Greens fuming over Senator's defection

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

Isabella Higgins: WA Senator Dorinda Cox has quit the Greens and joined Labor in a shock defection. She says it's about getting results and not rebellion, but her exit has left the Greens blindsided and fuming. Political reporter Olivia Caisley joins me from Parliament House. Olivia, why did she walk away from the Greens?
Olivia Caisley: Well, standing alongside the Prime Minister in Perth yesterday, Senator Dorinda Cox says that her values align more closely with Labor and that she believes she'll be able to deliver better outcomes and results for the people of WA. She was a member of Labor briefly in her youth before she did join the Greens. Her switch though comes after months of internal tensions within her former party, so she failed in her bid to become deputy leader following the party's poor showing at the election, and there were also growing doubts that she'd secure a winnable spot on the next Senate ticket. The Greens say they were blindsided by this, that Senator Cox only called the Greens leader Larissa Waters about an hour before announcing her shocked defection, and there have also been allegations of bullying or a toxic workplace culture in her office, which emerged during the last term of Parliament. Anthony Albanese was asked about this yesterday and he says that he's confident that those issues have been dealt with. Here's, Senator Cox, yesterday announcing her defection from the Greens.
Dorinda Cox: Being in the government and alongside the wonderful team that the Prime Minister has, you are able to make change. You are able to do the things that raise up and represent the voice of Western Australia and Canberra, and that's what they elect me to do, so I will continue to do that.
Isabella Higgins: And Olivia, what does this mean for the Senate and for both of those parties?
Olivia Caisley: Well, when it comes to the composition of the Senate, it's not a major shift. The Greens will still ultimately hold the balance of power. So this defection takes Labor's senators in the upper house to 29. The Greens, meanwhile, will drop to 10. But Labor will still need to rely on the Greens for votes in order to pass legislation. Symbolically, though, this is a major blow to the Greens. So at the election, they lost three of their four lower house seats and also their former leader, Adam Bandt, who was unable to retain his seat of Melbourne. And now they've got a high-profile senator defecting without warning. There is a question about how Senator Cox will square some of her policy positions with Labor's party platform. So for example, just last week, she criticised the Albanese government for extending WA's North West gas shelf, a move that environmentalists have also slammed. So how she reconciles those views while inside the Labor tent remains to be seen.
Isabella Higgins: Olivia Caisley reporting there.