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One party, 11 egos: inside the Greens’ meltdown · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, October 6, 2026. AI giant Anthropix says artificial
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: intelligence could wipe out some human jobs and it wants
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  Speaker 1: Australian taxpayers to foot the bill to redeploy or retrain
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: those people. That's as a parliamentary inquiry into AI gets
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: underway in Canberra today. The Armani co-pilot who allegedly attempted
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to hijack a FlyDubai flight en route to Tel Aviv
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  Speaker 1: was enrolled in a mechanical engineering degree for two years
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: at Victoria's RMIT University. Those stories are live right now
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  Speaker 1: at theaustralian.com.au. The Australian Greens have spent the past week
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  Speaker 1: consumed by unintentionally hilarious mayhem as the party becomes more
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  Speaker 1: about Gaza than the grassroots. They'd fit comfortably in a minivan.
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  Speaker 1: But where are the Greens actually going? Richard Ferguson is
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  Speaker 1: here in just a moment. Well, it's been a pretty
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  Speaker 1: full-on 48 hours in my world.
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  Speaker 2: I'm very, very proud to introduce the new leader of
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  Speaker 2: the Australian Greens parliamentary team, Senator David Shoebridge.
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  Speaker 3: This is an extraordinary moment in politics and we can
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  Speaker 3: all feel it.
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  Speaker 1: Politics can be brutal.
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  Speaker 3: In defeat, Senator Faruqi releasing a statement which did not
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  Speaker 3: congratulate the new leader and was critical of the ballot process.
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  Speaker 2: Buckle up, because we've got a lot of work to do.
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  Speaker 1: Richard Ferguson is the Australian's Canberra Bureau Chief. And Richard,
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  Speaker 1: I know fun and light stories are hard to come
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  Speaker 1: by in Canberra, but I did get quite a lot
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  Speaker 1: of enjoyment out of the Greens' leadership dramas last week.
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  Speaker 1: It was David Shoebridge versus Sarah Hansen-Young versus Maureen Faruqi.
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  Speaker 1: There were toys being thrown out of the cot left,
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  Speaker 1: right and centre. And ultimately, the very practical David Shoebridge
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  Speaker 1: triumphed and goes into this week as the new leader
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  Speaker 1: of the Greens.
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  Speaker 3: We know the Greens need to seize this moment because
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  Speaker 3: politics demands this of us.
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  Speaker 1: What sort of Greens is he going to bring and
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  Speaker 1: what was it like to experience that drama up close?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's extraordinary that we're calling David Shoebridge the practical
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  Speaker 2: candidate when he is basically a radical, Trotskyite, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-capitalism,
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  Speaker 2: candidate whose raison d'etre is we the Greens have been
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  Speaker 2: too pally with Labour since they trounced us at the
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  Speaker 2: last election and now it's time to take a more
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  Speaker 2: aggressive approach against Anthony Albanese and the ALP.
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  Speaker 3: And what has become so clear after four years of
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  Speaker 3: this government and years before is that we are not
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  Speaker 3: here to make the Labour Party any better. The Greens
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  Speaker 3: are here to replace them.
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  Speaker 2: And as David Shoebridge says, he wants to replace the
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  Speaker 2: Labour Party as the main party of the left, as
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  Speaker 2: a party of government. But what he is is a
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  Speaker 2: really effective politician, right? Because he spent 12 years in
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  Speaker 2: the bear pit of New South Wales politics. He is
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  Speaker 2: a very effective Senate estimates interrogator.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Inside the FOI team, and you were trying to hang
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  Speaker 3: these junior officers inside the FOI team out to dry
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  Speaker 3: on this. Is that what you're doing?
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  Speaker 2: That is not what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 3: Well, then where did it come from?
