From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Cylinder Morris. It's Wednesday, May 7th. This election was always going to be the test for the Greens, because the thinking had long been that any election after a Labour government's first term would be their moment. This would be when disgruntled labor voters, disappointed that Anthony Albanese hadn't gone far enough on social issues, would turn in disgust to the Greens. They would be
absolutely harvesting votes today. National affairs editor James Massola on why the Greens dream of more seats turned instead into a profound loss. So, James, just to start off, what was the position that the Greens held prior to the election and what was the party actually hoping to achieve? You know, as the votes were being tallied.
Sure, Sam, and thanks for having me on. Look, before the election was called, the Greens had 11 seats in the Senate and four seats in the lower house. They had started the last term with 12. But of course, Lidia Thorpe defected to the crossbench.
Okay. And so, I mean, is it safe to say that their expectations were a bit sky high, like they were seeking to regain four existing seats and add five more?
Yeah. Look. That's right. Um, like every political party, the Greens went into this election with high hopes and talking up big plans and bigger ambitions if you like to win more seats. So they. The party had been hoping to win Wills in Victoria, just sort of bordering Melbourne. So inner city Melbourne they had hoped to win Richmond. A woman named Mandy Nolan was running for a second time there. She had a good, they believed, a very
good chance of winning. Uh, Fremantle in WA was another target seat for them, and there was a couple of others that, in my view, were perhaps a bit more optimistic. But yeah, they had five target seats for this election. That's right Sam.
Okay, so let's talk through the results then. Because before recording you described it as, you know, mixed. They had some big swings towards them, but they've also lost key seats. And at the time that we're recording this on Tuesday morning, the party's leader Adam Bandt, is perilously close to losing his own seat in Melbourne. So what's happened.
Like much of this election, Sam, it's a stunning story and one that I think will be, uh, kind of looking over the entrails of or reading the tea leaves or whatever metaphor you want to use for some time to come. So look, first of all the numbers, it looks like the greens will win six seats in the Senate again. So they're not going backwards in the Senate. Um, but in the lower house it's a different story. And
for the Greens, it's not a great story. As you mentioned, Adam Bandt is trailing in the seat of Melbourne at the moment. It's something like a 5% lead that his labor opponent enjoys at the moment, with about 65, 66% of the vote counted that, you know, that's not an
insurmountable lead by any means, but it's going to be tough. Um, I'd say the potential or rather a potential future leader of the Greens, Max Chandler-mather, you know, very outspoken in the previous term, very high profile for a first term MP. He's lost in the seat of Griffith. That was Kevin Rudd's seat once. Labor has got it back. Similarly, in Brisbane, Stephen Bates, a much lower profile MP. He's lost his seat. Um, Samantha Ratnam, who's the former state Greens leader in Victoria.
She was attempting to win Wills and she's not going to get there. We believe at this point in time. Similarly with Mandy Nolan in Richmond. So what we are looking at is a scenario where the Greens most likely have gone, will go down from four seats in the lower house to one. Um, the only person who looks like they're on track to hang onto their seat is, um, Elizabeth Watson-brown in the seat of Ryan in inner city Brisbane.
Okay, so let's talk about what's happened here because Greens leader Adam Bandt, you know, he's blamed the mixed results on Liberal Labor preference deals, which he says were designed to lock the Greens out. So is he right? Is this what's happened?
Look, these preference deals have played a part in locking out the greens and some of these seats. But I mean, that's my view, Sam. That's part of politics. Adam Bandt was elected to parliament in 2010 off the back of Liberal Party preferences. They put him ahead of the then labor candidate, Cathy O'Toole. I believe her name was. And you know, she missed out. He got up. So yes, he can be cranky about it, but it's the ebb and flow of politics. It's part of the rough and
tumble of politics. Um, another thing I think, you know, personally, I find quite interesting in that, you know, band has been quick to point out, is that the Greens have actually increased their overall vote at this election. You know, across the country, if you tally it all up, the problem has been simply Sam. They haven't increased it in the places it needed to increase. It wasn't concentrated in the correct seats. It was more of a small surge or small rise across the country.
Okay. So tell us so where where did they need to put their focus that they just didn't, you know, where is the massive mistake here I guess.
Yeah. Look I'm not it's that's a difficult question to answer, Sam, because I don't know that you could sort of immediately say, well, they, you know, didn't realize that they needed to win Melbourne or, you know, they weren't trying in Griffith or anything like that. I mean, they, they were trying they were campaigning hard. Max Chandler-mather in particular is a great on the ground campaigner, as we saw in 2022. So I don't think there was a strategic failure in the sense that they weren't
doing the work. The work was being done. They were working hard in their target seats like Wills and Richmond to there were resources put in on the ground in those target seats and in the seats that they wanted to hold on to. What has happened simply is, I guess, a microcosm or a replication of what's happened around the country, which is simply that Labor's vote surged, the coalition vote sank. Um, and and the Greens have kind of been I think you'd have to say roadkill.
