I'm Ruby Jones and you are listening to seven AM. One of the big stories of the twenty twenty five election campaign was the wipeout of the Australian Greens in a stunning defeat. They lost three out of their four Lower House MPs, including their leader Adam Bant. It left the party with big questions about why they weren't growing
at a time when young people are more progressive than ever. Now, more than six months out from the election and under the leadership of Larisa Waters, there are signs of where the Greens want to go next. Today Quicky columnist Rachel Withers on whether the Greens can clawback support or if they've taken the wrong message from their defeat. It's Tuesday, December thirty. Rachel, thank you for speaking with me. Let's
go back to the start of the year. Before the election, the Greens had their largest presence in Parliament ever, four MPs, twelve Senators, and they were predicting even more wins. They were riding high. So what was the Greens strategy heading into the election.
Yeah, they had their eye on quite a number of seats, but five lower House seats. Specifically was mcmar and Wells in Melbourne, Richmond and New South Wales and Stirt in Perth. And so they were on these really intense ground games, different depending on the seat, but all kind of modeled on the Max channel of Atha strategy that he used to wid Griffith knocking on like every door. They didn't
end up succeeding in any of them. None of the swings are enough to win an extra seat, and they, as we know, lost three of the existing four.
The seat of Melbourne an extraordinary result here.
It's projected now that Adam Band has now lost that seat.
The Green's got the highest vote in Melbourne, but one nation.
And liberal preferences will get Labor over the line.
They were running really high on the anti Trump sentiment, which they thought was going to benefit them. I would say it actually ended up hurting them in the long run because people flocked back to Labor I think. And there are a lot of areas where Labour's rote went up and the Greens went down because they wanted to go with the safer option.
And you mentioned Max Chandler MafA. He obviously lost his seat in the election, and he had this reputation while he was very fiery, particularly when it came to talking about housing, he was the Greens housing spokesperson.
The government is trying to pull the wool over your eyes and crush your hope that they're capable of doing anything real or substantial to tackle the housing crisis.
I mean, how do.
You think now the Greens reflecting on his style of politicking.
I think it's always up for interpretation, but the Greens do seem to have slightly internalized the interpretation that that was too bolshy and obstructive. Labor was big on labeling the Greens as blockers.
What absolute nonsense from the members, absolute nonsense, the leader of a political pay that stopped climate action the last time we were in government. On this side of the.
House, they were pointing out in the election campaign that the Greens had voted with the Liberals on housing things like that, and so I think there was this argument
that Max Channelmaker had been too obstructionist. I think it's also important to remember, though, that a lot of people still did vote for the Greens and very much approved of what the Greens were doing with those balance of power Senate seats, and the Greens actually did maintain the same presence in the Senate until, of course, they lost her into clocks two Labor.
In the first couple of weeks, Western Australian Senator Derinda Cox has defected from the Greens to join the Labor Party. What you can't do from the cross benches make change, and being in the government and alongside the wonderful team that the Prime Minister has, you are able to make change.
And this idea that the Greens were obstructionist, obviously Labor pushed that very hard. To what extent do you think that hurt them?
With the view that actually the Greens aren't really made for the House. It's really hard to win lower House seats if you're not a major party. The Senate is where they hold the balance of power. It's where they get the votes. And it didn't hurt them that much in the Senate where they actually now hold the full balance of power. The government can now pass legislation with
the Greens or with the coalition and that's it. So I don't actually think it hurt them that much in terms of their power in Parliament, which remains exactly the same, if not a little bit stronger.
Okay, what about their strategy then of moving well beyond climate and environment and trying to tackle things like the cost of living, particularly housing, which we've mentioned gaza. What lessons do you think they've taken from having gone to the election with this kind of broad suite of areas that they wanted to try and push for change.
I mean, they haven't backed away from any of those positions in terms of policy, but they're certainly not talking about them as much as they were. Some of that comes down to the fax Max Chaneler Maythor is not there anymore and he was the one doing all the talking along with the former leader Adam Bant. So I think you've got Larisa Waters, who's much more on the
climate side of things now leading things. But I am quite aware that none of their positions have actually changed on those issues like gaza, like housing, like the cost of living. It's just that the emphasis has changed a little bit. I think.
Coming up, where is Larisa Waters going to take the Australian Greens. Well, let's talk a bit about Larissa Waters. So Waters has been leader since the staffed the election. She took over obviously from Adam Bant, who'd been in the job of five years until losing his seat. So as you have watched her, what have you noticed about her approach?
Yeah, I would say she's definitely taking a slightly more conciliatory top towards Labor.
We want the Labor Party to be bold and we want to help them to fix the problems that people are facing. We will be firm but constructive because this isn't about politicians, this is about the people that need our help.
But she has really leaned into rhetoric about we are here to get shit done, we are here to get things past. I mean she says the words get shited done. That's not me paraphrasing. She loves that phrase. She said it in some of her opening interviews.
People elected us to get shit done, and that's what we intend to do.
She's not disavowing what was going on before, but I think Labor is much more willing to work with her to get shit done. So it does feel like a bit of a shift. We've seen Labor and the Greens working together already on the environment legislation, which let's remember Sarah Hanson Young was working perfectly nicely with former Environment
Minister Tony Fobisecon. But this time we're actually seeing success and we're actually seeing agreements being struck, and Labor and the Greens kind of talk quite nicely about each other in public.