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  Speaker 2: He is a very skillful politician. He's about like Anthony
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  Speaker 2: Albanese in that he's a chameleon. He hates the fact
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  Speaker 2: that at his heart he is a Trotskyite radical uni student,
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  Speaker 2: but pretends to kind of be a, you know, a
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  Speaker 2: Wesley Barrister. That was compared to his closest rival, Maureen Farooqui,
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  Speaker 2: who does not try to hide who she is at all,
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  Speaker 2: which is a super woke lefty politician. That is the
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  Speaker 2: biggest difference between the two of them, is that, quite frankly,
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  Speaker 2: Shoebridge is a better politician. Doesn't make him any less
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  Speaker 2: a dangerous politician, Claire. He could be a very dangerous politician,
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  Speaker 2: but he is a better one.
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  Speaker 1: Maureen Faruqi came into Parliament in the casual vacancy created
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  Speaker 1: by the departure of Lee Rhiannon, one of the OG Greens,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a really sort of green green who, you know, was,
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  Speaker 1: you could always tell, most comfortable kind of chaining herself
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  Speaker 1: to a bulldozer or opposing a new dam. She, Maureen Faruqi,
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  Speaker 1: represents this new era of the Greens, which are all
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  Speaker 1: about Gaza, all about what they're now calling anti-racism. She's
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  Speaker 1: got a new kind of reason for being in that
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  Speaker 1: Pauline Hanson hates her and the feeling seems to be mutual.
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  Speaker 4: She continues to engage in racist and Islamophobic behaviour. Today's
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  Speaker 4: win is for every single person out there who has
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  Speaker 4: been told to go back to where you came from.
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  Speaker 1: She said after the leadership ballot, A, well, I don't
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  Speaker 1: like the way the vote was conducted. All the members
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  Speaker 1: should be getting a vote, which is always hilarious. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: imagine that. And B, I'm now going to devote myself
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  Speaker 1: to more radical action outside the terrible constraints of the
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  Speaker 1: leadership structure. She's already leading marches of 12-year-olds down the
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  Speaker 1: main streets of our cities. How much more radical is
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  Speaker 1: she going to get?
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  Speaker 2: Well, she must be taking a leaf out of Leigh
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  Speaker 2: Rhiannon's book because one of the great things about Leigh Rhiannon, Claire,
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  Speaker 2: was that her family, when the Communist Party in Australia
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  Speaker 2: split over Soviet invasions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, her family
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  Speaker 2: stuck with Russia and they stuck with the Stalinist kind
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  Speaker 2: of invaders. So in many ways, Farooqi is just continuing
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  Speaker 2: the legacy of her predecessor, which is be as radical
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  Speaker 2: and obstinate as possible. This is where the interesting bit
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  Speaker 2: comes to it. Because Maureen Farooqi, at her heart, her
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  Speaker 2: radical agenda is not that different to David Shoebridge's. David
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  Speaker 2: Shoebridge is is an anti-imperialist, anti-American candidate who veers so
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  Speaker 2: close to the line with his protests against what he
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  Speaker 2: calls the terrible evil of Israel, which can get very,
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  Speaker 2: very close to the line. Marine Faruqi, through a couple
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  Speaker 2: of statements, including saying that powerful forces were behind the
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  Speaker 2: response to the Bondi terror attack, having to sack a
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  Speaker 2: staffer who called the bombing of the Israel Adas synagogue
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  Speaker 2: a Zionist false flag attack. She did condemn that staffer.
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  Speaker 2: She did counsel that staffer. But the fact that she
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  Speaker 2: had these kind of people around, she was unpalatable in
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  Speaker 2: the end and is definitely unpalatable to the mainstream politics
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  Speaker 2: that most of us would want to see. Because a
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  Speaker 2: bit like Jeremy Corbyn, you know, while she's an anti-racist,
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  Speaker 2: passionate anti-racist in her heart, and I don't think anybody
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  Speaker 2: would deny that. She swims in a pool with a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people whose anti-Zionism has been found to be
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  Speaker 2: just a cover for anti-Semitism, including the fact that she's
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  Speaker 2: made sure that she's the front and centre of every
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  Speaker 2: anti-Israel protest in Sydney. And she's always standing in front
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  Speaker 2: of very dodgy placards, which she then deletes from her
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  Speaker 2: Instagram saying, oops, sorry, I didn't see that behind me.
