A thoughtful article. It's an important time for the Greens. Gillard will suck prefs back from the Greens but maybe not as many as the ALP would like. The ALP have to hold those Qlds seats or else they are in big trouble.

The Greens have never been known as a strong social justice party. That claim was held by the Democrats. In the GST split many of the left of the Dems moved to the Greens creating a decidedly red Green party. The Greens have the policies but not the runs on the board.

They have a golden opportunity with the boat people news beat up to stick up for human rights. There's considerable uneasiness in the electorate about how we treat boat people. The Greens have to be careful as they are also anti-population and the prime cause of our rising population is migration (not only boat people).

The greens are going to have to get more credibility for mainstream politics such as economics, business, industrial relations and the like.

Despite Cardinal Pell's 1988 statement supporting separation of church and state, the apparent increase, in the last decade or so, of the proportion of Catholics and other pious-Christians in Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet suggests a wider agenda.

<< For all the variety in their many progressive policies, the Greens can’t shake off their image as a one-dimensional pro-environment party. >>

That is so untrue Max!! The Greens have been very vocal about the asylum seeker issue – and it has done them no good at all, because they are entrenched on the WRONG side of that particular debate!

I would think that many good environmentally concerned people have shunned the Greens directly because of this.

As for George Pell’s two cents worth, who gives a hoot??

The Greens don't stand for anything very much. They talk unrealistic nonsense - pie in the sky stuff, totally impractical.

The Greens rely for their votes on the young and on the irrational. Most people mature and become more conservative as they grow older: that leaves the Greens only with irrational people as their core supporters.

The Greens will never be anything other than a nuisance and an insult to democratic political process.

The huge point being missed is that the Greens are quasi-religious. Some of the most religious people I know are atheists: dogmatic, obedient to an ultimate source of authority (usually Gaia or a philosopher). No wonder the big Churches fear their competition for market share! The late Michael Crichton summed it up perfectly:

"Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

(Remarks to the Commonwealth Club by Michael Crichton San Francisco September 15, 2003)

"There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe"

Max Wallace wrote: "Of course, the Greens would have to declare that their secularism would not mean a reconsideration of funding for Catholic schools, but they could certainly demand there should be transparency into how that school funding is allocated, a policy that may be no different to Julia Gillard’s."

To me secularism means religion is not the business of the government. It neither supports nor opposes it. Government funding of religious schools is support for religion. I am a Green. If the Greens were to declare themselves a secular party and announce they will continue support for funding of religious schools I will resign from the Greens because they would be dishonest in claiming to be secular.