A paler shade of Green: what will the party do in the Senate without Lidia Thorpe?

It’s not easy being green, as Kermit sang. He is perhaps not the only creature of that colour feeling this morning like a bit of a muppet.

As Parliament resumes, and the Albanese government begins the process of reshaping the country, the Greens have lost one senator with the departure of Lidia Thorpe — and much of their power in the Senate. As a chaser, on the same day, they also lost control of Yarra City Council in Melbourne, much of which lies across party leader Adam Bandt’s seat. Smaller potatoes, but this was a majority-Greens council, five out of nine seats, with a council-elected mayor. What’s happening among the leafy Greens?

Look, the first thing to note is that what is remarkable is not that there has been a Greens defection in the Senate, but that there haven’t been more, or sooner. The Greens have been in the Senate for more than 30 years, and it is a party founded on a set of abstract values rather than sectional interests, with a strong emphasis on the individual conscience. That it has kept together through some difficult decisions and compromises is due not only to the Greens being a real global movement, but also the high quality of leadership they have had over the years.

There’s something rich about Labor types talking about whacky Greens, etc, when its party split in 1916, 1931 and 1955, the political Brangelina of its day. One Nation and the right divide like amoeba every eight hours. That’s taken as a given, because they are a bunch of neurotics with overlapping obsessions. But the Greens still get the “split looms” treatment.

When Andrew Gee quit the Nations over their Voice position, there was no hysteria. On Monday David Crowe launched a spray against Thorpe that, in its exceptionalism and bitterness, touched the edge of racism — yet another example of The Age’s sad decline in that area. 

So the departure of one senator in 30 years — one affiliated with a distinct radical movement for which she was largely recruited to the Greens, and appointed rather than elected — is no sign of crisis. People have been forever waiting for the Greens to come apart the way the Australian Democrats did. But the Dems were an utterly hybrid social liberal party that became a base for centrist careerists after the Greens appeared on the scene and took the “social-critical” role away from them. Whole glaciers have crumbled while the Hawke-Keating tragics in the press gallery were waiting for the Greens to. They would have done better service writing about the glaciers. 

Nevertheless, the loss of a full 12 in the Senate is bad news for the Greens. Before that, they could, with independent David Pocock, offer the Albanese government a smooth and rational process of negotiated support for legislation; the return of rational government. Now the government needs two micros/independents to get stuff through. They won’t go to One Nation. They will eventually go to Senator Big Babet, who is and isn’t in the UAP, which does and doesn’t exist. Well, not yet anyway. Ralph Babet will have his movement, if he lasts his term. 

That leaves Team Lambie, the Tasmanian Thelma and Louise, as a one-stop shop. Jacqui Lambie and new Senator Tammy Tyrrell have already undermined their power by saying they won’t necessarily vote the same way on all issues. What’s the bet they get a newfound interest in binding votes?

That’s tricky on a lot of issues. Lambie’s base around Burnie and the Tassie north coast is Laborish but culturally right and anti-Green, and Team Lambie gets elected on Liberal preferences. A Greens-plus-Team-Lambie deal to get Labor stuff through won’t be a natural fit, as with Pocock. In principle, it could be good. Lambie could use the leverage to get some stuff for the beaten-down people of north Tasmania, like some decent medical funding increases. But she never has. She got very little by way of extra housing in exchange for passing the stage three tax cuts (which, of course, she now denounces). She focuses on veterans’ welfare to the exclusion of the ordinary poor, a familiar hard-right gesture. 

But if Thorpe is really going to push a Blak sovereignty line, and make elements of it a condition of her support, then Team Lambie will look very attractive to Labor. And I don’t see how she can’t make that insistence. If she doesn’t, she’s just another senator deliberating on the “Widgets (Recalibration) Act”, which would effectively draw her into de facto consent to the Senate’s own claims of sovereignty.

A Blak sovereignty senator sort of has to be, or could be, semi-abstentionist, in place, not voting on a whole bunch of issues, as a way of resisting imposed sovereignty. It’s going to be complicated to say the least, and the politics of it will not be straightforward, but sure, it makes the Senate more “fun” and “interesting” again.

Meanwhile in Yarra, farce coincided with tragedy, as Greens councillor and former mayor Amanda Stone departed the party to sit as an independent. The Greens now have three councillors, not five, after Gabrielle de Vietri left after being elected MLA for Richmond, and the countback to fill the spot elevated the number-two slot on veteran socialist Stephen Jolly’s ticket, restaurateur Michael Glynatsis. Thus the usual bonehead MSM coverage of the Greens, which suggested that the left had lost a council, got it wrong again: there are now three socialist/left independents (Jolly, Glynatsis and Bridgid O’Brien), three Greens, and three community group/business independents. Labor doesn’t have a single councillor. Yarra has moved further left.

Indeed, the most politically right-wing figure is arguably Councillor Edward Crossland, the Green who prompted Stone’s departure. Crossland ran an anti-democratic vote to halve public attendance council meetings (fortnightly to monthly) while Stone and Jolly were away. It’s said that Crossland will support an austerity budget and inequitable service rates rises coming up.

The problem here is not awkward squad left candidates in the Greens. Here and elsewhere in the inner city, it’s Greens who are “smart solution” neoliberals who recycle. Greens Central needs to take control of its process. Things don’t always go like you want. Can the Greens Fozzie Bear it?

Are the Greens better off without Lidia Thorpe? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.