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How Labor and the Libs could freeze out the Greens · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday May six, twenty twenty five. Senior Indigenous Leader
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Marcia Langton says Anthony Albanesi must use his new power
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  Speaker 1: to be courageous in Aboriginal policy and go beyond acknowledgments
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  Speaker 1: of country to real solutions for extreme disadvantage. That's an
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  Speaker 1: exclusive live now at the Australian dot Com dot Au.
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  Speaker 1: The government and opposition up back in Canberra, with Anthony
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  Speaker 1: Albanesi planning a reshuffle and the Liberals dealing with the
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  Speaker 1: loss of their leader, a ballot for the top job
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  Speaker 1: in fighting in the senior ranks, and now an exodus
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  Speaker 1: of donors. The Australians revealing today Anthony Albanesi is seeking
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  Speaker 1: new trade deals with the European Union and India, offering
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  Speaker 1: to shake up policies from the luxury car tax to
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  Speaker 1: critical minerals. That's as Donald Trump announced a whopping one
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  Speaker 1: hundred percent tariff on all foreign made movies, sending the
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  Speaker 1: Australian film industry into a spin. The count continues in
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  Speaker 1: the Senate, with the Greens bragging they'll host the balance
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  Speaker 1: of power, but how well did the Greens really do
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  Speaker 1: it this election? And could Labor and the Liberals team
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  Speaker 1: up to freeze them out all together? What?
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  Speaker 2: Two?
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  Speaker 1: This is what the Greens used to be like?
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  Speaker 2: Full five.
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  Speaker 1: In this campaign ad from two thousand and seven, a
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  Speaker 1: little girl picks petals off a daisy. She's adorable in
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  Speaker 1: a field of flowers, nature unspoilt, but her innocence is
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  Speaker 1: contrasted with a world melting down, fire, flood, filthy, industry,
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  Speaker 1: belching fuse.
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  Speaker 2: The stakes are too high to ignore climate change, Take action,
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  Speaker 2: Vote Green, Looking and authorized by Bob Brown, Australian Greens camera.
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  Speaker 1: Now the Greens sound more like this.
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  Speaker 3: One of the things that we are incredibly proud of
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  Speaker 3: is our role in keeping Peter Dutton.
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  Speaker 1: Out visus Green's party leader Adam Bant, who's talking a
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  Speaker 1: big game.
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  Speaker 3: The Greens have achieved a record Senate vote. We're nudging
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  Speaker 3: fourteen percent. The Greens are now in soule balance of
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  Speaker 3: power in the next parliament.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's national editor and Dennis, we're
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  Speaker 1: here to talk about the Greens and the Senate. Adam Bant,
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  Speaker 1: the leader of the Greens, is fighting to hold on
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  Speaker 1: to his own House of Representative seat of Melbourne. But
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  Speaker 1: he's very confident. Has this been a good election for
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  Speaker 1: the Greens.
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  Speaker 2: It's been a disaster. And what Adam band is doing
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  Speaker 2: is adopting the spin that the Greens have done over
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  Speaker 2: the last five consecutive elections. The Greens have gone backwards
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  Speaker 2: the Queensland State election, the Northern Territory election, even in
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  Speaker 2: the Green Dome of the Act in Canberra and the
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  Speaker 2: Act election. They went backwards in the Brisbane City election
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  Speaker 2: and now they've gone big time backwards at the federal election.
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  Speaker 2: Now what he says is true, their bigger overall vote
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  Speaker 2: is better, and that's what they said about the other
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  Speaker 2: results as well. But if the Greens votes are not concentrated,
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  Speaker 2: if they start to defe use as has happened in
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  Speaker 2: those three key seats in Brisbane, then they start to
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  Speaker 2: run up against the power of the Labor Party and
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  Speaker 2: the Liberal Party, or the two of them combined, and
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  Speaker 2: they start to lose seats. If Adam Bant, of course,
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  Speaker 2: loses his seat, then his leadership is a moot point.
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  Speaker 2: But if he doesn't and he does hold his seat,
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  Speaker 2: his leadership may still be in danger. It is Adam
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  Speaker 2: Bant putting the best spin possible on what is a
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  Speaker 2: bad election result for the Dreams.
