Following the trends from 2000, the vote for the greens is steadily creeping up, whilst the vote for Labor is continually slipping. A decade ago, the greens were 1/15th of the size of Labor, and captured the fringe voters, whilst wielding little or no power.

Today the greens' vote is 1/2 that of the Labor vote, and seemingly dictating (and getting the credit for) the policies on the left. Gillard's attempt to garner the green vote has simply made her looking weak and shedding votes to the greens and coalition.

By 2013, Labor could have lost enough to both sides to have the coalition far ahead, with the greens appearing to be the only viable alternative.

IM SICK OF HEARING THE WORD coalition

why compare just oner part
of the green labrat party numbers
to both the coal-ition numbers

lets compare party vote to party vote
regardless of coalition that forms
the collusion to govern

no the greens will not be the next opposition
they like to hide in dark corners
playing the odds..

then slip it in
when we arnt watching

[stop trying to bait poor belly]

I think as an opposition party the Greens would be a lot better than either of the majors, as their opposition policy will actually be against policies their party is officially against, rather than merely rail against whatever the Liberal Party (oops, I meant "the government of the day") endorses on default or risk giving their enemies some publicity for actually making the right decision.
And it is this I partly blame for our ridiculously slow pace of progress over the past decade.

Having a party that is anti-privatization would be a gigantic improvement over Labor too (especially NSW Labor- they definitely don't stand for anything else but selling assets to companies their members hope to join, and helping dodgy developers bypass planning laws).

Federally they're a bit too left for me (though I'm still more inclined to vote for them)- but on the state level, in opposition (and of course Senate), that's where they're desperately needed.

I'm anti Green and for the very good reason, to me, that they are merely the old Communist Party in disguise.
Their policies are deliberately divisive or just not well thought out and they rely on popular misconceptions and never spell out how any of their grand 'plans' will work.
Example: Tidal generation of power; there are but few working tidal power stations in the world and a number of potential sites have been opposed by local Green groups on envioronmental grounds.
In Australia the best sites are on the Northwest coast but connection to the grid would be rather expensive.
Solar power is another of their hobby horses but they don't inform people of the drawbacks.
Currently they are championing Earth Hour when all are exhorted to turn the power off for one hour.
Why aren't the Greens also asking for the power that is wasted each night to also be turned off?
On another forum the Sydney Harbour Bridge lighting has been given as a prime example of such waste, yet never a peep from the Greens in the NSW Upper House, nor about the waste of lighting city buildings all night and the consequent waste of coal in the power stations.
If the Greens want to cut the emission of gases from the power stations then a cut in the amount of power used by useless lighting would be a good start.
But it might just cost a few votes and the hypocrites wouldn't want any threat to their safe income, think $$$$$ first.

The Greens are all fluff and no substance.

IMHO, we need to accept that minor parties by their very nature, need to have a “parasitic” relationship with major parties.

Historically, minor parties might have had a natural ideological alignment with the majors but this is clearly changing. As each major party starts to adopt left, centre, right and permutation factions, the more opportunities for parasitic attachment are created.

As a result the parasite is able to attach to only a factional part of the parent body, thus creating an “unnatural” parasitic relationship. We have perhaps seen an example of this following the last general election with previously centrist “independents” aligning with an attractive faction of the ALP, whilst the Greens align themselves to an ideologically different faction of the same party.

Whether or not this relationship is sustainable in the longer term is yet to be determined however, we could reasonably speculate that if the parent body cannot feed the parasite it will be forced to detach.

Regardless of ideological alignment and populism, minor parties will remain a scourge upon our democracy and the “whores” of our parliamentary system.

SM, the Greens supporting demographic is predominantly the under 25's and the conscience placating upwardly mobile inner city plebs. Yesterday I was talking to a female client of 40 and her female employee who is about 20. The client was bemoaning the current NSW state govt and looking forward to voting Lib, the employee was bemoaning the NSW govt and looking forward to voting Green. When I enquired as to why, she replied she could not abide Abbott. The employer and I just acknowledged this with a nod, understanding that she had no understanding.

Both Labor and Liberal must focus on the youth vote, a vote that is not interested in policy but rather the "perception" or "flavour" of the party. Both organizations have focused on the tertiary educated youth and left the kid in the suburbs to their own devices and they gravitate to what they believe to be "cool". Labor secured the first youth vote when they deemed “old enough to go to war, old enough to vote” but that eroded in the 90’s as the green movement was actively marketed before being foisted upon us.