Per week after abandoning its opposition to a lot of the Albanese authorities’s agenda, the Adam Bandt-led Greens at the moment are searching for to dictate phrases to the federal government on a proper alliance forward of the following election. Given the polls hold pointing to a hung parliament as the very best consequence for a really odd authorities, that makes good sense.
Equally smart, from the Labor perspective, is to explicitly reject any settlement with the Greens, and decide to refusing to manipulate in alliance with them within the occasion Labor finds itself in a minority.
There are two good causes, from the federal government’s perspective. The primary is that Bandt has dominated out supporting the Coalition in any respect after the following election (a place that after all might change ought to Bandt get replaced by a much less divisive chief after the election). If Labor’s place is that Bandt can assist Labor or Dutton and it received’t be discussing the matter, it doesn’t go away the Greens with a lot room for negotiation.
The second cause is that Labor — and Anthony Albanese, who was then chief of the Home — has been there, achieved that with the Greens beneath Julia Gillard. Bandt says that’s a mannequin of power-sharing. Certain as hell is, simply not fully in the way in which he thinks.
Sharing energy with the Greens led the Gillard-Swan authorities to ship a high-quality emissions abatement scheme as a situation of Greens assist. It was a great coverage final result for which the Greens beneath Bob Brown and Christine Milne deserve credit score. Besides it was additionally a crown of thorns for Gillard and an necessary cause — although under no circumstances the one cause, thanks Kevin Rudd — why Labor misplaced by a landslide to Tony Abbott, who promptly killed the scheme and ushered in what’s now 11 years of delay and denial on local weather. Swings, as they are saying, and roundabouts.
What Albanese demonstrated within the Gillard years, nevertheless, was a capability to get an enormous agenda by way of a hung parliament. You may see him out in Manuka on parliamentary sitting nights, eating with Rob Oakeshott, or within the chamber, pulling apart Tony Windsor, at all times working to get the numbers. There’s actually no-one in Parliament with as a lot talent and expertise at working in minority authorities than Anthony Albanese.
All of the extra cause why Labor must be seeking to the teals, not the Greens, as its pure companions if it slumps into minority. Teal MPs can ship smart, centrist authorities, extra rational coverage, higher transparency and actual local weather motion, with out the identification politics obsessions or tax-everything-that-moves focus of the Greens. Albanese is aware of tips on how to get outcomes from working with a number of companions within the Home of Representatives.
Committing to work with the teals would even be a sign to the citizens of Albanese’s willingness to work “throughout the aisle”, whereas Peter Dutton demonises teal MPs. Out of the previous 5 elections, there’s solely been one the place a celebration received greater than 77 seats — Tony Abbott in 2013. Clearly the citizens now prefers governments in or hovering close to minority. Who would you relatively main the nation, Labor might ask — somebody who has a observe file of accomplishment in such circumstances, or somebody whose default place is vilifying anybody not like him?
There have been some attention-grabbing reactions on-line to a latest piece in regards to the Greens, with progressives questioning why Labor simply couldn’t get together with the Greens as a result of they’re all actually after the identical factor. This jogged my memory of Brian yelling on the Folks’s Entrance of Judea and the Judean Folks’s Entrance preventing within the sewers of Pilate’s palace. Politics is a blood sport; the Greens need to destroy and exchange Labor; Labor desires to crush the Greens. The stakes are, from the perspective of each, monumental, no matter no matter intersection of coverage targets would possibly exist between the 2.
Lamenting that they’ll’t get alongside is thus an absurd train in singing kumbaya in the course of a knife combat. Suppose they need to be struggling collectively? “We are struggling collectively.”
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