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The Forum > Article Comments > Risky business: war on the Greens will hurt Labor > Comments

Risky business: war on the Greens will hurt Labor : Comments

By Robert Simms, published 16/7/2012

The political antidote Labor proposes to the Greens is in effect a shift to the right in the form of a Labor/Liberal pact to 'lock-out' the Greens.

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We are watching the long overdue death of 'rogressive' politic's in Australia. They are undermining themselves as they have whenever they've gained power anywhere in the world.

While the Labor Party will tear itself apart, and lose support left and right, the focus on the more loony progressive nature of the Greens platforms will ensure their electoral demise. Reasonable genuine enviromentalists, especially the young, will desert both them and the self-destructing Labor.

We'll have sensible conservative policies and governments, which will include a sensible and attractive enviromental focus, for several generations now.
Posted by imajulianutter, Monday, 16 July 2012 9:18:37 AM
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Only the intellectual effete would consider the party bag of populist policies that the greens offer as principles. The linking of the greens and Labor has enabled the coalition to reclaim the centre ground.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 16 July 2012 10:44:05 AM
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The greens clearly owe their positions of power to preferences.
When they signed up to the alliance with Labour, they signed up to progressing Labour policies.
They simply failed to follow that formula!
In effect, they tore up their alliance.
If green intransigence continues, the end result will be the reinstitution of the former Howard govt policies.
People will be resettled, and accorded temporary protection.
There will be no family reunion.
A compromised and vastly more humane position will be lost.
Politics is the art of the possible and some progress.
A 7-12% support base, on its own, would likely result in just 2-3 senate seats and irrelevance?
We confront the very real possibility of another Great Depression.
We simply cannot should not pursue loony tune policies at this time, that lock up and throw away the key on essential energy resources, possibly worth many multiple trillions, or policies that virtually force economic contraction, job losses and the loss of entirely essential manufacturing capacity!
The greens should stand on their own two feet and stand or fall entirely on their own policy paradigms, not convenient and often very temporary pseudo or torn up alliances!
And on that basis, why then should they expect either the vox populi or the major parties to remain loyal to them.
The greens had a unique opportunity to progress their party's future fortunes and popular local support, with things like gay marriage getting critical major party support.
We have seen how the return of conservative parties have dealt that sill tenuous support, a very cruel blow.
The greens will not succeed or continue to block govt policy, nor progress their own agenda, on their own.
They need to recognise that fact and move very quickly to mend all the bridges they seem to be burning, with pragmatic compromise, however unpalatable, to simply honour their alliance agreements!
After all, Labour can hardly be further harmed!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Monday, 16 July 2012 11:34:54 AM
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When a toilet overflows, you call in a plumber, & get the thing fixed. Of course a seldom used or looked at toilet, like the one down the bottom of the garden, may overflow for some time, before the smell or sight of the mess brings correction.

Greens, do be careful. You are getting so noisy that more people are looking your way. Soon enough will have noticed the developing mess, to call the plumber.

The self delusion, exhibited in this piece, shows you think you are something more than all the little annoying parties that have appeared & disappeared, with out much trace over the years.

Obviously assisted by the incompetence of the red witch, you have advanced further than you should have, but don't bet your shirt on this continuing. Once the distraction of the red witch is gone, the full attention of the people will turn to you.

The evidence of your policies forced on Labor will be seen, & your demise will be much faster than other such rumps have suffered in the past. At least it won't be a lingering death, but it will be merciless.

We are seeing the effect on voters of a party having a nasty viscous leader, especially a female one, can do to a parties standing & vote. This is just one more cardinal sin you have committed. Every time she speaks in the media it helps build the tsunami that will sweep you away.

