In the first 5 minutes of a 15 minute interview, Bill Shorten was not holding back on the Greens.
Notable lines include:
“The Greens are a formidable and destructive part of Australian political life”
“The Greens are increasingly playing a different competition to Labor and Liberal. Whatever you think of us or the Liberals we seek to form governments in Australia. The Greens are a party of protest. They’re an outrage factory. So they can be all things to all people because they’ll never have to implement their policies. So they play by a different set of rules.
And what they do is create anxiety. They’ve created anxiety for people who might want to buy their first home. They create anxiety for our NDIS reforms. Now they were saying some of the most absurd and un-evidenced based comments possible about our reforms. They create anxiety in Jewish Australians. The Greens create anxiety.”
“They are not chasing the votes of 85 out of every 100 Australians. They’d like to move from getting 10 out of every 100 Australians to perhaps 14 out of every 100 Australians.
So the real problem that they have is that they think they are morally superior to people who disagree with them. And I found in political life that because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them morally inferior they just have a different proposition or set of values.”
(This was my own transcription. Hopefully I’ve done it accurately.)
Here’s the link to the interview:
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/shorten-slams-greens-as-formidable-and-destructive-/104374678
Source: must_not_forget_pwd
46 Comments
If you’re wondering why both sides of politics talk so frequently about the Greens these days, it’s because they are scared. If the greens weren’t a threat to the status quo they would simply be ignored.
Major party first preference vote is continually declining, odds right now are we are looking at minority government, rather than look inwards, they simply go on the attack. What are the major parties doing in terms of policy and position to win over the people who are choosing greens everyday?
Bullshit housing policy, bullshit climate action, bullshit treatment of many other positions (gambling ads, price gouging, university fees, foreign policy, private education, Medicare, dental, mental). And the big parties wonder why there is “outrage”? Where else are young disillusioned voters meant to turn?
Take a look in the mirror Bill.
Idk Bill, seeing my rent get put up an extra $150 per week when I was working as a student on placement for free for 2 months gave me a lot of anxiety. It’s too bad you have no real policies on that.
And if you call MCM “destructive” for hosting free breakfasts for students at school, free BBQs for the public, and having a free community pantry people in need are encouraged to take from, then maybe we have different definitions of “destructive”.
This is what I love about Labor, their vile hatred of the Greens shines through no matter the weather
As a volunteer for the Greens during the last fed election, the most vitriol we copped was from other Labor volunteers. It was actually so funny. They definitely feel threatened.
Fair call. The greens will never govern and will never need to implement anything.
Brutally on point. It is a beautifully articulated decimation of populist fringe parties.
The truth is that while there needs to be some alternative to responsible parties of government the Greens, One Nation, and the UAP thrive on creating chaos.
Maybe they’re destructive because what we have needs to be torn down. I don’t know if the Greens will be better (they are politicians after all) but surely we need to move away from the Liberal/Labor coalition of bowing down to the mining magnates, the media moguls and corrupt CEO’s which is the current way of governing from both major parties
Bill shorten negotiated wages and conditions for mushroom farmers. The workers got fuck all, Bill negotiated a deal where the union ran training programs for the workers. That’s what he got for the workers, training programs the union made a profit from by providing them.
He was also accused of rape by a credible person.
He’s settling old scores, any electoral appeal evaporated after the mushroom farmer scandal, and the rape accusations after that.
Does it ever occur to Labor that if they pulled their fingers out and sat down with the Greens and came to a solid mutual understanding and agreement the Coalition wouldn’t have a hope of seeing power for the foreseeable future?
So what if the Greens are further left. There’s plenty of far right loonies in the Nats but the Coalition is pragmatic enough to realise holding power is step one.
Whenever I hear labor complaining about the greens it makes me wanna vote green or teal even harder. Would not be surprised if the effect of Bill and Albo’s constant whingeing about them is to increase their vote.
Big parties are now both way too corrupt to deserve to exist anymore.
Imagine trying to implement a policy that encourages investment properties with a tiny handout to first time homebuyers (which is ultimately just going to mean more money going to the people selling these houses), then acting like the party suggesting some ideas that would actually lower the price of housing are the ones who don’t care about the problem.
