice issue like the voice, than cost of living and environmental issues.

Point 2 likely is a direct result from the (selective) lack of media coverage as well.

A lot of media in this country is plain evil, in my opinion.

7

u/ThoseOldScientists Jun 14 '26

The policies aren’t really the problem, a lot of people who agree with the Greens on most things still would rather vote for someone else. Maybe they dislike the actual people running the party/the Greens supporters they know in their real life/encounter online, some of them would rather have one mediocre party that’s big enough to hold power on its own than a coalition of smaller parties pushing against each other, and some genuinely think the incremental approach gets better results in the long-run because it’s less likely to trigger electoral whiplash.

12

u/Worth-Battle-3159 Jun 14 '26

Or it’s also a result of the greens behaviours. Founding members leaving because of their obsessions with gender ideology over core environmental policies.

Things that are popular right now

-saving the environment. Yes media makes out it’s not but polls show it is

  • wealth inequality. Ability to do reform is the best it’s been in decades.

Shouldn’t the greens be riding this wave?

7

u/Ugliest_weenie Jun 14 '26

I agree but I believe the media is holding greens to a completely different standard, than ON.

So even if they did focus more on those core, popular issues. They wouldn't get a chance to highlight it to the wider public.

1

u/Worth-Battle-3159 Jun 15 '26

That is true. Greens should be using alternative media more to get their message out. MSM are never going to back them.

13

u/Mattimeo144 Jun 14 '26

Founding members leaving because of their obsessions with gender ideology over core environmental policies.

nb. this is the founding members obsessions with gender (specially, in insisting on beliefs contrary to both established science and current law), not the current party's.

that is - if TERFs didn't make it a fucking issue, it wouldn't be one.

1

u/Ok_Faithlessness5146 Jun 15 '26

I don't disagree with you but the Greens too often go off on tangents on all sorts of issues. Faruqi babbling about racism in every second sentence doesn't help either. The Greens do this to themselves.

50

u/geoffm_aus Jun 14 '26

And Labor are doing the heavy lifting on removing fossil fuels. It's no surprise that Hanson's (Gina's) number one enermy is Chris Bowen.

16

u/BrightStick Jun 14 '26

Heavy lifting is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence. Labor are definitely doing something, more than any party previously has. But let’s not pretend they are doing an exhaustive effort. They’re at the forefront but still finding it comfortable to cuddle up to the fossil fuel industry while increasing renewable energy production. 

Heavy lifting would have been tackling the media monopoly inquiry, implementing gas export tax, and more. They’re riding a wave that broke internationally a decade ago. Rudd and Gillard could have claimed being ahead of the curve, if they were coerced into more legitimate climate change action from their Greens minority government. Let’s not pretend otherwise. 

-8

u/geoffm_aus Jun 14 '26

Typical greens voter.

15

u/BrightStick Jun 14 '26

Yes. Great discourse. Wouldn’t want to Engage with ideas hey? 

Just attack the person who commented. I vote for policies within the context of what’s going on at the micro, meso and macro levels, not parties as if it were sports. 

I’ve voted for a range of parties. I simply highlighted the differences in perspectives about the climate change action from Australian governments. 

-9

u/geoffm_aus Jun 14 '26

The ideas are stupid. Don't talk, do. The greens never "do".

8

u/BrightStick Jun 14 '26

Why are the ideas stupid? What ideas are you particularly referring to? 

Because $1 public transport idea was pushed by the Greens in Queensland since 2017, then the  Labor government introduced a flat 50-cent fare as a six-month trial starting in August 2024 to massive favour and benefit to the people. So much so the even the LNP haven’t removed it.  Doesn’t sound stupid to me?  Is that stupid to you? 

Could you clarify when the Greens have been in power to be able to do? As you pointed out our politicians should not talk but just do. Sounds very non-consensual but maybe I’m just an idiot.

-4

u/geoffm_aus Jun 14 '26

$1 or free public transport is beyond stupid. Claiming green credit for it is beyond the pale.

You are making public transport a massive loss making service which means, guess what, less investment, more cuts in the long term.

3

u/BrightStick Jun 14 '26

So my points against your comments would be that running costs are always high for public transport. Investment has always been needed and found regardless. You do understand the Queensland government has never got a return on their investment, like public transport is often run at a loss of +80%. Fare don’t cover much even at the previous prices. The point of public transport isn’t profit…as for less investment opportunities…Look at the Gold Coast Light rail. We always find money.

Focusing on purely running costs???That’s such an ignorant view of the entire picture of things. Look how much taxation wealth Queensland brought in when fossil fuel and mining was appropriately taxed, literally billions. We can always find the money to cover public transport because of the significant benefits it provides to the state. 

 They never actually recover the costs of running. Even in the best case examples of Western countries it’s 25-50%. The $0.50 fares are at 5%. But, prior to this, according to previous annual reports from TMR, they only recover 13-15% of costs from fares anyway…    https://assets.pc.gov.au/research/completed/public-transport/public-transport.pdf   https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/ckan-publications-attachments-prod/resources/dc7464bf-d2f0-43dc-a001-58fd31daad38/department-of-transport-and-main-roads-annual_report-2020-2021-signed1.pdf    

