Communist regimes have tended to follow a similar trajectory in leadership: a Cult of Personality, followed, on the ‘Great Leader’s’ death, by a succession of faceless commissars. The Australian Greens are no different. They began with a Cult of Personality built around Bob Brown. Then, beginning with a push by Stalinist refugees from the defunct Communist Party of Australia, a takeover by faceless hardcore Marxists.
How faceless? So much so that their own voters have no idea who the Greens’ leader even is.
Last month, the research firm Redbridge asked voters in 20 key federal seats for their broad views on party leaders Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton and Adam Bandt.
As you would expect in the nation’s current cheesed-off state of mind, all three men enjoyed sub-zero popularity among respondents. Everyone hates everything right now, especially if it’s anywhere near politics. The PM’s net approval rating was minus 16, Dutton’s minus 11, and the Greens leader was minus 23.
But the kicker?
Twenty-five per cent of respondents – when asked their opinions of Adam Bandt – said they’d never heard of him.
And – stranger still – this rate of non-recognition was highest among respondents planning to vote Green.
Thirty-one per cent of Greens voters had never heard of the Melbourne MP who has led their preferred party for five years, compared with just 23 per cent of Labor voters and 22 per cent of Coalition voters for whom Bandt's name did not ring a bell.
Perhaps this should not be so surprising. Several surveys have shown that those who most favoured socialism were the least likely to be able to accurately define it. Contrariwise, people who most understand what socialism really is, are the most likely to oppose. It’s no different with the Greens and Bandt: people who know Bandt and his Marxist ideology are the least likely to vote for the Greens.
Or, put simply: Greens voters are low-information ignoramuses.
In fact, Adam Bandt’s name recognition was strongest among the people least likely to vote for him, and weakest among the voters most firmly in his party’s sights […]
Bandt draws the biggest blank among renters (33 per cent), young people (39 per cent), and people describing themselves as under a “great deal” of financial stress.
That doesn’t mean these voters aren’t planning to vote Green. They are: The very same research confirms that approval of the Greens remains strongest among those who rent, are aged between 18 and 24, and/or live in households earning less than $1,000 a week.
See above: low-information ignoramuses.
The 2025 election – as the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas wrote last year – will be the first at which Millennial and Generation Z voters outnumber Baby Boomers.
Redbridge principal Tony Barry says that among younger voters, media consumption patterns are highly fragmented, and disengagement from politics is common.
Which is a kind way of saying that they’re uninformed idiots. They’ve spent their entire lives in schools and universities run by left-wing women and being bombarded with claptrap. So, NPC-fashion, they robotically tick the ‘Green’ box at election time, unburdened by the least idea of what the party actually stands for, let alone who’s even in charge.
So, what are the polls saying about the Greens’ chances in the upcoming election? In recent state polls, the Greens’ vote has dropped a few per cent – which has translated to a wipe out of Green seats. Of the four lower house seats held by the Greens, at least two, more likely three, are in deep trouble.
Public polling consistently puts The Greens’ national support at around 12 per cent – the same as it was in 2022. That’s enough to secure a strong result in the Senate, but to win in the lower house, a much higher primary vote is needed.
Typically, in lower house seats, Greens candidates tend to be eliminated and their preferences go towards electing Labor candidates. This is how it is possible for Labor to hold 51 per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives, despite commanding less than 33 per cent of the primary vote.
The Greens’ 12 per cent primary vote in 2022, by contrast, won only 2.5 per cent of the seats – and that was their best result ever. That’s our preferential voting system in action: at present, it helps Labor.
And if Labor aren’t inclined to help the Greens, the Greens are toast.