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  Speaker 3: The only barrier to getting dental into medicare now and
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  Speaker 3: passing it through the Parliament is labor. The only obstacle
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  Speaker 3: to making childcare free is labor. The only obstacle stopping
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  Speaker 3: new colon gas mines from being opened is labor. We
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  Speaker 3: stand ready in the Senate to make this the most
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  Speaker 3: progressive parliament that is Australia has sain.
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  Speaker 1: So just looking at the Senate, what are they left
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  Speaker 1: with now in the Senate, Well.
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  Speaker 2: We expect that I'll have eleven seats. With eleven seats,
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  Speaker 2: that means that they can be the sole arbiter of
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  Speaker 2: the balance of power in the Senate. That Labor has
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  Speaker 2: to come and deal with them. But that's where we
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  Speaker 2: have another misrepresentation by Adam Bant. The biggest single block
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  Speaker 2: apart from the Labor Party in the Senate is the
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  Speaker 2: coalition the Liberal Liberal National Country, Liberal Party and Liberal
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  Speaker 2: Party senators. They are the biggest single block and it
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  Speaker 2: is the coalition senators who, if they decide to do so,
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  Speaker 2: can make the decisions in a deal with Labor, which
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  Speaker 2: makes the Greens totally irrelevant. They are irrelevant in the House,
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  Speaker 2: as are all the Teals, no matter how many they
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  Speaker 2: end up with, and they may end up with fewer
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  Speaker 2: than they thought. They will be irrelevant in the House
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  Speaker 2: of Reps. And the Coalition can make the Greens if
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  Speaker 2: relevant in the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: It's not so long ago that we were thinking about
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  Speaker 1: the possibility that Labor might need the Greens in the
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  Speaker 1: House of Representatives to govern. But in reality, the Greens
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  Speaker 1: are in a lot of parts of Australia more of
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  Speaker 1: an enemy for Labor than the Coalition, aren't they?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, certainly, And Anthony Alberanezi made it clear for months,
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  Speaker 2: and I must say he's been saying quietly that he
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  Speaker 2: thought Labor would be able to defeat Adam Bant in
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  Speaker 2: his home seat of Melbourne. He's been saying that for
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  Speaker 2: months now. That hasn't come up in the polling, but
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  Speaker 2: it has been part of Anthony Alberanese's belief and his
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  Speaker 2: strategy and tactic because when it looked like the Labor
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  Speaker 2: Party may at best get returned in Minor, Antony Alberenese
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  Speaker 2: and the ALP campaign decided they would target the Greens
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  Speaker 2: the Greens were on the nose generally, and Labor made
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  Speaker 2: sure and Anthony Albanese consistently said we will not deal
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  Speaker 2: with the Greens, and the Greens said, and this is
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  Speaker 2: I think a mistake by Adam ban very early, saying
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  Speaker 2: we will do what we have to do to keep
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  Speaker 2: Peter Dutton out. He dealt the Greens out of the equation. Now,
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  Speaker 2: of course, as it turned out, with this massive majority,
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  Speaker 2: a historic majority for Labor, the Greens are well in
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  Speaker 2: a way irrelevant in the House. They may even be
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  Speaker 2: wiped out of the House. This has always been part
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  Speaker 2: of Labour's plan and what we're seeing is spin from
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  Speaker 2: the Greens because they are not the sole balance of
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  Speaker 2: power in the Senate. It is now the Coalition is
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  Speaker 2: the second largest group after the Government.
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  Speaker 1: Let's have a look at that seat of Melbourne, which
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  Speaker 1: on Monday afternoon Adam Bant said he was confident about,
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  Speaker 1: but of course he acknowledged that as postal votes coming
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  Speaker 1: that they would be less likely to favor him than
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  Speaker 1: the other candidates. That was a Labor seat for most
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  Speaker 1: of its history. Now Adam Bant holds it. It's a
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  Speaker 1: very urbane, sophisticated inner city seat Dennis, and now the
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  Speaker 1: possibility is that it would go back to Labor. What's
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  Speaker 1: going on there at this election? Why is Adam Bank
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  Speaker 1: at risk of losing his seat?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the Greens of course were always going to have
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  Speaker 2: trouble in the inner city seats, particularly those with high
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  Speaker 2: Jewish votes. They have failed to win Wills from Peter Khalil.