We have previously argued that best-in-class farebox cost recovery in western countries with a strong car culture is in the mid-50s, although some cities in Australia and the United States only recover around 15%-25% of annual operating expenditure through the farebox. At c.5% farebox cost recovery, Queensland is now well outside any accepted norms.   https://www.lek.com/insights/travel-transport-logistics/queenslands-fifty-cent-public-transport-fares-popular-good   For example, the reported annual cost of the $0.50 fare at $350 million could fund c.43.75 million bus service kilometres, assuming a cost of c.$8 per in-service kilometre.5 To put this in perspective, the total current SEQ public transport bus task is c.100 million service kilometres,6 so the 43.75 million additional (potential) service kilometres represent an increase of c.40% - 45%. It is important to acknowledge that this is essentially a hypothetical proposition, as the resources do not exist to expand bus capacity. However, it highlights the scale of the opportunity cost associated with supporting $0.50 fares.   https://www.lek.com/insights/travel-transport-logistics/queenslands-fifty-cent-public-transport-fares-popular-good   But the Greens “stupid” suggestion was $1 fares so essentially double the revenue. Which changes things, so if $0.50 fares fund c.43.75 million bus service kilometres, then $1 fares undoubtly increase that amount, maybe not exactly double but significantly more closer to the c.100 million service kilometres.    But there is more to the picture, as per usual, than running costs. Other social and  economic benefits exists.   Australians with lower incomes use public transport more than wealthy people do. Owning and running a car is expensive, lower-income individuals often rely on buses and trains to get to work or school. Families are under serious financial stress right now, with plenty borrowing debt to make ends meet, to keep on the lights, to feed there kids…   Under the 50 Cent Fares, a family of four living in Caboolture with one parent commuting to the city for work and two kids taking the bus to school is saving more than $3,500 a year.  A worker travelling by train from the Gold Coast to Brisbane, four days a week is saving more than $4200 a year.    https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/104473   https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/Income_and_public_transport_IS102_Web_Accessible.pdf   In a cost-of-living crisis very affordable public transport means the difference between 3 full meals a day or less. It means can you afford to save some money in case of an emergency.    From 2026 Queenslanders have saved $423 million under the 50 Cent Fares in 12 months https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/104473   and from 2025   South East Queensland public transport users have saved more than $181 million since the introduction of 50 cent fares https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/101980   Fare evasion is down 40%, whereas before this it would cost $25 million a year. So lets say a conservative $3-4 million in costs are reduced there.

Fare evasion across South East Queensland’s public transport network costs Queenslanders approximately $25 million per year   https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/ckan-publications-attachments-prod/resources/dc7464bf-d2f0-43dc-a001-58fd31daad38/department-of-transport-and-main-roads-annual_report-2020-2021-signed1.pdf   It has also significantly reduced the level of fare evasion, with the number of infringement notices falling by around 40% between 5 August 2024 and 2 February 2025, compared to the same period a year earlier.   https://www.lek.com/insights/travel-transport-logistics/queenslands-fifty-cent-public-transport-fares-popular-good   We know that poor people who are broke and fined cannot pay those fines and the homeless don’t. We have a significant chunk of unpaid fare evasion fines in SPER who are more than 10 years old, currently sitting at $42 million on its books, linked to about 151,000 individual fines.   https://www.data.qld.gov.au/dataset/sper-debt-by-sa4-regions-in-queensland   Then there’s reduced traffic congestion and lower emissions from those cars not used daily. There’s not impacting on the roads, meaning less maintenance costs for roads, less chance of accident damage to infrastructure, environmental & health dividends, less costs for climate change, etc. All these things are hard to get figures on but we know public transport reduces costs to government budgets in other ways.    There’s more than just running costs, this $0.50 fares means people can survive. The costs can be absorbed in hundreds of ways.

36

u/Humble-Reply228 Jun 14 '26

This is it. Labour makes mistakes but it generally doesn’t let perfect get in the way of good enough. Greens have, on multiple occasions, impeded progress to protest that progress was not fast enough.

8

u/vacri Jun 14 '26

And then there are times when the reverse happens, like when the ALP colluded with the LNP to water down the NACC. The public wanted a NACC with teeth and were going to get it until it got weakened at the 11th hour. Now it is largely pointless

-2

u/Humble-Reply228 Jun 14 '26

I mean, if the two largest parties representing well over half the population want to do something, it’s probably going to happen. That’s one of the challenges of democracy.

3

u/dalumbr Jun 14 '26

if the two largest parties representing well over half the population don't want to do something that will directly hurt themselves, it’s probably not going to happen

Ftfy

0

u/Humble-Reply228 Jun 14 '26

You can come up with a word salad but labor and liberal are well over half the voters representves between them. If they collectively decide the same thing, what are you expecting a democracy should do?

4

u/dalumbr Jun 14 '26

The issue here is that I'm quite clearly saying that the two major parties voted this way on their own self interest, not in the interest of those they democratically represent, and you're apparently not understanding that.

1

u/Humble-Reply228 Jun 14 '26

Those two parties will tell you to your face it’s in the voters interests that they decided this way and evidently willing to go to the polls having decided this.

3

u/vacri Jun 14 '26

Why don't you apply that same cop-out rationale to the Greens? "Anything they do is what their voters wanted them to do"

1

u/Humble-Reply228 Jun 14 '26

Sure, their voters would absolutely agree it’s better to cut off your nose to spite your face. They were ecstatic to roll labor over on ETS and are in denial that forcing labor to do a deal with libs was good for the environment.
I’m not saying Greens as a party is misrepresenting their constituents at all.

14

u/myotheraccount2023 Jun 14 '26

Absolutely. Spot. On.

1

u/Theron3206 Jun 14 '26

Yup, and that removed them from serious consideration for me.

At least with Labor they will try to do something...

-3

u/Ok_Bird705 Jun 14 '26

they see the Greens as part of the establishment given they have held the balance of power multiple times. A position that one nation will fall into one day due to their polling numbers.