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  Speaker 2: And it's things like, you know, put Israel in the bin.
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  Speaker 2: She said that days after the October 7 massacre, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. And
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  Speaker 2: this is before, you know, Gaza and the suffering that
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  Speaker 2: happened there. She said that lighting up Parliament in the
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  Speaker 2: colours of the flag of Israel, a country which had
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  Speaker 2: just seen hundreds murdered and many more taken hostage and
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  Speaker 2: many more raped, She said that that was one colonial
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  Speaker 2: government supporting another. She just dances so close to the
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  Speaker 2: line in a way that Shoebridge and Hanson Young would
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  Speaker 2: be savvy enough to just take a step back from,
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  Speaker 2: even if they hold many of the views that Faruqi does.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think also just making your whole political identity
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  Speaker 1: about Israel in a country really where, let's be honest,
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  Speaker 1: most Australians are not talking about this in the supermarket
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  Speaker 1: queue or in the lineup to get into a rental property.
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  Speaker 1: if you are making this your sort of main issue
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  Speaker 1: and you're wondering why Jewish people think you might be
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  Speaker 1: an anti-Semite, I think you've got a major problem. And
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  Speaker 1: you're also consigning the Greens to the kind of fringe
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  Speaker 1: situation that has always, let's be honest, always been their position.
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  Speaker 1: They have tried, you know, David Shoebridge is now saying,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we're going to take on Labor, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to make ourselves an alternative party of government. We've heard
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  Speaker 1: this story before. I mean, this is where Adam Bandt
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  Speaker 1: was trying to go, aggressively trying to take Labor on.
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  Speaker 3: It didn't work.
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  Speaker 1: They've only got one person left in the House of Representatives,
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  Speaker 1: down from four. There's 10 of them in the Senate,
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  Speaker 1: and they can't even agree on who's going to be
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  Speaker 1: the next leader. This is the first kind of vicious
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  Speaker 1: contested campaign they've had, right? So it kind of feels
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  Speaker 1: like it's falling apart.
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  Speaker 2: It's incredible when you have a civil war between 11 people.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: That's what it is. Most of them couldn't fit in
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  Speaker 2: a minicab, and yet they're having a civil war. The
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  Speaker 2: Liberals must be terrified watching this because this is probably
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  Speaker 2: their future after the next election. I mean, basically half
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  Speaker 2: the party room ran for leadership positions. It's just incredible.
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  Speaker 1: Well, maybe Maureen Faruqi just needs to be a bit
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  Speaker 1: more patient. Her term expires in 2031, as does Sarah
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  Speaker 1: Hansen Young's, but David Shoebridge is out at the end
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  Speaker 1: of June 2028. Of course, he might get re-elected, but
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  Speaker 1: maybe if the two women hold on for long enough,
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  Speaker 1: they can just fight it out between themselves.
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  Speaker 2: The thing about Sarah Hansen-Young is that she clearly can't count.
