"In every respect, the Greens are set to move the nation to a place it has to go."

The author, like some many other innocents, is about to find out what the Greens are really about -- and it is not tree hugging.

The only apparent direction that the Greens want Australia to go is backwards, starting with the economy-damaging carbon (dioxide) tax.

Michael_in_adelaide and colinsett are on the mark with their comments about population growth.

Amazingly, the author doesn’t mention it, and the Greens are just failing completely to address this all-important issue.

Any green agenda that doesn’t include methods to reduce population growth and achieve a stable population isn’t worth the paper it is written on, especially in this country which has rapid growth with no end in sight and very powerful forces wanting to keep it that way.

Surely it has to be all about balance. That is: balance between the demand on our resource base and environment and the ability for them to meet this demand, in an ongoing sustainable manner.

It is silly to talk about a green agenda for our cities, as though it was to be done in isolation from country areas. Food, minerals, etc that supply our cities come from the country, as does most of our export income. It has all surely got to be part of the same agenda.

When the Greens take the growth issue seriously, they might themselves be taken seriously by a much larger portion of the populace that currently dismiss them as misguided no-hopers. Afterall, just about every voter in the country can see the problems with continuous population growth, whether they be traffic congestion, water restrictions, urban sprawl, loss of natural habitat, overfishing, etc.

When the Greens embrace population stabilisation and hence genuine sustainability, then they will be set to move the nation to a place it has to go. But certainly not before that.

In debating Australian Politics we often resemble Morris Dancers at a rock n roll fest.
It will not be Greens Labor or Conservatives that move Australia to a place it needs to be.
As always it will be voters.
Greens are stagnating,it may ruffle feathers but they do their best work, for Conservatives.
If not massive growth for them now when?
We Condemn them and Labor.
For setting the same carbon reduction target as Tony Abbott.
We make outrageous claims, unfounded ones, about a big new tax.
But ignore the conservative policy, very firmly, is to charge not emitters but tax payers.
Given the inability to see Conservatives lack of real policy's, Labors frozen refusal to again change leaders.
And the flat earth view Greens are going any place we are a nation needing as never before open and honest debate on our future in politics.

Again, morganzola, we find the enormous gulf between idealism and practicality.

>>I agree that our economy is overly dependent upon it, to the extent that phasing out the mining of coal will cause real economic and material pain, particularly to those organisations and individuals who have been hitherto profligate in their consumption of non-renewable resources.<<

Those "organizations and individuals" include vast swathes of the Chinese population. What right do you have to decide whether they have been/are being "profligate"? Why do you consider it ok to take it upon yourself to determine whether their economy grows to the point where their citizens enjoy the same standard of living that we have created here over the past century?

You are perfectly describing the dog in the manger. You decide that we are unhappy the way our natural resources being used, so other folk can't have any. Yah boo sucks.

That's not a very mature, world-citizen view, is it?

>>No doubt about it, if you measure living standards in purely material terms you're going to suffer in the decades to come<<

Ok, I'll bite.

How do you measure living standards, morganzola?

And I mean "measure". No abstract waffle about clean this or dirty that - real measurements please. Because if it can't be measured, it can't be managed.

>>...when it comes to politics what you have in common with the crassest Tea Party types is a propensity to go after the messenger - in this case the Greens...<<

Nope. It's the message they deliver that concerns me. I would say exactly the same thing if Greens' "policies" were espoused by any other political party. Except that being closer to the mainstream - i.e. 88% of Australians - neither would dare put out such economically destructive proposals.

I like sheep. They taste nice when you roast them. And their wool is very warm in my doona. They also have good skin that goes well in my babies cot.

I dont like Greens. They dont taste nice when you roast them. They dont have warm skins that you can use for babies cots...and their hair is all greasy and doesnt keep you very warm at all.

I dont really like the city either...there are too many Greens there.

I do like farms. They have lovely farmers living on them that plant trees and fence off creeks. They also spend a lot of time worrying about willow trees and rabbits and foxes and erosion. Sometimes on weekends they go out and work together to fix these things with a club they call landcare.

Usually you do not see many Greens fixing those things because they are too busy in the city drinking coffee and worrying about how bad the farmers are with their nasty sheep.

I dont like rabbits.

@Pericles:

With respect to your concern for the Chinese, I assume that you're aware that only a relatively small proportion of the coal used in their in their industry comes from Australia - indeed, they produce most of it themselves. Also, I thought it was clear that I was referring to the profligacy of Australians, who infamously create more greenhouse emissions per capita than anybody else in the world.

You also misconstrue (intentionally?) the reasons that the Greens want to phase out coal mining.  It has nothing to do with self-interest and everything to do with placing global sustainability ahead of material excess.  We (as in First World developed nation-states) are largely responsible for having created over the past couple of centuries the industrial greenhouse emissions that are very probably the cause of Anthropogenic Global Warming.  Mining and burning coal for energy is one of the principal global causes of greenhouse emissions, and as a producer of coal Australia has a global responsibility to cease supplying the direct source of much industrial carbon dioxide.  

While I agree that large, rapidly developing countries like China and India have superficially legitimate aspirations to emulate First World living standards, the unfortunate fact is that if they manage to fulfil them, it will be at the very great environmental cost to all other people and living species.  I agree that we have no right to dictate anything to China, but I don't see that there is any moral problem in phasing out trade in material that is known to harmful to the environment, both in its extraction and its use.

If we recognise that our own material living standards are ecologically unsustainable, it would be hypocritical in the extreme to continue to profit from supplying the raw materials for greenhouse emissions. In short, you misrepresent the Greens - which seems to be a common element in pretty well everything you write about them.

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