Green with idealism

There's no denying that of Australia's political parties, the Greens have the most comprehensive and ambitious environmental policies. They advocate for a 100% emissions reduction by 2030, more than double the reduction planned by Labor, and quadruple the Coalition's goal. However, in the event that the Greens hold the balance of power in either house during a potential Shorten government, Richard Di Natale has made clear that they'd block Labor's climate policy if it doesn't meet their standards of ambition.

We saw this stubborn idealism at play in 2009 when Bob Brown and the Greens sided with Tony Abbott, inexplicably voting down Kevin Rudd's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the senate. Eventually, after a chaotic leadership spill, Julia Gillard and Labor put a price on Carbon just a year out from the 2013 election. Then, when Abbott was elected he hastily wound back the clock on this short-lived reform. Had the scheme come into effect in 2009 it would have been economically and politically unviable for the Coalition to undo it four years on. So, just as Labor must take responsibility for its failure on climate policy, so too must the Greens recognise the consequences of their unwillingness to compromise. Their poor choice left the door ajar for a further decade of climate denial in Australia. Seemingly Greens' tragics have the luxury of a mnemonic blindspot when it comes to this piece of political history. The party is similarly ignorant of history's harsh lesson, as Richard Di Natale signals he'll follow in his mentor's muddy footsteps.There is, of course, strategic motivation behind the Green's approach, and yes - although they'd have you believe otherwise - they aren't yet so sanctified to have transcended political self-interest. In fact, it is the only way they've gotten as far as they have, because it's the only way any party is dealt a seat and hand at the federal game.

A vote in favour of Labor's climate policies would actually be detrimental to the Greens. This is because the party platform is built around a mantra that Labor and the Coalition are corrupt environmental terrorists in moral deficit, and that the Greens are the best alternative. No-one could argue that corporate interests don't steer the major parties, but in this lies a great opportunity for headstrong adversarialism. On the other hand, facilitating Labor's genuine - albeit far less ambitious - reform on climate policy could simply bleed votes back to them. On smaller issues though, the Greens have the convenience of a role of eternal opposition. In this role, whenever a major party matches them on policy, they can demand political royalties for their profound influence, and when they don't, they can cry "corporate sell-outs".

Ex-Greens MP Ms Nina Springle wrote this in her resignation letter after a recent and disastrous Victorian election campaign: "The party establishment continues to stumble from one train wreck decision to the next, leaving a wake of destruction behind it, blatantly disregarding the human toll, all in the name of something I cannot even name anymore." Numerous accusations of sexual abuse and misogyny within the party have thrown it's culture into disrepute. Di Natale's response when grilled by Sky News' David Speers was to say "It's a nice try David" and to mistake his interviewer for a Labor frontbencher, declaring "we won't be lectured to by the Labor party about toxic culture." Di Natale's inflated sense of the Greens betrays an arrogance that has pervaded the cultural core of the party. A modern and progressive party cannot expect to be taken seriously if it doesn't take misogyny and sexual assault seriously. On this, Di Natale borrowed from the Liberal playbook by shirking responsibility to his state leaders.

Perhaps all of this internal dysfunction was a sufficient distraction from a decade of maladministration by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, which Di Natale opportunistically condemned just as soon as one million fish died. The lungs of the land are drying up and our parliamentary environment advocate has spoken up too late. The Greens have broadened their policy horizons since their inspired inception in Tasmania's Franklin Dam movement, but they may have spread themselves too thin. The advantage of a singular focus on the environment is no longer theirs, and their record calls their integrity and commitment to climate action into question.