In a strange way I think the greens being in control may actually prove to be a good thing in the long term.

Why? Because once they have had their little play at running things even their live in a hole green will realize just what radicle fools they are and chances ar that they, along with the ind will be all but a forgotten Ira in politics.

My bet is the next election will set a record for informal votes.

Rechtub, can I ask you just what you think the radical aspects of the Greens are.

I have two major criticisms of them, and I bet they are quite different yours.

Mine are:

No action on continuous population growth or continuous-growth economics. This means that they just totally don’t get the imperative to achieve sustainable society. This issue is about as big as everything else put together in Australia. The Greens' lack of action on this makes a complete mockery of their supposed environmental ethics.

Secondly, Sarah Hanson-Young’s (and others) radical support for onshore asylum seekers. It is crackers. We need to stop the boats and direct our national efforts at refugee assistance into international aid programs and our offshore refugee programs.

Apart from that, the Greens are pretty much on the right track, off the top of my head right now. But I stand to be corrected.

Despite their wayward aspects, it would be a crying shame if they fell away in forthcoming elections and just allowed the Liblabs to pretty much forget about the various environmental and sustainability-oriented changes that we desperately need to make.

[This is my 4000th post on OLO! ( :>)]

Ludwig, did you miss the one world government bit, or do you like the idea of the UN shoving a hundred million drop kicks our way, for us to feed cloth & house. That should give them a great chance to breed.

Don't you like meat? Let Brownie take charge, & the cows will be gone, & we'll be vegetarians, like it or not.

A quick look at Tasmania should convince you of the level of their management ability. If it were an independent country, it would be a failed state, getting Grease style bail outs.

Hazza, how real are these things that you have listed? Are they just hearsay or exaggerations from people who hate the Greens?

Can you confirm them as being Green policies or ideals?

I’ve levelled heaps of criticism at the Greens on OLO, and indeed since I left them in about 1996, but I still feel as though we’d be better of with them in an influential position in Federal politics than without them.

Ludwig, here's a few.

Gay marriage, every mans right to hunt, fish and enjoy a camp fire.

The banning of coal production, a large portion of the life blood of our economy.

You see these greens have enjoyed the fruits of our way of life, power, roads, mod cons etc,

They communicate by means provided by the very industries now wish to shut down.

I bet they even boil the jug and use an electric toaster in the morning, before they either jump in their fuel buring car, or communicate on thier man made computer

They now wish to deny future generations, some of them greens, the right to enjoy what they enjoyed.

BTW, the reason they polled so well at the last election was due to ill informed labor voters who just couldn't bring themselves to vote liberal.

What they should have done was vote informal, which is what I tip you will see next time, especially if this minority government lasts for the full term.

I just hope they are given enough rope. They will then do the rest themselves.

I'm with Ludwig on this one, I like having them there as a counterpoint to the Lib's and Labor. At the same time I didn't mind having One Nation around, I'd not want either running things but sometimes there are issues that others tiptoe around which should be out there for discussion.

Policies at http://greens.org.au/policies

The downside of policy statements is that often the devil is in the detail and the context that policies are implemented in. I'm maybe not as trusting of the UN and other international bodies as the Greens appear to be, too much history of plays to power blocks over the years to have a lot of credibility left in my view.

I also like seeing exotic animals at the zoo when I visit regardless of the species conservation value. One of the policy goals I read where I thought, I'd rather see the focus on ensuring that the conditions at the Zoo met the animals needs.

R0bert