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  Speaker 2: They were confident that the Greens would win Wills, confident
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  Speaker 2: that they would win Macnamara. Well, not only have they
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  Speaker 2: not won those, they've lost two others, maybe three, and
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  Speaker 2: maybe Adam Bant's own seat. So there is no doubt.
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  Speaker 2: As the Jewish leaders have said that, the Greens have
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  Speaker 2: suffered from their pro Gazan, pro Palestinian, toxic anti Israeli position,
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  Speaker 2: which has been taken as being anti Semitic. It also
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  Speaker 2: was seen to be aligning itself, the Greens aligning themselves
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  Speaker 2: with violent demonstrations, not to mention being seen as far
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  Speaker 2: more extreme than Labor when it comes to rent control,
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  Speaker 2: negative gearing, capital gains, tax, all of those issues and
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  Speaker 2: in those electorates, some of them quite wealthy electorates, they
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  Speaker 2: are issues that count.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. How the major parties could freeze out the
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  Speaker 1: Greens all together. Rent free on Medicare, free mental health
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  Speaker 1: on Medicare. Those are the things that Adam Bank spent
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  Speaker 1: the election talking about. Is that part of the issue
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  Speaker 1: for the Greens, Dennis, that their foundations as an environmental movement.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, they had their first senator elected in Bob
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  Speaker 1: Brown in nineteen ninety six, and you and I are
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  Speaker 1: old enough to remember when they were ridiculed as snugglepot
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  Speaker 1: and cuddlepipe. They were the ferries at the bottom of
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  Speaker 1: the garden, kind of cuddling toadstools that ground the environment
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  Speaker 1: and climate is now something that Labour talks about, even
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  Speaker 1: the coalition talks about. Have they lost their kind of
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  Speaker 1: reason for being now?
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  Speaker 2: Well, when you consider Peter Dutton, they've lost. But the
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  Speaker 2: one thing he did about nuclear energy was framed as
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  Speaker 2: an environmental issue. And yet the Greens who used to
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  Speaker 2: lead a charge out there, you know, ban uranium, bit
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  Speaker 2: like banning oxygen, they have failed in this campaign because
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  Speaker 2: they have moved so far away from the environment to
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  Speaker 2: radical politicization of issues that there are older Greens who were,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, you know, turning the first the people
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  Speaker 2: who actually voted for Bob Brown, that you mentioned in
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  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six. How old are they now? The Greens
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  Speaker 2: have aged, the Greens have become gray Greens. They have
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  Speaker 2: moved out into more affluent suburbs, and this is part
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  Speaker 2: of the loss of the Green's power. The other issue
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  Speaker 2: is their economic irresponsibility, and this is where there is
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  Speaker 2: a real weakness and an opportunity for the Decima Liberals,
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  Speaker 2: because any smart coalition leader would turn around and say
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  Speaker 2: to Anthony Alberanzi, listen, we don't want you to have
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  Speaker 2: to deal with the Greens, so join us in a
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  Speaker 2: let us join you in an economic responsible way. If
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  Speaker 2: the coalition can say to the public and to the government,
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  Speaker 2: we can do away with the balance of power situation
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  Speaker 2: for the Greens, they can then do that and completely
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  Speaker 2: make the Greens irrelevant to match their falling support and
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  Speaker 2: their falling performance across the country at different levels of government.
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  Speaker 1: That would require quite a bit of courage from a
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  Speaker 1: new Liberal leader or new letter of the coalition.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the Liberals have to decide who they want to represent,
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  Speaker 2: who they want to get back. Anthony Albernasia, in an
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  Speaker 2: interview with The Australian during the campaign, said one thing
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  Speaker 2: he wanted to do was make Labor the party of aspiration,
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  Speaker 2: and that is where the Liberals need to direct themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Putting themselves over on the side of one nation away
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  Speaker 2: with Clive Palmer, both of whom have done very poorly,
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  Speaker 2: only makes them even more marginalized. Yes, it's going to
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  Speaker 2: take courage, but huh, they're going to need courage to
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  Speaker 2: get any sort of credibility back.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's National editor. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all the latest analysis and news from the federal election
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  Speaker 1: and beyond right now at the Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 1: au