For both the Liberal Party and the Greens, their NSW branches are proving to be problematic at the moment, in different contexts, but on much the same basic issue: how far should a parliamentary political party represent the views of its membership rather than the will of the wider electorate?
The NSW Greens argue that their power to bind senators to vote in a certain way is more “democratic” than allowing the federal party room to reach decisions itself, because it gives NSW Greens members a real say in policy. That’s certainly more democratic internally. It isn’t more democratic per se, however. In fact, that a group of unelected officials and members, reminiscent of Labor’s “faceless men”, can require elected politicians to vote a certain way is arguably less democratic. The logical extension of that position is that Lee Rhiannon needn’t bother ever going to Canberra — the state branch can simply tell her colleagues and the Senate which way she’d vote and save everyone the expense of her attending the Senate, since what transpires there — such as negotiations over legislation — are apparently irrelevant.
In the case of the NSW Greens, the views of the hard left on what constitutes “democratic” should be taken with a pinch of salt anyway. This is the branch that, hoping to win Anthony Albanese’s eminently gettable seat of Grayndler, put forward a doctrinaire Trotskyite who was of the view that an Abbott government was preferable to a more progressive government because it would radicalise people more. Albanese was duly and comfortably returned.
And this is a pattern with the NSW Greens — it under-performs electorally. Whereas the Victorian Greens picked up nearly one and a half quotas in 2016, the NSW Greens couldn’t muster one, and their vote actually fell in the Senate — a poor performance in what should be a strong state for the party. this, apparently, hasn’t been any cause for introspection on behalf of the NSW party, which appears more focused at the moment on fighting other branches and the federal parliamentary party.
The fight within the NSW Liberals over greater power for the party membership is similarly about perceptions of democracy. As with the NSW Greens, some NSW Liberals want the party base to wield real power, rather than — as Tony Abbott put it on the weekend — “pay up, turn up and shut up”. But it’s also about the chafing of a highly conservative party membership under a party leadership controlled by moderates (with help from a sub-group of conservatives) and toward a federal government that is looking to bolster its electoral prospects by governing from the centre.
There’s nothing particularly new here — parties have long wrestled with the fact that their declining, ageing memberships tend to be more extreme than the electorate more broadly; giving them too much power risks making a party unelectable. Sometimes that dynamic can have a happy ending — if the electorate is moving in that direction. Jeremy Corbyn, once regarded as unelectable (and that includes me) in fact has benefited both from astonishing Tory incompetence and a sharp swing to the left in the UK electorate. But no one outside the lunatic fringe at News Corp is seriously suggesting the Australian electorate is ready to lurch to the right and embrace the kind of agenda Tony Abbott and his ilk are pushing.
In the case of the NSW Greens, however, the blunt solution is to not permit the parliamentary party to resolve this tension creatively and on a case by case basis, but to impose a blanket restriction. Meanwhile, Labor can’t believe its luck that not merely is the government roiled by division, but the party to the left of it is as well.
Not so sure the Greens really are to the left of Labor on much, BK. They are on climate change and soft social identity politics stuff, but economically? Not so much. “Neoliberals on bikes” as defined by one of their own hierarchy from memory. That’s what the Centre is: lots of talk about action on climate change, identity politics and meritocracy. If polling on specific issues is anything to go by, the electorate are well to the left of the Greens and that’s why the Greens vote stalled at around 10% long ago.
I’d be willing to bet the Greens are “further left” on quite a few issues:
* Privatisation/public ownership of assets
* Public services (particularly education, as Labor is beholden to the Cattleticks)
* Worker protections (Labor only care about workers in Unions)
* Electoral reform/Democracy (ie: there should be more of it)
* (Skilled) Immigration
* Welfare
* Taxation
* Industry (particularly finance) (De)Regulation
* Drugs and addiction
* Directed public investment in science and industry (/”market interference”/”picking winners”)
* Housing
The Greens have certainly fallen victim to the neoliberal cancer, but it is delusional to suggest it has overtaken them as it did the Labor party twenty-odd years ago.
The Greens sit on a solid left-wing (though tending centre-left more recently) social democratic policy platform. Or “Communism” as such a thing is known as these days in the Anglosphere. Corbyn would probably be at home there. Most of the current Labor Party would most definitely not.
I meant to add, where Labor is returning to positions similar to the Greens, it is a fairly recent change in position after decades of steadily going in the opposite direction.
You could look at that argument the other way too, BK. Why bother even having party members if you think that their ideas are too “kooky” or “unwinnable”? Just have MPs call all the shots without regard to the actual membership. See how long that party would last? People don’t give up all their free time door knocking or raising funds to be disregarded.
Perhaps there is a middle way?
Well said, Nudie. I think a kook called Corbyn found another way. Not too sure it was in the middle, though.
I think the other way is popularly known as ‘representative democracy’.
The watermelon brigade continue their self-deluded path. Abbott continues to suffer from relevance deprivation syndrome. What’s new about any of that?
Have to agree about eh NSW Greens. They get my vote much less often than they should because they seem too pre-occupied with bullshit politics, which I learned this year is called identity politics, and too much of a rabble. They are also clearly divided internally and Lee Rhiannon has always been in the middle of it.
The NSW Greens need to change their rules, and allow their reps to offer their intellect as well as their vote in parliament, and get rid of Rhiannon.
Surely they have someone better, I just can’t vote for her.
The Tree Tories’ greatest lie is that they don’t exist (ie. that the Greens don’t have a right wing)*.
They’re easy enough to spot; when they’re not yelling “WATERMELON!!!” at the top of their lungs whenever they remember to (a Greens shibboleth about the ‘lock-on crowd’ who founded the party, not an unhealthy appetite for the fruit of scandent vines)…
and when they’re not trying to remake the Greens in their own likeness (the “doctors wives” set) by purging said lock-ons…
they’re killing ETS and carbon pricing because they’re worried about Labor getting the credit.
So they end up either splitting into a crossbench (with hopefully enough members to gatekeep), or becoming just another “big tent” party that isn’t really about anything (and we already have TWO of those).
But ssshhh – don’t tell Babs I let you in on any of this; it’s a bit of a sore spot for her.
Oh, and there will be no Corbyn, at least not in the likeness of Rhiannon. For all the noise the Greens make about how democratic their leadership elections are, the membership isn’t eligible to vote in it. Surely you didn’t think the doctors wives would risk letting the lock-ons back in by giving votes to the rabble.
This isn’t UK Labour (it isn’t even ALP, whose deliberations are at least public).
*(and that said right-wing hasn’t been trying to clean house globally, because it doesn’t exist, remember?)
https://www.globalgreens.org/literature/maier/westerneurope