I really think the major parties describe the Greens in such adversarial terms because they live in fear of a political party that actually wants to solve problems rather than using each problem as another means to make the rich richer.
The Greens used to fully cost their proposals before elections. Did they stop doing this?
If Labor is cranky they have to work with the Greens then maybe they should try winning some of those Green votes? Be a bit more focused on climate change and environmental protection.
Pure fucking pantomime from everyone right now.
Greens wanna talk up to flip a few Labor seats their way, Labor desperately trying to hold onto all their seats or only lose one seat, and the LNP is just throwing shit around trying to flip any pair++ of seats from Labor.
Everyone is unhappy with the economy and housing… But 2019 showed that people didn’t really want to try and fix things for down the track, so here we are, this is lowkey the price of “sticking with it” back in 2019 – and yeah, the irony of Shorten giving this rant is not lost on me.
The Greens have become the party of the NIMBY.
Want affordable housing? Well not in my council.
Want rental assistance to the needy? Only if those in the inner city get it first.
Want to pass legislation that matches the Greens agenda at the last election? Get stuffed.
The more I hear Max Chandler-Mather, the more my vote moves away from the Greens.
of course, keep complaining about the Greens and then accuse them of not supporting you
I actually think the greens are great as a minor party and are doing exactly what they need to do. Labor presents as a left leaning party but quite frequently are Liberal lite. The Greens are good reminders of what left wing actually looks like.
I don’t agree with everything they’re after (mostly rent caps because historically, they’re disastrous), but because of Liberals ‘oppose everything and refuse to negotiate’ attitude, Labor are forced to work with the Greens often moving the needle on the policy to the left.
If the alp had actually done something about robodebt then I would have more time for him.
Bill Shorten is right, you can’t disagree with the fact that Greens are delaying things in parliament that’ll be more disastrous in the future
I was disappointed by the Greens. I voted for them at the last election.
But their support for the CFMEU even after all their corruption has really undermined my faith in them. I thought the Greens were a party that stood against corruption, not defending it. They’re just another bunch of politicians after my vote. Do they really believe what they preach?
>saying the Greens are different to the ALP and LNP
Very cool establishment politics, how’s major party support going in Australia? How about centrist neoliberal support in Europe?
In all the fanfare about the Greens in statements like this two points are unspoken
1. The Greens are campaigning successfully
2. The electorate is dumb for supporting them
If the ALP did more to actually win the electorate rather than patronise them maybe they wouldn’t be bleeding as many votes
So the party in power would prefer if minor parties would fall in line and stop reigning them in?
He’s gonna eat those words when he attempts to form a coalition when people vote in mass for minor parties.
Calling The Greens an obstructionist party isn’t incorrect, but it doesn’t do a whole lot now. The electorate will just see whinging and Bandt will just think he’s being effective, as he demands immediate radical change and achieves little instead.
We’ll see a Liberal Government in a handful of years, and the Greens will once again be complaining that nothing progressive is occurring.
>They’ve created anxiety for people who might want to buy their first home.
Looking at house prices does that already.
Cope and seethe rusty
Holy shit there’s a lot to protest about when neither of the major party gives a shit about the voter and instead focuses on the careers of their out of touch golden children such as Peter Dutton Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten despite the fact they are utter turds.
We need political parties that give us Kamala Harris instead of Joe Biden. Instead they both continue to give us shit policies that exacerbate our problems at the behest of shitty lobby groups.
Go cry shorten your time is done and it should have happened sooner.
>KOS SAMARAS: The politics of housing. Electoral perceptions.
>Labor. – don’t go far enough.
Greens. – playing politics.
Coalition. – caused the problem.
>This is not a clear goal by any of them.
That’s the feedback RedBridge has been picking up in their polling.
Seems about right, and the second attempt to pass the housing bill in the Senate next month will provide a better picture of where everyone sits.
how’s the old expression go? First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You…
Some valid criticisms of the Greens here. But the housing market and recent NDIS reform are not the examples I would choose for alarmism.
