Former Greens leaders have urged the party to stand firm against Labor “arrogance” in the new parliament, particularly on climate and environmental issues, as internal jockeying to find a new leader begins after the unexpected defeat of Adam Bandt.
Bob Brown has urged the party to “never again” preference Labor over the Liberals and instead run an open ticket, as he and his fellow former leader Christine Milne said the Greens should push back strongly against “lies” about the party. Richard Di Natale, the leader before Bandt, claimed the Greens had been “unlucky” in Saturday’s election.
“Most of what happened was outside our control. We were hit by a perfect storm,” he told Guardian Australia.
None of the former leaders would be drawn on who should be the next leader. Brown, the Greens’ founding leader, said the party should focus on its roots of “being the leading party on protecting the environment and tackling climate change, but also social justice”.
Bandt on Thursday conceded defeat in his seat of Melbourne, acknowledging that Labor had taken back the electorate that he won five times in a row from 2010. While the Greens have lost three of their four seats in the lower house, shifting Senate results are likely to give them the sole balance of power in the upper house – a situation Bandt earlier in the week said would deliver the most progressive parliament in Australia’s history.
Sarah Hanson-Young, the party’s environment and communications spokesperson, and Mehreen Faruqi, the Greens’ deputy leader, are considered among the leading candidates to take over the leadership from Bandt, with David Shoebridge mentioned as a possibility for deputy. There is a feeling among some in the Greens that the next leader should be a woman to reflect the party’s core voting base.
Bandt has offered no comment on the future leadership of the party other than to say that the party whip, Nick McKim, would act in the role of caretaker until a new leader was elected.
The Greens will meet next Thursday to decide a new leader. McKim, a Tasmanian senator, is understood to not be seeking the leadership.
Greens sources have remained tight-lipped about the party’s leadership all week, including on Thursday after Bandt’s concession, saying it was too early to discuss the issue in the wake of his defeat.
‘We’ve got to be ready to take them on’
Brown, a Tasmanian environmental champion, said the Greens would be in an “enormously powerful position in the Senate” and that Labor would need to accept that “the arrogance of power needs to be tempered”.
Asked if his party should have done anything differently in this campaign, Brown said: “No.”
“But next time we Greens need to be ready for those nasty misrepresentations of the Greens, which are funded by millions of dollars of the big end of town,” he said. “There’s no easy answer to that but, nevertheless, we’ve got to be ready to take them on.”
Brown accused Anthony Albanese of being “ungracious” towards the Greens and independents, and ignoring that Labor had received 34% of first preferences. He said Labor had “zeroed in” on Greens-held seats late in the campaign.
Milne, the Greens leader between 2012 and 2015, said the minor party should use its Senate power to secure “significant climate and environment policy”, suggesting the Greens focus on logging, land clearing, new fossil fuel projects and the failure of Labor to legislate stronger environmental laws in its first term.
While debate had focused on Albanese’s promise to create a federal environment protection agency – after he intervened to stop a deal between the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, and the Greens in the last parliament – Milne said an EPA alone “does not cut it”.
She echoed Brown in accusing Albanese of “extraordinary arrogance” and said the Greens should push back harder on criticisms, including backing truth in advertising laws.
“The heavily funded barrage of lies about the Greens and independents from Liberal and fossil fuel billionaires has to be addressed,” she said.
Bandt’s leadership praised – but who will follow?
On ABC Melbourne radio, Bandt said all members of the Greens party room were “incredibly capable” but offered no endorsement for the next leader.
“I’m not going to be one of those people who now comments from the sidelines and chucks in my two cents.”
Hanson-Young called Bandt a “superb leader” and praised his strategy in delivering the Greens multiple lower house seats.
“He has shaken up the two party system forever,” she wrote on social media. “His dedication to making the world a better place is unmissable. Greens all over the country are in shock.
“Adam is one of the greatest Greens ever. His political smarts, coupled with compassion and courage to fight, has made him a formidable leader and a wonderful colleague.”
Shoebridge called Bandt “a true friend, a comrade and an incredible human being”.
Brown and Milne also strongly backed Bandt’s leadership. Brown called him an “extraordinary politician”, backing his “integrity and honesty”; while Milne said he had “built a people-powered movement” in Melbourne which would grow stronger.
Di Natale claimed the Greens had been “unlucky”, saying even a few small changes in voting patterns could have resulted in “three or four” seats retained.
“Our vote was very solid but we lost some support in the wrong areas and it cost us seats. The silver lining is that we’ve reached a whole lot of new people.”
Di Natale said he believed the Greens could regain seats they had lost.
“Labor now form government with very big expectations and they have a habit of disappointing people,” he said. “I expect that with hard work and a bit of luck, we’ll pick those seats up again.
“Every time you get people across to vote for you once, they’re more likely to do it again. So we now have a big pool of people who have voted Green and, while some didn’t vote Green this time, we can get them back.”