Right. Okay. Well, let's get into the issues here because, well, for one thing, I'm really fascinated about what happened to the youth vote here because we know for the first time, Gen Z millennials, they outnumbered baby boomers in the federal election. So you would have thought that this might lead to the Greens doing particularly well this time around. So what happened?
Yeah, again, one of the most fascinating aspects of this result. And again, they're just there are so many at this election, um, the Greens identified before the last election, renters as a growing cohort of mostly younger people that they could target, that they could harvest the votes of that they could, you know, they hoped, turn into the next generation of Greens voters. And that worked in 2022. And we saw through the 22 to 25 Parliament, the 47th Parliament, that
they maintained that focus on housing and on renters quite successfully. Um, you know, much to the annoyance of the Prime Minister, as we saw in some of those exchanges between him and Chandler-mather in Parliament when the Greens initially blocked the Housing Australia Future Fund. So what's happened now? I mean, I'd like to see the data of something like the Australian National University's election survey. I'd like to see some of that data to absolutely know for sure that it's correct.
But what I suspect is, is that Labor's policies on housing were, well, they cut through. They were seen to be effective. They were seen. I mean, there was a suite of policies that the government was offering. Right. Um Housing Australia Future Fund, the government going essentially sort of guarantor so that you could buy as a first home buyer, a house with a deposit of just 5%. And the government would help you with the rest so you could
avoid mortgage insurance. There was a number of other policies too, obviously, and I think I think it cut through. I think labor actually, it's just as simple as they ran a good campaign, they had a good policy offering. Um, housing, as we know, is one of the most hot button issues in the country. And it worked.
And do you think that maybe the reason the Greens haven't succeeded here is because they wanted the perfect solution for housing, and perhaps they were just not seen as a very serious policy platform, you know, because they would accept nothing less than perfection, perhaps.
Yeah, exactly. It was a case of the greens making the perfect the enemy of the good in some ways. And there'll be Greens supporters listening to this who will
resent me saying this. But in some ways it's analogous to their decision to block the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme towards the end of 2009, when they voted with the Liberal Party, they defeated Kevin Rudd's CPRS, and that then kicked off the whole sequence of events that led to the change to Julia Gillard, the very poor 2010 election for labor, a whole series of of, you know, issues, problems, whatever you want to call them flowed from that. And
I think that's happened here too. You know, personally, Anthony Albanese and I do mean personally was determined to defeat Max Chandler-mather. He, as we all know, grew up in public housing. He was, you know, personally offended that the Greens decided to delay legislation that would have facilitated the building of more public housing. You know, the sort of
housing he grew up in. So he made it his mission to to sort of not compromise with the Greens to get that legislation through which they eventually did, and to go after the people led by Max, who'd blocked him from implementing his agenda. And it worked, right?
It did. And let's get on to, I guess, you know, another signature policy or platform, I guess for the Greens, of course, was their hardline stance on Gaza. They went hard backing Palestinians and the war with Israel. Did this hurt the party in this election?
I think this definitely hurt the party. And I think that the optics of their close alignment with the construction, forestry, Mining and Energy Union when there were allegations, serious allegations being made in these, you know, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age about the conduct of some union officials that led to the union being placed in administration. I think their decision to stand so closely with the
CFMEU probably put a few voters off as well. You know, in in seats like Griffith where they may have gone, or Ryan or Brisbane straight from the Liberal Party to, you know, people might have gone straight from the Liberal Party to voting for the Greens. And then, you know, through the course of that three years, I think some people saw that and said, you know what, I don't that doesn't represent my views at all on Gaza or on the CFMEU, and they've been punished for that.
And perhaps no surprise there. It was Max Chandler-mather who very prominently stood up, I believe, at a CFMEU rally. And I think a lot of people were quite shocked. Is that right?
Yeah. I mean, labor couldn't believe their luck that that had happened and that that moment, that rally, that appearance by Max Chandler-mather, um, they made use of that to remind or rather to paint, uh, that particular MP, former MP, as extreme and as sort of out of touch with the, uh, the views of the people of Griffith.
