Is Labor’s Marriage of Convenience With the Greens Over?

Adam Bandt, Greens Federal Member for Melbourne along with his wife and daughter in Melbourne, Australia, on May 21, 2022. Naomi Rahim/Getty Images

Commentary

Following the 1987 Australian federal election, then Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke appointed senior party figure and powerbroker Senator Graham Richardson as minister for the environment. At that time, the Hawke government sought to claim the “green agenda” against the perceived growing influence of the Greens in Australian politics.

Richardson’s period as environment minister was notable for the Hawke Government intervening to stop the construction of pulp mills in Tasmania and for having the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland, and Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, included in the World Heritage List.

As Richardson admitted in his autobiography, “Whatever It Takes,” such convergence with the Greens had clear political motives—courting them would also be good for the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

In 1990, with Australia heading into recession, a looming tight election saw Richardson tasked by Hawke with the responsibility to attract second-preference votes from the Greens. Richardson claimed this was a significant factor in the government’s narrow re-election in 1990.

The problem is that the ALP has abandoned its traditional working-class base by courting the Greens and their policies. This has led to its primary vote falling consistently. For example, in the 1990 federal election, the ALP primary vote was 40 percent. At the May federal election this year, it hit a record low of 32 percent.

Labor Candidate for Macnamara, Josh Burns (R), speaks with a member of the public outside the early voting centre at the Victorian School for Deaf Children, Melbourne, Australia, on April 29, 2019. AAP Image/James Ross

However, while also losing its traditional working-class base, for some years, the Labor has been shedding votes to the Greens, whose primary vote is now around 12 percent, with second preferences seeming to come back in a disciplined way to Labor.

The problem is accentuated for Labor in that Greens have been winning and holding seats that were once safely Labor. A case in point is the seat of Melbourne, which current Greens Leader Adam Bandt has held since 2010.

Slowly Cannibalised by the Greens

Following Richardson’s lead, the Labour party has adopted many Greens’ policies to try and hold off the threat. This was seen after the 2010 election, where the ALP, led by then Prime Minister Julia Gillard, allied with the Greens (and two independents) in order to form a minority government.

Despite promising before that election that “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,” no doubt as a cost for securing Greens’ support, Gillard did precisely that. Thus came the landslide defeat to the Coalition in 2013, which promised to repeal the tax under Tony Abbott’s leadership.

Despite that, the ALP has continued to adopt Green policies to shore up its support. As a political correspondent for The Australian newspaper, John Ferguson recently observed that for more than 20 years, the Victorian Labor party has been waging war against the Greens in the inner city. This has played a part in the Andrews government implementing its leftist agenda, including euthanasia and radical gender theory in schools.

Thus, there is a clear indication that the Greens intend to cannibalise Labor. As Bandt told the National Press Club:

“Our working presumption is that Australia will end this term of parliament with Labor, the country’s centre-right party, the Liberals, a far-right irrelevance, and the Greens, the dominant social-democratic party in a country that still has a big beating progressive heart.”

As Canberra political correspondent, Paul Kelly, wrote, this is the Greens’ age-old dream to replace Labor as the party of the “centre-left.”

Therein lies the challenge for our current prime minister, Anthony Albanese—repelling the Greens’ assault from the left.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference in Sydney, Australia, on July 8, 2022. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Can Labor Restrain the Greens?

However, it may be that, as interest rates continue to rise and cost of living pressure start to bite, the ALP loses electoral ground and can only be sustained in the minority by an expanded crossbench of Greens and teals, potentially wedging Labor even further and forcing it into adopting an even more radical left agenda than is presently the case.

The next electoral test will come in the Victorian state election, due in later November. Ferguson observes that the pandemic and changing demographics in the inner-city may mean Labor can no longer hold back the Greens.

Greens Victorian Leader Samantha Ratnam, a member of the upper house of the state’s parliament, warned:

“We’re hoping to build on the momentum of that Greenslide and increase our representation in the Victorian parliament so we can push the next government to go further and faster on climate change, housing affordability, and integrity,” she said.

“We have good prospects of picking up (traditional safe Labor) seats like Richmond, Northcote, Albert Park; and even traditionally safe Liberal seats like Hawthorn, Caulfield, and Brighton are in play for us at this election.”

Just as the centre-right Liberals have found out over the last year and a half, to their detriment, at elections state and federal, that aping Greens’ policies only costs them votes, the same reality may soon begin to dawn on the Labor party.

At the end of the day, voters will pick the real thing every time rather than go for a poor imitation. As a result, the Labor party’s marriage of electoral convenience with the Greens, which has wrought so much damage on this country economically and socially, may soon turn into a messy divorce.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.