Oh please, pull the other one....

What happens to the Greens if the faceless ones in the ALP decide they can't win the next election and act to cut their losses? They might choose to remove the current PM in favour of an experienced hand like Simon Crean with Martin Ferguson as deputy and call a snap election to try to catch the Coalition off guard. Their hope would be to limit the loss to a one or two election loss rather than a three or four election loss, as might well be the case now.

An essential element of this tactic would be not to preference the Greens or any independents over the Liberals. The Liberals would probably do the same. Result: no Greens in the Reps and no balance of power in the Senate. It will be back to sit ins in the forest for some Greens and rejoining the Socialist Party for others.

Seems like a reasonable enough assessment of the situation.

This essay describes how the media really works.

http://www.dabase.org/popdisgu.htm

It is particularly the case with right-wing populist "news"-papers and radio shock jocks.

Plus this essay titled Reality Politics For Ordinary Men & Women

http://www.dabase.org/p8realpolitik.htm

Quote: "....the Liberal Party, supported by fewer than 10 per cent [of Australians]...."

I stopped reading after seeing this nonsense. It does not matter whether the author is ill-informed, incompetent, lazy or sloppy; why would anyone take any notice of anything she says about any topic?

Quote: " ..tend to over-focus on pet issues like Coal Seam Gas which, while worthy, do not deliver large amounts of votes"

The Greens are fortunate Ms Wynter has returned to academia given that statement. CSG is not only the most pressing immediate environmental issue in Australia (climate change being the long term one) but it is also a crucial chance for the Greens to broaden their appeal and their base. This one hits the "country cousins" not the inner-city progressives (the Greens already have that vote for crying out loud!) and pushing it hard will see a whole new constituency looking at the Greens in a new light for the first time. If the Greens took Ms Wynters advice they would remain trapped in their urban ghetto, with a vote never rising out of the teens.

To my rather platitudinous and uneducated mind, I firmly believe that after the next federal election all but a very few Greens shall be consigned to the political wilderness for ever and a day !

I don't think anybody with even a modicum of common sense will ever again, trust a Green or a green agenda.

Even I, an arch-conservative, have always harboured even nurtured a very commiserative attitude for protecting our precious environment. However, after the events of the preceding twelve months or so, the Greens have done nothing other than mount an attempt to totally wreck havoc on our country.

For the sake of this once great nation, the Greens MUST go - and go absolutely !

L.B.Loveday - thanks for picking up the error, the previous version of my article should have read "Liberal National Party (LNP) attracted fewer than 10 per cent of the votes". I apologise for this error, which has now been corrected so you may read on!

Problem with the 'Greens' is that they are not 'green'...well not in the way that they purport to be - and certainly no more 'green' than Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard. Greens are a POLITICAL party that exploits peoples well meaning desire to do the right thing for the environment. Not an environmental party that exists in a political environment...and there is a massive difference.

They are very politically savvy, manipulative, ambitious, fearless and ruthless/unscrupulous politicians. They will do and say whatever it takes to get more power.

The majority of their supporters believe that a vote for the Greens is a vote for the environment...but the reality is that the vote for the Greens is a vote for the Greens. The environment is a tradable commodity for them to achieve ambitions of power and control- not the end point at all.

In my view the 'Greens' and their core supporters are all very naughty boys and girls and should be sat in the corner and spoken very sternly too. And the odd poke with a blunt object would not hurt either.

The Greens may have represented 13 per cent of Australians at the last election, but I suspect they would be hard pressed to achieve double figures now.

The art of leadership is to figure out where your followers are going and run like hell to get there ahead of them. The Greens are running like hell, but fewer and fewer people are running in the same direction.

I join my arch conservative Friend as what one who is just as much ALP would be called
Greens are no answer I look to the end of them.
BUT clearly here and in other threads some fail to understand politics.
At the next federal election, if the greens vote dropped to half its 12% base, it will not.
They in all likelihood would still control the senate for another term.
Some seem not to understand, election to that house is for six years,and only half stand for reelection each federal election.
It is more than 2 years, Abbott will not force an election.
He any day, any second, could stumble.
Daily he does, over his boots his own words his ability to be as untruthful as an old time snake oil salesman at a circus.
HOWEVER, Abbott may get his DD election, he wants just that,at any cost.
If he, with greens help kills the steel industry's help in carbon tax,Gillard will take it to the polling booths.
Such an election leaves Abbott in control of both houses and greens? forever a flea.