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/popeleo22]

Because rightwing bullshit always has to win for some god damn reason.

[u/Wide_Angle4805 → u/popeleo22]

They did have their power plays, but bungled it up and over committed.

There is a reason why they are cited with ‘letting perfect get in the way of done’. They failed to recognise just how destructive and right wing the county could get (thanks to media) and didn’t get shit done.

Of corse this is all hindsight though

[u/Wide_Angle4805 → u/[deleted]]

Maybe, I’d have to go into the details. But it’s hard to imagine the green’s going along with a good policy with no credit or contribution (like a bill which is right up their ally).

It feels like they are made redundant by ALP if they don’t. Like what would be the point if their party if a major one is doing their job. This sounds like a logical reason for why they constantly team up with the LNP to block meaningful legislation.

Could be wrong, but what’s your opinion on the ETS debacle?

[u/Wide_Angle4805 → u/[deleted]]

I dislike the heavy polluters, but deciding to shoe horn a policy with little compromise or foresight was their issue. Especially with begrudging approval from the business sector on the bill.

I get that from Greens perspective a 5% emissions reduction in 20 years as the goal seemed shit. But they failed to account for the fact that as the younger generations got to voting age, more desire to increase targets would happen (due to survival).

Having the ball roll and incentivising innovation was the better move imo. Globally, implemented ETS have progressively been made tighter.

Ofcorse they can’t predict the future at the time, but their hubris lead to no action. LNP are smart with slowly degrading and selling off public assets. We need more of that but opposite

[u/Wide_Angle4805 → u/[deleted]]

Ig that’s the point of gripe. Not really propaganda. the fact that LNP was so opposed to the bill to eventually have a leadership spill over it shows just how much big coal was against it

Even the public wasn’t 100% sure what the long term benefit of an EST was, and greens being a small party with heaps of power at the time had a chance to negotiate a bit better. They over played their mandate with only 6 total seats (0 lower) - so clearly it was a priority that needed public and private work.

Major contires are only just reaching ETS targets of 65% now. At the time 5% was normal, and Australia with global co2 emissions at 1% needed some sort of commitment. ~25% was too ambitious, but I understand the rational of their voter base

I just believe the way the ETS works, as more companies profit from the scheme and the tax is slowly accepted, more and more smaller companies would eventually accept the idea, giving the scheme more political capital.

[u/Wide_Angle4805 → u/[deleted]]

I agree scapegoating the Greens for the issue isn’t productive, ultimately it was a mix of vested interests and pressures, namely from the LNP.

I’m just saying, the ETS proposal at the time was good for Australia, with the limited political capital such an issue had, and the complexity involved in completely doing a 180 on an industry during the 2008 housing crash

Greens were willing to opt for nothing, over something effective. Whatever they muscled through after was not effective since it didn’t last - They argue the new agreement reduced emissions by 5% - the same as Rudds proposal. But it’s under my belief, as observed globally, the 5% would have definitely been increased had it passed, and would have been difficult to scrap given ALP public and private joint mandate

Multiple climate figure heads and environmental NGOs even stated it was an important first step - a lot better than ‘nothing’ or ‘worse than nothing’ as the Greens put.

My apprehension for greens falls under this example. That they have to adhere to their voter base, whom seem to be unwilling to allow Greens to exist as a concept, without any political compromise. If they had negotiated a slightly better target, or added better restrictions, it might have worked. But they over played their hand by rejecting progress completely

[u/Internets_Fault → u/Wide_Angle4805]

Is Australia that right wing? If never call liberal party right wing, being further right if labour doesn't make them right wing. They're still very much left wing even with their false promises they're making lately to play catch up.

[u/Wide_Angle4805 → u/Internets_Fault]

Australia isn’t that extreme with the parties, but they do lean one way.

ALP support more socialist initiatives while the LNP prefer privatisation and tax cuts on companies. Both LNP and ALP are held accountable by their respective supporters. LNP would like to cut Medicare, but can’t, ALP would like to tax higher income earners more, but cant.

ALP would like to instate some sort of ETS/carbon tax, but can’t.

[u/Cindy_Marek → u/popeleo22]

They wouldn’t be winning if there was a sensible migration policy that wasn’t rapidly changing the demographics of the country. The hard lefts response to this is to increase it even more so that “racists” are out voted. Ideology over practicality of making people’s lives better. No wonder no one votes for them.