The Greens' identity crisis: where to now for a party built on protesting the status quo?
The Liberals are not the only party left asking some difficult questions after last weekend's federal election.
With the Greens set to lose their leader Adam Bandt in a shock defeat in Melbourne, having already lost three out of four of its House of Representatives seats, the party will need to do some serious soul-searching to determine not only what went wrong, but who they are and who they want to represent.
It's not just a disappointing result for the Greens, but an anomalous – even paradoxical – one. While the party looks set to return six senators to maintain its upper house cricket team of 11, Australians were not so generous in the lower.
The national first-preference swing against the Greens was just 0.45%, but the statewide swing against the party was higher in Victoria and Queensland – the only states to elect Greens MPs in 2022. While only marginally higher in Victoria at 0.55%, it was significantly greater in Queensland at 1.16%, the state labelled 'Greensland' after 2022.
Even more bizarre is that primary swings against Greens MPs were higher still: 1.39% in Ryan in leafy western Brisbane, 1.60% in Brisbane itself, and 2.88% in the southside seat of Griffith. Brisbane MP Stephen Bates and Griffith MP Max Chandler-Mather lost to Labor, while Ryan MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown held on. The Greens finished third on primary votes in Brisbane and second in Griffith, where the third-placed Liberal National party is itself buttressed by the preferences of hard-right populist parties. In Ryan, the Greens were returned on Labor preferences.
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In the seat of Melbourne, held by Bandt since 2010, the Greens suffered a 4.18% primary swing. With the Greens dream of picking up Macnamara and Wills in Victoria and Richmond in New South Wales now dashed, the fact that party leader Bandt, who captured 60% of the after-preference vote in 2022, should himself face defeat speaks volumes of the Greens' own identity crisis.
No one could have seen this coming. Some polls pegged the Greens' vote at as low as 11%, but others had it as high as 14.5%. The Greens, at least in Brisbane, also repeated their intensive doorknocking strategy of 2022. And given the history of minor parties and independents holding on to – or increasing – their margins for years on end, few genuinely expected the Greens to go backwards.
But the Queensland state election of October 2024 did offer a glimpse of the future. While the party's statewide vote increased in 2024 by 0.42%, the Greens lost one of its two seats – far below the widely touted ambitions of winning five additional seats.
Moreover, South Brisbane, which overlaps with Griffith, saw a 3.19% primary swing away from Greens MP Amy MacMahon, while Maiwar, which overlaps with Ryan, saw a massive 7.44% drop in support for the sole remaining MP Michael Berkman.
The story was repeated in two Victorian byelections earlier this year. In Prahran, the Greens MP was defeated in a 13.4% after-preference swing and, in Werribee, the Greens' primary vote increased by a paltry 0.8%. skip past newsletter promotion
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Commentary about the Greens' decline has focused on three main issues. First, Max Chandler-Mather sharing a stage with the CFMEU, and whether this was a step too far for moderate voters living in upper-middle class suburbs; second, the party's position on Gaza; and third, what looked like a petulant blocking of Labor's 'Help to Buy' housing legislation.
Together, these raise the question: do Australians object to the Greens moving out of their policy lane? While the Greens have found deep support for their commitment to climate change issues, do voters dislike – or even distrust – an environmentalist party playing politics with industrial relations, housing or foreign policy? And if so, where to for the Greens?
First, all is not lost. The party will probably be the sole custodian of the balance of power in the Senate after 1 July, and the Greens will surely attempt to pull an already left-leaning cabinet further to the left.
But if the Greens dream of becoming a party equal in votes and parliamentary numbers to Labor and the Coalition – and even replacing Labor as the principal 'left' party sometime by the middle of the century – the Greens may need to temper some of its post-material aspirations with material economic relief pitched at a moderate, centrist Australia. That may be difficult for a party built on protesting against the status quo, rather than upholding it.
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