Thank you for your comments but I was hoping people would comment on my main point that the lack of unity of the environmental/climate change vote is degrading its representation rather than, as often happens, pick up on the example I used to illustrate why the this vote is under represented.

If the Greens get to exercise their potential balance of power, they will be pushing their whole raft of policies, many not accepted across the wider electorate. Any headway made on climate change will be welcome but without electoral support from across the whole political spectrum their efforts will be ephemeral.

So can you have some consideration for my position and that of many other voters? As political parties currently present their wares, my preferred vote for climate change comes with the baggage of policies I do not agree with.

The climate change vote is thus fragmented and is the loser.

Of course political parties are hopeless at addressing any issues that extend beyond the next election. No surprises there.They will spend obscene amounts of OUR money to garner our votes, when their previous record is all we need to judge their worthiness to govern. Getting re-elected is the most important issue affecting federal politicians today. Everything else is just waffle.

No Political party in Australia including the Greens can do anything to affect Global warming. The human effect on global warming is affecting only micro climates. Most of global warming is happening because of activity on the sun; ask any scientist observing the sun's behaviour. The Earth undergoes heat and cold changes without humans - ever heard of the Ice Age? What happens between Ice ages? It heats up by the activity of the sun. The Greens in NSW are really a political front for the Communist party using popular political issues to gain credibility. Their policy would create gross unemployment and social disorder. NO BORDERS, NO NATIONAL SECURITY, NO WAR. The greedy and violent heart of man must be changed first before these can be implemented.

Please explain what the Greens will do to create a more humanitarian society; their policies are merely negative and restrictive of human society. More oppressive laws to control productive people!

How will they reverse Global warming if they are in Government? Restriction on human activity will only affect micro-climate and local environmental change, which every Political Party is concerned about.

'..they have some quite fancifull policies. Last time i looked they had things like decriminalizing of drugs, lower age of consent to 14 and no one need work unless one wants to...'

Their policies are currently under revision and not available at the website. However, judging from the above, I'd say those are exactly the reasons I've always voted for them! (Except the age of consent one, I'm a little sceptical about that. I'll will wait until their policies are back on line for clarification.)

It is not suprising that you all keep saying that things wont change parties keep saying what you want to hear.

Maybe its about time you looked here

www.tapp.org.au

then go over your comments

Geoff has a fine idealistic idea here - a party supported by the great majority of people, dedicated solely to addressing climate change.
There are at least 2 whopping great problems with this.
The first is that you'd never get such a party together and garner the public support - in time to do anything - climate change would happen before you could.
The second is that there is no unified view on the answer to climate change, and indeed, quite bitter divisions exist regarding what course of action to take. In particular, vested interests of the mining and military-industrial complex are powerfully lobbying for nuclear energy as a solution. Environmentalists know that nuclear power would be too late, too dirrty and too dangerous.
Meanwhile Philo wants us to somehow change “the greedy and violent heart of man”. That’s such a tall order – we might just as well go with Dr Pangloss’s do-nothing attitude “Everything for the best in the best of all possible worlds”

The underlying problem is of an over-populated world, with a predominant doctrine of endless growth and endless consumption. How to address climate change? Well, in any ways we can. In the words of an old Redgum album “If you don’t fight, you lose”

I think that the Greens come the nearest to a “climate change party” and I’ll certainly vote for them. Christina www.antinuclearaustralia.com