Okay, so what now? I've got to ask for the party's leadership, you know, is, is the party still going to support Adam Bandt in this new Parliament because I, I noted when you spoke on the pod, I think it was November last year. At that time, Adam Bandt was polling, I think, in a Resolve political Monitor poll. He was judged as the third least popular politician in Australia. I think he was trailing only behind Lidia Thorpe at number one and then Pauline Hanson, and then he was
equal third least liked politician along with Bob Katter. So is the Greens going to stick with that band?
I think that's very much an open question, Sam. Um, the Greens party room process is how they pick leaders, how all that goes down. It's not particularly opaque. I remember a few months after the 2010 federal election, Bob Brown, who was then still the leader of the party, was holding a press conference about something or other, and he just casually let slip that, uh, the then quite young senator Sarah Hanson-Young, had challenged Christine Milne for the deputy's
job and lost. No one had any idea for four months. And we all our jaws all hit the floor What? Sorry. Um, look, Adam Bandt is seen generally as, uh, having been a pretty good Greens leader. He, uh, improved their seat count in 2022 in the lower house. It's gone backwards this time round, but the national vote has grown. Bandt, if he wants, it, will be arguing that the overall Greens, you know, number of votes collected harvested has increased. There's been stability for the last 4 or 5 years. Uh
and that they should stick with him. Right. Um, but there will be and I mean, I know there are other ambitious people in that party room, and I am sure that they are making phone calls at the moment. Um, and, uh, you know, testing the waters, uh, sizing up whether to challenge Adam Bandt when the greens, you know, the ones who have been elected return to their party room in Canberra. It's a wait and see at this stage.
Okay, so give us the names though, James. Which which names should we be looking out for? Who? Who might just be challenging for the leadership in the future?
Sure. Look, we're not suggesting that these not suggesting that I'm, that I know for sure that these people you know are going to contest. But there are talented MPs in that party room who could run. Um, Larissa Waters, the deputy leader, um, from Queensland, Sarah Hanson-Young, who I mentioned a moment ago, who's still, I think, you know, young but has been in Parliament now for 18 or 19
years and has a stack of experience. Um, Mehreen Faruqi, the the sort of overall deputy rather than the Senate leader, which is waters she could challenge for the position and even someone from left field like a David Shoebridge. Um, maybe he'll put his hand up. I'm not saying that I know that any of those people will, but they're all in my mind. People with the potential to lead the party.
Okay, now just to wrap up, James, I've got to ask what role the Greens will be able to play going forward because despite losing seats, the party says it has a record vote in the Senate. So what's going to go on there? Will the Greens help or hinder labor?
Uh, that's I mean, that for me is perhaps the most interesting question because and I say that because of this, Sam, all through the last parliament, Albanese, you know, who spent decades, you know, fighting the Greens off in his own seat of Grayndler, spoke about how he didn't want to do deals. He wasn't going to kowtow. You know, he didn't compromise on the housing legislation. And eventually he got through exactly what he wanted to get through with a couple of
minor tweaks. I think we're going to see more of the same. And we know that Adam Bandt has been out in recent days saying now the Greens have sole balance of power. Labor must put dental into Medicare and they must revise the Aukus plan, and they must do this and they must do that. There's no musts that
Anthony Albanese is going to acquiesce to there. And what I think Bandt is at risk of doing already is sort of overplaying his hand, because he's forgetting that there is actually another party that has the balance of power in the Senate, and that's the coalition. Labor can team up with the coalition and pass legislation at any time all through the 1980s. Once, once, uh, John Howard took over from Andrew Peacock, Howard actually supported some of Labor's
biggest reforms in, you know, in a policy sense. And while it arguably extended the coalition's period of time in opposition, it also allowed the coalition to rebuild its credibility as a serious party that was working towards being ready to govern again now. Such was the result on Saturday night. It will be tough for the liberals to win in 2028.
They might even have to be thinking about 2031. So that means there's an opportunity for the next leader of the liberals to really think about, well, what do we want to do with the next 3 to 6 years? Where do we want to position ourselves on policy, and do we want to remake ourselves as a slightly less hardline oppositionist to everything party? And if they do that,
then the Greens will be irrelevant. And certainly Anthony Albanese will be looking to do deals with the liberals, at least on some legislation, say on national security type legislation, because he doesn't trust them, you know, their instincts on these sorts of matters. So Bant is already talking a big game, but I think he needs to be a bit more circumspect at this early stage.
Sam, this is so fascinating. I hope we get to speak about this sometime soon. James.
Thanks, Sam. Pleasure.
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Josh towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow the Morning Edition on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism, visit The Age
or smh.com.au. Subscribe and to stay up to date, sign up to our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a summary of the day's most important news in your inbox every morning. Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. Thanks for listening.