{"id":794433,"date":"2026-07-11T23:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T23:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794433\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T23:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T23:52:24","slug":"as-one-nation-surges-in-the-polls-why-are-the-greens-being-left-behind-australian-greens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/794433\/","title":{"rendered":"As One Nation surges in the polls, why are the Greens being left behind? | Australian Greens"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK Greens leader, Zack Polanski, had a simple message for his Australian counterparts<\/a>: connect with people\u2019s anger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think sometimes we rush to hope, we rush to solutions, so we don\u2019t quite connect in the same way,\u201d Polanski told the Victorian Greens campaign conference in May.<\/p>\n

Anger \u2013 or frustration \u2013 with the political establishment has been steadily growing within Australia, as it has in the UK, generating an appetite for alternatives. In the UK, Polanski\u2019s messages<\/a> have tripled the party\u2019s membership, nearly doubled its vote, and wrested electoral victories off Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform in just 10 months.<\/p>\n

But Polanski\u2019s warning that progressives elsewhere are failing to connect with voters and capitalise on their frustration appears to be borne out.<\/p>\n

In the 12 months since the last federal election, Pauline Hanson and her brand of rightwing populism have successfully tapped into that discontent, surging in the polls at the expense of the Coalition and Labor.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, support for Australia\u2019s other big anti-establishment party \u2013 the Greens \u2013 has flatlined in the polls.<\/p>\n

And after a sobering 2025 election result that wiped out its leader and its rising star, the Greens are now fighting for relevance in a rapidly shifting political landscape.<\/p>\n

Weeks after Polanski\u2019s speech, Larissa Waters<\/a> told her party that \u201ctinkering around the edges\u201d was not the pathway to government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not a pressure group, we\u2019re a political party,\u201d the Greens leader told the party\u2019s national conference said. \u201cAnd the aim of a political party is to win government.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In a nod to the popular 2011 Occupy Wall Street<\/a> movement, Waters also declared the Greens would represent the 99% by taking on the 1%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we want to win, we need to meet people where they\u2019re at,\u201d the Queenslander said last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to hear their anger, then direct it at the real cause of their pain \u2013 the big corporations and billionaires, and the political parties that work for that 1%.\u201d<\/p>\n

But within the party, some remain unconvinced the Greens are on the right track.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t cut through,\u201d one frustrated insider tells Guardian Australia. \u201cWe have a good message, but we don\u2019t have good messengers.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how can the Greens win their fight for relevance?<\/p>\n

\u2018None of this is easy\u2019<\/p>\n

Publicly, the party is positive about the 2025 election result. The primary vote remained in line with their historic 2022 results. About 12% of Australian voters put a Greens candidate first.<\/p>\n

Yet its then leader, Adam Bandt, and youthful MPs Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates all lost their seats \u2013 leaving them with just one member in the lower house.<\/p>\n

In the party\u2019s brief post-election autopsy, some hard truths were accepted. When the Greens used \u201ckeep Dutton out\u201d messaging, voters felt choosing Labor was the safer choice. It also noted its policies \u2013 like including dental and mental healthcare in Medicare and outlawing price gouging \u2013 were strongly supported, yet voters weren\u2019t aware they were Greens policies.<\/p>\n

But missing are solutions on how to sell those messages effectively in a way that Pauline Hanson has in recent months. The review pointed to \u201cminimal media oxygen\u201d and a fragmented audience as barriers to getting their message across.<\/p>\n

According to Essential Media pollster Peter Lewis, differentiation from Labor was key for the Greens. It could also put the minor party back in the sights of their political foes and under more scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Associate professor Jill Sheppard, a political expert at the Australian National University, says that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greens will be \u2013 and always have been \u2013 on stronger ground when they\u2019re criticising mainstream politics in the country,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Sheppard says the persistent political issues over consecutive federal elections have centred around economic management, immigration, health and education.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Greens to make any real headway into this sort of anti-system mood that is emerging in Australia, they have to talk about one of those issues,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this is easy, you know. If there was a quick solution, the Greens obviously would have taken it already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis agreed the Greens were \u201cjust as well equipped\u201d as One Nation to \u201ctap into dissatisfaction with the status quo\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019d find Greens voters and One Nation voters have similar concerns, but very different policy prognoses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Preaching to the converted\u2019<\/p>\n