Let's talk a little bit more about that deal. So the Greens got some concessions, so protections of native forests, preventing fast track approvals for colon gas, a.
Few other things.
But I mean, overall, I mean, how significant is it that this went through? And also what should we take from the way that the Greens and labor worked together and the way they spoke about each other throughout this process.
I want to thank those people who participated in good faith negotiations, including the Senators Waders and Hanson Young who've negotiated in good faith.
I think there is a lot of people who are disappointed that this went through in the way that it did. I think a lot of Green's diehards would have actually liked to see them push harder and push for more. My interpretation from the rhetoric that was coming out, especially from Anthony Albineasy, was they put the things they wanted on the table, we had our life, they accepted them, and then we found the midpoint. And to me, that's
actually how these negotiations should work. I often used to think in the last Parliament when housing took years and years to get through, is like, you're going to get there in the end. Just do it quickly, Just establish where your red lines are, both be fair to each other based on the percentage of the vote that you have,
and just get it done. Everybody can argue they should have been more given or more taken, but at the end of the day, I think that's how we want our center left and left wing party in the Senate to work together.
What did you make of the fact that Anthony Albernezi, who is well known for his dislike of the Greens, at the end of all of this calling the party mature.
Yeah, I thought it was in part a dig at the coalition who were not behaving maturely apparently they couldn't even get their demands down on paper. But it also felt like a bit of a dig at Max Channel maythan Adam Bant implying that they had not been mature in the past. I think Labor themselves were acting a little bit more mature. For one, we didn't hear any Greens political party from Labor. They love to call the Greens the Greens political party when they're not getting along.
But I also think the fact that labor came to the table and was willing to negotiate quickly and fairly, according to some was also a mark of maturity from labor that we don't often see. The thing that is forgotten is at the end of the day, labor and the Greens can only strike a deal if labor is also willing to strike one, and sometimes they're just not willing to work with the Greens at all. So in this case they were both a bit mature, and I guess I'd like to see more of it.
Is there anything we lose though by having a quieter and more cooperative Greens.
Yeah. Look, I think as we saw with the housing build which stretched on and on, I'd say they got more in the end of that negotiation. I think in this case, with the climate trigger in particular, which is what environmental groups really wanted from this, they recognized that they weren't going to get it. Labor is not particularly strong on this stuff, and so at the end of the day, I think they can choose to negotiate with labor or let labor go to the coalition and produce something much worse.
And how should we be thinking about the Greens and their popularity at this moment in time. I mean, I know there were a lot of factors that led into the election result, but you know, regardless, they're certainly less vocal. They're not growing in popularity at this moment in time, despite young people, young women in particular, becoming more progressive. Why do you think that is.
Yeah, I think that they are picking up heaps and heaps of the young vote, and heaps of women in particular. The gap between women and men in the Australian election study voting for the Greens was amazing. It's like eighteen per set of women are now voting for the Greens. They're to eight per set of men. At the same time, you've got other groups aging out of voting for the Greens Jen and X a lot of them have turned to labor have kind of decided that sort of more
center left policy is where they want to be. So there's churn of the generations at the same time. Yes, with the state of the world right now, the state of the climate, state of the economy, stay, with inequality, the state of housing, you would think that the Greens would be doing better than they are you would think that this was their year to win, But I do think they are a balance power in the Senate and unless a third party rises up to replace them, they're
going to be there for a very long time. And so I don't think it really matters if they grow that much, and especially if the Coalition remains a basket case in the Senate.
And so what do you think their biggest challenge is then, for the rest of this term.
I think trying to have an impact and trying to be recognized for anything, because at the end of the day, people vote for them if they think that they're delivering. I was thinking before this about what wins they've had this year. They have helped Labor pass things like it's hex steps cut, but they wanted that to go further. It was going to pass with or without them, so they just had to fall in line. Same with the
super changes. They would really like Labor to go further on those changes to high superannuation balances, but Labour's walking away from it and there doesn't seem to be anything the Greens can do when Labor are feeling cowardly.
So Rachel, we've spoken about how the Greens have become less visible on some of those big social issues, you know, things like the cost of housing, of education, the cost of living in general. Do you think that moving away from tackling bigger social issues will end up hurting them more, particularly among younger voters.
I mean, I think issues like that are what is driving the younger generation to vote for them, the young people who are completely locked out of the economy and housing market we've created. And I think if another party offers similar or better solutions on those matters, things like the Victorian Socialists, they might start to see those voters move away from them. And those are the voters that are actually sticking with right now.
Rachel, thank you so much for your type.
Thank you Ruby, thanks for listening.
Tomorrow on seven am, I'm bringing you an interview with one of the authors behind one of my favorite books of twenty twenty five. Chloe Hooper, along with her friends and colleagues Sarah Krasnystein and Helen Ghana, spent much of the year reporting from the town of Morwell as the triple murder trial of Aaron Patterson unfolded. These three incredible writers were drawn not just to the story, but also to trying to understand what the country's fascination with this
crime says about us all. What followed is the mushroom tapes, conversations on a triple murder, a book that wrestles with ideas about power, money, marriage and murder. My conversation with Chloe Hooper will be in your feed tomorrow.
Catch you then,