>They are not chasing the votes of 85 out of every 100 Australians
If that is the philosophy of either of our two major parties, they do an amazingly poor job of showing it.
Labor bellyaching about the Greens really does give me the giggles. Maybe if you lot had spent less of the last two decades playing neoliberal pattycake with the LNP, there wouldn’t *be* so much bloody room to the political left for the Greens to host their raves and their orgies and whatever other naughty, disruptive things ole Billy boy thinks we’re getting up to over here.
The Greens aren’t creating anxiety, they’re capitalizing on the anxiety borne out of 25 years of shitty, greedy, self-interested governance.
Building more homes is the only way out of a “lack of homes” problem. It’s not rocket science.
He’s not wrong, the problem is the labor aren’t taking any of the greens grievances seriously enough.
Bandt is a bit of a soap box mall cop but he’s shouting some uncomfortable truths.
Stop complaining and be a better government. Albanese is on track to be the first one term government in a long time.
You have made promises and then let us all down on multiple issues. You keep jumping into bed with the libs making bipartisan legislation.
I’m pleased to see you lose your seats to the greens. And the libs to the teals. 2 party system is a cancer. The sooner we see it removed the better.
All of that just to state several times that Bill Shorten (and perhaps a cohort of the Labor party) views the Greens as an existential threat to their existence.
What’s giving me anxiety is the reality of this fucked up situation we’re all in
For what it’s worth I don’t think the greens are the ones creating anxiety for first home buyers. I think trying to buy a first home is creating anxiety.
Sssshhh, this is fine. Everything is fine voter, go back to sleep.
I’m just about diametrically opposed to Greens but this is very obviously protectionism for the current de facto system of government, which is very comfy for some parts of the economy and society.
Bill Shorten should’ve been PM.
I was a long-time Greens supporter. My wife ran as a Greens candidate in the NSW state elections about 20 years ago.
We are now back to Labor or quality independents as the Greens just don’t understand politics and we are sick of how, when Labor get into office, thay spend most of their time helping the Liberals get their way.
Post Bob Brown, the Greens are crap and do harm hindering progressive change.
You can not govern from opposition, so don’t become a defacto ally of the Liberal Party.
our standard of living has gone to shit year by year, but hey im sure another term of labour or liberals will fix it! who else do us disillusioned australians vote for if the liberals and labour party both take their turns at shitting on us?
I’ve learned that no matter who the politician is they are more than not likely to be an out of touch moron with a self interest in the dopamine hit of “winning” than providing any real substance to discourse or change. I hope the rapture just bundles them all up and leave us to rebuild a proper democracy like Ancient Greeks 😂 cos this one is broken !
Used to think Bill was a true believer, his heel turn on the NDIS was genuinely a rude shock, beating up a panic about people on the scheme being “rorters” (leaked RedBridge report later proved this was intended as a way to prime the public for NDIS cuts, it wasn’t founded in actual data) and instead of chasing the private operators the scheme was farmed out to, or greedy service providers overcharging participants, he needed to court PHON to push through cutting $14 billion directly from participant plan funding, nothing in his “reforms” targeted exploitation of participants. Then he strolls off to a multimillion dollar job after “fixing up” NDIS, and now takes sooky potshots, what a weak dog.
It’s more like the Greens are exploiting reasonable anxiety produced by the fall in living standards over these past few years. The federal Labor Party seriously needs to reassess its Third Way incrementalist policies and start to consider more ambitious traditionally social democratic policies that confront the root issues of society, otherwise the Greens will continue to grow as a result of this fear.
Stop complaining Bill. If you did your job no one would even know who the greens were.
Bill is a moral relativist. Anyone with consistent morals will make bill anxious.
Sounds like it’s working
Well we keep voting the Greens in because we can’t trust Labor or Liberal
I do feel sorry for Shorten he tried to fix Australia’s housing crisis by eliminating negative gearing and no one voted for him 🤨
Nope they have realised both labour and liberals are a pack of self serving useless twats.
Now fuk off and give another party a chance to fix the country you screwed up.