Ultimately, the future of the Greens is all about their policies and their vehemence in acting on them, isn’t it?

Leadership is a minor consideration….for as long as their political direction continues to be right up the pole!

They need to REVERSE their crazy facilitation of onshore asylum seeking and refocus their humanitarian efforts elsewhere.

And they need to embrace a holistic push for a sustainable society, which necessitates a major reduction in immigration and a policy of population stabilisation and a move away from our worship of continuous growth.

These things, I believe would gel very strongly with the Australian populace once they are shown to be genuine Greens positions, and would see the Greens gain a great deal of support and power.

Robert, I see that you are a former adviser to Sarah Hanson-Young. Wow… is she ever the most misguided politician I’ve ever encountered! I hope you gave up that job because you could see how off the rails she is (and the Greens are) with her facilitation of an open-door onshore asylum seeking policy.

More views on how the Greens need to change….

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5080#136894

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5080#136895

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5080#136896

Good luck with the studies, I'm sure there's a PhD in there somewhere.

I remember loving Don Chipp, just the very idea of someone calling politicians bastards was something to behold.

Janine Haines was no Don Chipp but she kept the flag flying.

Then a blur, then Cherly Kernot (blah).

Then more blurs, then Natasha, then Andrew Bartlett (writing on the wall) then Lyn then ... oblivion.

The Democrats' legacy is not a happy one and they were much more conservative in their ways than the Greens ever have been, are or can be.

Voters (historically conservative folks that they are) are just waking up to what a Green influenced Government looks like. I can't see much of a future for the party myself, other than as an irritant in the Upper House.

Of course I may be wrong, let's see what 2013 delivers.

I agree with Ludwig that whilst charismatic leadership is important its policies that count.

The Greens have to start being for something rather than against everything. And, of course, they are for a safe, sustainable environment where everyone is happy and no-one is succored by the god of growth. Only that's pretty muh the message from every political party out there.

Why not use the leadership change to come up with some realistic and forward thinking alternatives. And before anyone says they exist already - why don't we hear about them.

BTW some of the negative headlines on Bob Browns retirement were woeful. Brown was a worthy and a formidable politician who deserved better. Good on ya Bob, enjoy your retirement.

There is simply no correlation between the Greens and former democrats, assassinated by Meg Lees, who instead of acting to keep the Bastards honest? Decided to get into bed with them to usher in the still despised GST, revenue surety merely masquerading as genuine reform.
I don't always disagree with Green policies, in fact, highly successful landcare outcomes was a product of cooperation between former combative Greens and farmers?
Declining National party support seems to be borne out by the comparative success of former nationals, who as independents, have registered more success in a single term than decades of National representation? Dairy, Sugar? Idiotic gun laws, followed by the massive increase in wild dog, feral pigs, goats camels and deer numbers? Prohibition, which as predicted, simply created an illegal market/manufacture and armed gangs, who are not restricted in their choice of lethal weapons.
Guns have never ever been the problem, just some of the nutters who get their hands on them, usually from entirely illegal sources.
Feral deer very nearly destroyed the native forests of NZ; until shooters and helicopters combined, to supply a very profitable European meat market, with a very professional and sustained cull.
Asian wolves, who if reintroduced from Frazier Island, might just do that job for us; if released into and confined inside our national parks?
I don't see the green party as anything more than special interest fringe dwellers and part of the still needed social conscience.
Govt could come through a coalition with more moderate centre parties and independents.
Indeed, an environmentally conscious bush is the logical place to seek expansion and a possible coalition. Given the numbers of blue collar workers flooding the bush and traditional social democratic views and values that still permeate the bush? Rhrosty.

Those greens, they support rampant homosexuality!

Rampant!

How does one come to terms, when one wants to be a recognised as a mother, and is a male who has a fasination with homosexuality!

Kipp, for context see comments at 'The house that Bob Brown built' and

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13510#233449

Life after brown for the Greens may be purple.

OR david f;

…Life after “Rainbow” Brown for the Greens may be purple!

I seem to recall that the Democrats were quite green to start with - well, they certainly were compared to the Liblabs – and then their greenness lost out to humanitarian issues or disconnected small side issues or something.

The Greens formed specifically because the Democrats weren’t cutting it in the environmental capacity, in an era of rapidly developing environmental awareness.

But then just about the same thing happened to them!

I think it is a crying shame that these parties have been largely usurped by terribly misguided humanitarian types, epitomised by Sarah Hanson-Young.

This is not new in my experience. I’ve seen it happen with the Australian Conservation Foundation and the North Queensland Conservation Council of which I was president twenty years ago.

It shouldn’t be a hard problem to solve, as there is definitely a place for strong humanitarianism in essentially environmental organisations. But it just needs to be focussed in the right directions… and not be deemed to be much more important than a holistic environmental / sustainability philosophy.

But crikey, it has caused enormous damage to the green movement in Australia, and hence to our ability to tackle the all-important issues of continuous growth and the massively antisustainable direction that our country is heading in.

There is a new party – the Stable Population Party, which is trying hard to focus on sustainability. It hasn’t gained much acceptance yet, but I think it is nicely poised to take over from the Greens if they now rapidly decline, which is almost certain to happen if they don’t undertake some major policy changes.