Under the condition of anonymity, Greens insiders speak candidly about what needs to change to capture the support of anti-establishment voters.<\/p>\n

Some say now is the time for bold ideas. The party needs to \u201cunapologetically\u201d break with neoliberalism and embrace democratic socialist ideas, one says.<\/p>\n

Some point to Polanski\u2019s focus on bringing utilities back under public ownership<\/a>. In New York City, the popular mayor, Zohran Mamdani, proposed the creation of public grocery stores<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set small targets and achieve small targets,\u201d another staffer says. \u201cThe membership is tired of small wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Redirecting the anger and frustration felt around the country toward progressive change will take a new approach \u2013 one where the ideas matter as much as the way they are sold.<\/p>\n

Senator Lidia Thorpe, who dramatically quit the Greens in 2023<\/a>, says Australia needed the leftwing minor party to first learn how to speak to all kinds of demographics.<\/p>\n

The outspoken Victorian said while she was grateful for time with the party, she sometimes found the experience alienating, as she felt the messaging targeted educated, privileged voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re preaching to the converted, and they\u2019ll always stay at that 10% because they just talk to themselves,\u201d Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s face it, the Greens are very white privilege.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always also had this argument with the climate movement, that \u2018youse are just talking to yourselves and you\u2019re talking big language that I don\u2019t even understand\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while the Greens have always positioned themselves as an outside political force, decades of success in electing MPs and senators \u2013 and influencing policy \u2013 have made them part of the system.<\/p>\n

Waters herself has held on to the lower house seat for nearly 15 years \u2013 minus a brief break<\/a> during parliament\u2019s constitutional crisis.<\/p>\n

Other Greens sources describe Waters as the \u201creluctant\u201d but well-liked leader, who was asked to unite the parliamentary party ahead of more contentious aspirants. Behind her, however, is a \u201crisk-averse\u201d team.<\/p>\n

Green shoots ahead?<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, Chandler-Mather \u2013 who entered parliament in an upset win in 2022 but lost his seat in similarly spectacular fashion last year \u2013 wants to reset the party\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n

Adored by some and loathed by others, the 34-year-old is one of the Greens\u2019 highest profile members. He has reemerged in the public sphere<\/a> with a reboot of the Greens\u2019 political thinktank, the Greens Institute.<\/p>\n

While the leader\u2019s office is not bound by any of his proposals, Chandler-Mather is undertaking research to better understand how everyday Australians are experiencing politics and how it affects their lives.<\/p>\n

Chandler-Mather says the party could use the findings to convert widespread political disillusionment into action.<\/p>\n

At one public forum in June, Chandler-Mather made a pitch to grassroots supporters to bringing people together and find ways to get them invested in policy ideas and politics again. For example, using data from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, he pointed to a correlation between voters under financial stress and anti-political feelings.<\/p>\n

His institute is looking at redefining how it groups occupations into class. The early results mean working-class Labor seats, with higher percentages of middle-class renters, could result in a new potential target seat list for the Greens, if his proposals are adopted.<\/p>\n

The if is important. While Chandler-Mather garnered a high-profile in just three years, and invigorated the membership\u2019s more \u201cbolshie\u201d and socialist supporters, some theorise that the spotlight on his activism hurt the party\u2019s image.<\/p>\n

While his allies say the loss of Chandler-Mather and Bandt at the last federal election was a \u201ctragedy\u201d, some others dismissed his contribution as being part of the \u201coutrage machine\u201d that hurt the party\u2019s image.<\/p>\n

But Sheppard says the Greens could use Chandler-Mather, or another charismatic spokesperson not in parliament, to strengthen its outsider status.<\/p>\n

For example, Polanski doesn\u2019t hold a seat in the UK parliament: he leads the federal party as a London Assembly member.<\/p>\n

The challenge is to convince voters to genuinely believe the message the party\u2019s selling, not just see it as noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greens are a bit stuck because they have had so long around parliament that you start becoming like parliament,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cAlmost by osmosis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Greens will do well to listen to [Chandler-Mather\u2019s] advice from outside the parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major parties use their thinktanks to float ideas that they don\u2019t necessarily want to be associated with, but they want to test in a public forum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s real, low-hanging fruit for the Greens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK Greens leader, Zack Polanski, had a simple message for his Australian counterparts: connect with people\u2019s anger.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-794433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}