Via The Australian:
Greens leader Richard Di Natale is facing dire warnings of a slide in his party’s popular support with a leaked internal analysis showing it is on track to lose three of its nine Senate seats, as it reels from the loss of two of its most popular senators.
Sounding the alarm over the party’s plight, the Greens analysis also concludes the party is “losing the younger vote” despite a “priority” Greens effort to increase the party’s support among the young.
The document, obtained by The Australian, declares “we’re not on track to save our senators” and says a new strategy is needed to prevent losing key Senate positions in South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and NSW.
It warns of “stagnant or falling” support in most states based on polling conducted before the shock resignations of Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters over the past week after they admitted breaching a fundamental citizenship requirement in the Constitution.
The Greens fear another blow to their standing after the furore as Senator Di Natale waits for confirmation he has renounced Italian citizenship.
The turmoil continued yesterday when Senator Di Natale launched an interim reshuffle while candidate Andrew Bartlett faces questions over a separate constitutional test — whether he held an office of profit under the crown — that could disqualify him from replacing Ms Waters.
“Based on the 2016 results, the seats most at risk are South Australia, Queensland and NSW,” warns the internal analysis.
“Distressingly, analysis of data for the full year since the July 2016 election suggests that outside of NSW, our vote has likely fallen since the election, leaving key states exposed.”
Now, I can’t tell you exactly what is going on here. I don’t have access to the precise polling. But I can make an educated guess given I am one of those that has turned from Greens supporter to being repulsed by the party.
Why? Well…we’ve made that plain for a long time. The Greens under Di Natale have zigged when they should have zagged. They moved to embrace centre politics just as it entered it’s most horrific period of disengagement from the polity of my lifetime.
The Australian political economy model is broken and on life support from policies that are implicitly hostile to Australian values, kept alive only by:
- visa corruption and mass immigration;
- the corrupt selling of houses to Chinese;
- wholesale bailouts for banks and resources firms (most pointedly gas),
- abandonment of Budget repair and reform, plus
- the rise of the oligarchs.
For a party whose roots lie in the limits to growth, protecting the vulnerable and championing especially the future of youth, this mix of mainstream policies is monstrously hypocritical.
To cut a long story short, The Greens have joined and are championing the rampant class war on working and young Australians.
To make matters worse, when challenged on this policy suite, The Greens have not only failed to debate the issues, they have explicitly walked out of the room, choosing complete arrogance over engagement. While Aussie households burn and youth gets flushed down the dunny, The Greens are busy passing resolutions in parliament that Donald Trump is a “slug”.
Greens support should be booming. Can you imagine what its polling would look like if Dick Smith was sitting behind it pushing an agenda of:
- halved immigration (with a boosted refugee intake) for ecological and urban sustainability, affordable housing and rising wages;
- blocking the corrupt selling of established dwellings to Chinese;
- liberal economic policies dedicated to market solutions to climate change, as well global engagement on all issues of sustainability;
- liberal social policy to advance equal opportunity in all areas of life;
- Budget repair based upon inter-generational fairness, and
- dropping the wowserish bullshit.
That is, a party dedicated entirely to the standards of living of all Australians, for today and for evermore, and happy to debate it with all comers.
The Greens vote would double. One Nation support would halve and both mainstream political parties lose primary votes.
Alas, political parties do not get themselves into this kind of ideological mess without a broken culture to match. So I doubt that the present pack of Fake Greens has much chance of turning this around.
The Australian Democrats spring to mind.