What do they teach you people in these courses you are doing? It can't be too practical.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 16 July 2012 12:16:55 PM
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If I were advising the Gillard govt, I'd advise them to load up the double dissolution trigger then pull it three or four months before the election!
This and not preferencing the greens, will be seen as a sign of strength, from a govt that thus far has protected Australia from the GFC. I would further advise them to further separate/differentiate themselves from the Greens and their economic contraction policy paradigms, by forecasting, a re-elected Gillard/Labour govt, was prepared to allow the exploration and exploitation of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea, for a probable bonanza of hydrocarbon resources that would likely earn multiple trillions PA; for years to come, and provide enough essential wealth to convert our nation to a carbon neutral one far sooner than might be the case.
The fact that these resources would likely result in four times less hydrocarbon release, than current conventional supplies, and act, to assure our allies, of lower cost, lower carbon producing energy supplies, would simply help us, them and the environment.
Think, all food production has an energy component, as does manufacture, food processing harvesting, wealth and job creation.
We can help this by transferring some of our food production to other places with far better water resources!
And convert much or our traditional farming areas to very low water use alga and the bio-diesel farming, production and continuing energy independence!
The Greens agenda, as I read it, is to make everything more expensive, without ever increasing our capacity to pay for it!
In other words, create a society where for the first time, the children will be far less prosperous than their parents!
Necessary, they claim, to stop us and or the world from consuming so much carbon creating energy?
Ignoring/discounting the fact that we have many forms of energy that can be produced at lower cost than current fossil fuel supplied power. [Wave and mass produced solar thermal for starters!]
Converting to that alternative and often argued against, power is not difficult; albeit, will cost more initially, or at least until usage/economies of scale prevail.
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Monday, 16 July 2012 12:32:39 PM
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If it was not for progessive politics in all of its multi-various forms, with all of its warts, failings and limitations, ALL human beings in the Western world would still be controlled by the tyranny of the "catholic" church, or the christian church altogether as a state imposed "religion".
People could still be imprisoned and/or executed for dissent, blasphemy, heresy, apostasy etc etc. Or even for wearing colorful clothes, singing, dancing or having fun. As in Calvin's theocratic fascist mini-state in Geneva.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 16 July 2012 3:56:29 PM
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Ah, Robert. What a pity. You’ve attracted the loony fringe instead of rationality. It is interesting, alarming and predictable to read these sorts of responses every time the Greens are mentioned. That is the reason human civilization is collapsing along with the environment in which we evolved, due to overpopulation and the consequent toxic pollution. Just as most people want to believe in a supernatural protector in the sky, they also want to believe humans are on the right track and all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Thinking, concerned people like the Greens who see the looming catastrophes and have policies that could alleviate matters, are seen as bearers of bad news - and you know what happens to them. They’re being shot down because to do otherwise would be to accept that we’ve stuffed up big time; we’re about to become the shortest living dominant species this planet has seen by millions of years, and our extinction will not cause the universe to blink. But to admit it would be un manly and un-Australian, wouldn’t it?
Posted by ybgirp, Monday, 16 July 2012 4:32:55 PM
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Haven't you woken up yet daffy, that is exactly what the greens want to reintroduce, except they want to be the controlling power?

They obviously have a problem as the UN is up to the same trick, using much the same confidence trick to attempt it.

Wouldn't it be lovely to watch a clash between the two, provided of course, they both lost.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 16 July 2012 4:40:02 PM
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'a govt that thus far has protected Australia from the GFC'

The only thing that has protected Australia from the GFC has been the sustained and virulent growth of China's economy over the last 15 years. Now, China's economy is slowing to dangerous levels and the strain on Australia is definitely starting to show. Mass layoffs in both private and public sectors, plummeting real estate values hemorrhaging people's net wealth, state economies failing their credit ratings and some heading for bankruptcy (pity about all that government revenue we no longer earn due to our drunken privatisation bingeing), skyrocketing costs of living as the long-term effects of Howard's user-pays utopia kick in, and much more to come.

The people blame the government, and the government blames the Greens, and the Coalition is keeping quiet about the fact that it's THEIR neo-liberal agenda that created the GFC mess in the first place. Yet the Greens have remained true to their ideals and policies throughout these trying times and this is reflected in their small but strong and steadily growing support base.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 16 July 2012 5:07:48 PM
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Hasbeen - as if the greens have any real poltical power here in the land of Oz.
Meanwhile, although he writes largely within the context of USA politics and "culture" (or whats left of it), one of my very favorite progressive voices/advocates is Henry Giroux at http://www.henrygiroux.com