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  Speaker 2: She only had two votes in the party room. If
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  Speaker 2: you know that you're going to have two votes in
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  Speaker 2: the party room, you probably shouldn't run at all. You
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  Speaker 2: could kind of feel Anthony Albanese, that old numbers man,
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  Speaker 2: kind of saying, should I give her some of on
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  Speaker 2: how to actually do this? But it is a case that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, they could wait, but what are they waiting for?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the problem with the Greens. They
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  Speaker 2: have just had a really rough time of it. As
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  Speaker 2: you say, they lost... three out of four lower house
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  Speaker 2: seats in 2025, including their leader, Adam Bantz. Their jewel
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  Speaker 2: in the crown was the inner city Melbourne. If the
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  Speaker 2: Greens can't hold inner city Melbourne, like, what's the point
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  Speaker 2: of them? They have been completely unable to shift that
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  Speaker 2: primary vote since. You know, it's kind of stuck between
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  Speaker 2: 10 and 13. And they have been completely replaced as
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  Speaker 2: the party of protest by Pauline Hanson, who represents everything
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  Speaker 2: that they hate. everything that they hate. I mean, no
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  Speaker 2: matter what you think about Pauline Hanson and nobody would
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  Speaker 2: ever want to discount why people are voting for her,
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  Speaker 2: but somebody who clearly has made racist statements in the past,
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  Speaker 2: very racist statements, in fact. And this is somebody that
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  Speaker 2: they thought that they were behind this. Between them and
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the Teals, they seem absolutely shocked that they are no
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  Speaker 2: longer the ascendant force in politics, not realising that they
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  Speaker 2: were just a vehicle for people who hated the system.
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  Speaker 2: and not for people who actually believe in their kind
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  Speaker 2: of super woke utopia.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, what's Zoran Mamdani got that the Greens haven't?
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: MUSIC PLAYS.
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  Speaker 1: Around the world, though, at the moment, we are seeing
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the rise of hard left politicians who are very articulate
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  Speaker 1: and it's really working for them. They're able to sort
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  Speaker 1: of bring all these ideas, the same ideas, like being anti-Israel,
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  Speaker 1: into the mainstream. So Zoran Mamdani in New York and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Zach Polanski, the leader of the Greens in the United Kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Why haven't the Australian Greens got anyone like that? Instead,
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  Speaker 1: we've got David Shoebridge, who looks like he could be
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  Speaker 1: leading the Liberals.
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  Speaker 2: Well, first off, Claire, I think New York and Australia
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  Speaker 2: are in different situations politically. It's a very hard economy
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  Speaker 2: in America at the moment. People don't have health care.
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  Speaker 2: People are really, really struggling. Gas prices there are extraordinary.
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  Speaker 2: They are in a much worse economic situation to Australia,
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  Speaker 2: and Australia is not in a good economic situation. They
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  Speaker 2: also just do not have the savvy or the talent
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  Speaker 2: of Mamdani. Mamdani is a once-in-a-generation political talent. So Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 3: Since I know you're watching, I.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Have four words for you. Turn the volume up. Understand
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  Speaker 2: social media to their core and makes everything about the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: cost of living, even when they have other preoccupations like
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  Speaker 2: Mamdani does, on top. Israel, which he has clearly had
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: throughout his career, very strange and sometimes, once again, borderline
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  Speaker 2: anti-Semitic views on Israel. Although it must be said that Mamdani,
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  Speaker 2: being mayor of New York, I think he has to,
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  Speaker 2: has tried to take anti-Semitism seriously, regularly calls out anti-Semitic incidents.
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  Speaker 2: While as the Australian Greens, especially Marine Faruqi, are constantly
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  Speaker 2: saying that antisemitism is being treated differently to other forms
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  Speaker 2: of racism and that social cohesion is just a term
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  Speaker 2: used to shut down other minorities. This is in a
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  Speaker 2: country where it's the Jews whose schools are being protected
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  Speaker 2: by security guards. It's the Jews who have had their
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: synagogues and sometimes their kindergartens and their childcare centres bombed.
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  Speaker 2: And it's in this country where 15 Australians were killed
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  Speaker 2: on a beach on the first day of Hanukkah. You know,
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  Speaker 2: this is the difference. Like, Mamdani is an anti-Israel politician, absolutely,
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  Speaker 2: but he's A, a more talented politician, and B, he
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  Speaker 2: understands that there is a different tinge to anti-Semitism.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's definitely a lot more sleek. Well, I can't
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  Speaker 1: wait to find out what the Greens get up to next.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Richard.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Clare.
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  Speaker 1: Richard Ferguson is The Australian's Canberra Bureau Chief.