First off ,
I am with you on the need/necessity for the minor parties. We need more of them . Like our congregations arguments elsewehere, I find the passion and focus within conservation greens really appealing welcome stuff. The leadership and their failure to support competency in conservation is another matter.

My point is that the great progress in conservation in this fragile country (and it has been substantial ; everybody can have a shower and our livestock industries are living in better and more sustainable ecosystems) has come, and only will come ( because its a complex care profession) at the cost and benefit of a consensus across party and rural industry custodian lines. The greens have been party to quickfix and careless accusation politics and this has helped ruin the role of career carers and scientists .
As I said, careless crap can kill - and a new home for ETS closer to Wong won't give wheels to a vehicle that never had any. Inexperienced unprofessional opinion is the scourge of current affairs driven politics -stay out of it.
As for more detail on forest/ sequestration and bush care (just another example of greens misdirected myopia) I am not going to let the cat out of the bag just yet .You are right, even the conservatives can't be trusted to move us on to better planning of the environment . Maybe sometime?
If you were a capable risk management scientist like myself you would know that a mere shift to the right words is not enough to effect better implementation. The clothes are still invisible and totally unsuitable .
The net effect of the last 20years meddling with conservation careers has been duplication and disintegration ( symbolised by the very low cost benefit of environmental planning eg NSW in particular)
Sometimes its better to wait till the whole street can see whether those in charge of the conservation agenda really know what they are doing .Hopefully, at such times you don't have to say much to get people to hear what you've been saying for years.

Sorry King Hazza but your self confidence is miss placed.
But then again resting that case will do you much better than saying it out loud.
So we shoulder arms, stay home, become a neutral country.
No treaty's no one comes to our help and we do not go the their help.
1 How many voters from both major partys would say ok to that?
2 What if say most do not understand putting flowers in our gun barrels and singing nice songs will not stop our enemy's?
Dream about minor party's, but look at the history of this country.
Know such party's fade away once they get away from the reason they exist.
Democrats stopped keeping the Ba#@!ds honest.
DLP stopped hating it party of birth.
Howard stole one nation.
Country party became the miners party, sorry they call it national but it is dieing.
Evolution of LL Liberals and Labor will continue, elections are about numbers percentages voters wants not dream time thoughts of dozens of independents who could never agree in any case.
I stand by my thought, greens are alive only because few understand the extremist/radical nature of todays Bob Brown.
Just as surely as the recent financial crisis has not resolved a housing bubble that will burst one Day.
We face a world that needs more than ever to defend its self, a horrible unwanted war may well be around the corner.
I doubt reasonable men think greens are right in laying down our defense.
About half at least of green votes return to the ALP, that number will grow massively this election.

Hanrahan I'd love to answer you but you will have to actually give me a specific statement or policy quote for me to answer; or for that matter, which policies in which areas are careless quickfixes, what's missing from them etc.

Nice Belly. I thought you'd have a hard time differentiating "Neutrality" and "flower-power-passivism"- it really says a lot.
1- How many voters would support us being neutral? I imagine quite a lot- put a referendum on whether we should join Iraq and I imagine most would oppose it- the only reason any would support it are the "Australia needs America to protect us from Indonesia" crowd.
2- What enemies? We're surrounded by pretty passive, modern and mostly democratic nations, you do realize.
But do tell- how exactly are we MORE secure from joining in Iraq? Do you really think America would let us, a country that regardless of foreign policy it enjoys a good relationship with, sitting in a strategic area, get overtaken by a (by definition) anti-western power just because we wouldn't have joined?

And do tell what the TRUE extremist nature of Bob Brown is.
And do tell what this increasing probability for a great war is too!
And it's rather bizarre to assume our defense would be worse under the Greens- considering that national defense is what they intend to use the army FOR.

Again, actual examples and analyses please- not lazy assumptions.

Private Bell dads army reporting for duty King Hazza.
Well may as well drop the sarcasm now but it interests me how some can insult others herein OLO.
For being involved in matters that control all our lives politics is just one.
KH My learning started as a kid, hungry and hopeless for a time I thought Communism was an answer.
Maturity set in early, nearly pre teenage I saw the dreadful truth.
Socialism took over, not for long, it killed its self in my head, promoting idleness.
Now long ago I saw reality my party, all big ones know we already in comparison to others have in part Socialism, look at America the fight to get Medicare.
Greens, for a while closely tied to my party, by preferences, I even hand out their HTV.
They however are not a true conservation party.
They are middle class out of touch radicals, you truly appear to think their defense policy's are salable.
You stick your verbal tongue out at me and say Belly you got it wrong.
Sorry fella you live in another world.
Do you truly think greens can ever be main stream?
Your mob has voted against an ETS because they wish to sell a far more radical one.
Never one the public will buy.
Said it before say it again they have lost all sales skills are selling rotting fish sandwich's next to a golden arches and unaware no one is buying.

Belly when are you going to realize that no amount of repeating an empty rant consisting of the Greens being "radical"/"communist" and vague implications that they disastrously "won't work" if put to government (each accusation without a single bit of proof or even vaguest attempt to get a quote) is going to change the fact that you have zero convincing arguments.
And I'll say it again- the ETS is NOTHING but a tax-rise for coal and oil-based energy producers passed down to consumers- do tell why it's SO important that we have one (or how it's supposed to clean up the atmosphere).
If the Greens keep sinking it, good for everyone that doesn't want to see their power bills and petrol fees rise even further.

You say you were captivated by Marxism when you were young but since learned the error of your ways? Good for you- I didn't, still don't care for marxism, and can clearly tell the Greens aren't Marxist.
I'm starting to doubt you've actually looked through the website at all because you had plenty opportunity to give me an actual policy quote- or better yet, a quote from an elected Greens member betraying their "true cause" on the news.

As for if they EVER form govenment- I'd say there's a good shot- as the two major parties continue to make expensive stuff-ups, force internet filters, pander to extreme religious groups and give taxpayer's money to the coal industry, while the Greens continue to promote their more recent moderateness and proximity towards the 'center' os social policy, as well as much better record of integrity and interest in public and consumer rights, they would continue to gain popularity.

It seems only people that keep buying into third-person stereotypes that they're some kind of secret flower-power socialist cartel and don't actually check for themselves to form their own assumptions that will never consider them.

Again, provide just ONE specific case that wasn't made up- or even actually address my points.
Otherwise I will only keep insisting you actually try to prove it.

Hazza, there is one major difference between the greens, & the other two.

The other two only make their stuff ups, or is that stuffs up, by accident.

The greens plan to do it.

A chinese cooley would look rich to the average Ozie, if we shut down everything you lot want to shut down.