Plus Chris Hedges and the mulivarious people who are featured on the newsletters provided by Alternet, Truthdig, Truthout, Common Dreams, Democracy Now, and the Reader Support News service.
I dont see any evidence that the greens are going to take over the world or that green philosophy etc has any real influence at all in the world-wide scale of things.
Indeed anything that could be remotely associated with green, or any kind of social justice too, in the USA is being very deliberately and systematically dismantled with the right-wing stink-tanks providing the ideological justifications for such, the zombiefied robotic "human beings" to accomplish such, and bottomless barrels of gold to fund/finance their dismantling projects
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 16 July 2012 5:35:57 PM
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Daffy, what do you think the IPCC is, a conservative think tank?

Then how about Obama & the EPA closing down productive enterprise for pie in the sky green garbage. Hell he even praises how Spain advanced their economy with green power. One really has to doubt that these people's sanity.

I suppose you think our little fool Julia woke up one morning & decided a carbon tax was a good idea. If she did, it was because Bob was under her bed whispering "carbon tax" all night, & she fell for his subliminal message. Think it was more like a shout, "want the lodge baby, give us a carbon tax. & it's yours".
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 16 July 2012 6:41:13 PM
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Hasbeen, did you also complain when John Howard brought in the GST; thought not!!
Posted by Kipp, Monday, 16 July 2012 7:35:54 PM
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Daffy,
it was western liberal democrats that provided the advances that have led us to the freedoms we all, in the west, enjoy.

That you spruik all the usual anti western liberal democratic propaganda says much about your disconnect with the realities here.

Those organisations you cite as your alternative reading are linked to and supported by all the usual single issue leftie focused groups. eg. a multitude of greens groups, Gay and Lesbian groups, climate change groups, democracy for America groups, labor and human rights groups.

Now while many of the articles and issues in your news outfits are reasonable and would draw my support the overall aim of the news outfits seem the same as their supporting groups. ie not so much to change things on particular issues but to pull the whole Western Democratic structure down.

Western Liberal Democracy with, as you say, 'all of its warts, failings and limitations' is the most superior form of social organisation the world knows or has ever known. Of course it can be improved but not by destroying it.
Posted by imajulianutter, Monday, 16 July 2012 7:51:22 PM
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imajulianutter:- your assertion that the reasonable changes proposed by the groups you mention will pull the whole Western Democratic structure down, is as ridiculous as the notion that granting marriage equality will destroy the institution of heterosexual marriage. If these structures are so feeble, then they deserve to collapse. Your reading of the intentions of the multitude of 'groups' is seriously flawed. As you write, they seek change, nowhere in their manifestos do they seek destruction of the system that permits their dissent.
Your quasi religious insistence that your way is the only true path to ‘salvation’, is exactly the behaviour that will destroy our already weakened democratic system.
Inclusiveness, fairness, decency, equality are the things a true democrat would espouse. And a little specificity would not go astray. Which of the Australian Greens multitude of policies will lead to destruction of our freedoms? Vague threats and generalities have no place in reasoned argument.
Posted by ybgirp, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 8:00:25 AM
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Daffy,

currently the greens and labor are attacking our freedom of expression with their proposals to control media organisations. There is an excellent article in todays Australian on this topic. Well worth reading because you would be limited in your beliefs if 'Inclusiveness, fairness, decency, equality... ' are the only things you believe Liberal Democrats espouse.

Mate the traditional family structure including the extend family is one of the foundations of Western Culture ... fundamentally changing the nature of that will destroy Western Culture.

So too will the desire to limit the efficient generation of electric power and industrialisation. Limiting growth and development or putting into place far too restrictive laws on the use of capital. These are the tacit or unrecognised aims of many of the cited groups. Thay will similarly fundamentally undermine our Western Liberal democracies.

As a leftie, with the usual false clain of being democratic, of course you won't agree with my assessments. It is usual for you to criticise my view, you'll support all change you see as improvements yet you will not specify how your changes won't undermine our system. You'll just say all the changes will make Liberal Democracy more representative yet you won't see or acknowledge the negative impacts on Liberal Democratic systems if you undermine the basic family unit, industrial development or the use of capital.
Posted by imajulianutter, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 11:17:05 AM
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