Comment on Dorinda Cox accuses Greens of racism in scathing resignation letter
spiffmeister@aussie.zone 6 days agoAs a previous Greens’ member (I live overseas now) I can say that my experience is that Greens’ members are generally pretty sensitive to causing offence and are more than willing to apologise if they are told they’re causing it, at least by other members. This is of course anecdotal though.
Also maybe changing your vote because you thought an individual action by someone was stupid is a childish way of thinking about politics?
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 6 days ago
I can’t speak much to your anecdote, as you said. I can easily imagine the Greens apologising for using the wrong pronoun or mocking disability. I’m not sure where the exact line would be (in my almost entirely imagined idea of the Greens). The idea that their decisions are any less than perfect seems to be a sore spot for them, the only public self-reflection they’ve done regarding the last term is that “Labor ran an effective campaign on us blocking the HAAF for a year” IIRC.
I think they’re a lot more sensitive regarding the Greens political party than they are individually. They are also sensitive individually when they’re speaking on behalf of the Greens publicly (see my earlier example with Bandt, and Max Chandler-Mather’s comments about other politicians being mean). You could instead say they’re sensitive to humiliation, but that wouldn’t fit my (entirely imagined) narrative of the Greens being racist so I’ll put that theory aside.
I didn’t change my vote because of that. I became open to reconsidering my views after that. Although I’m not even sure if that was the exact snowball that started this.
spiffmeister@aussie.zone 6 days ago
Basically no political party is going to have an open public discussion on this. There’s clearly two “factions” of the Greens, one more pragmatic and the other more ‘activist’. I think the observation that Labor ran an effective smear campaign on their own unwillingness to negotiate is pretty obvious (not to say that there isn’t also some need for a discussion about how much blocking is the right amount). But everyone seems to think the Greens are “this must be perfect” type people despite the fact that they showed in the last term they were willing to reduce demands or vote for things they didn’t like so I guess it isn’t.
Other MPs complained about how he was treated so… (See here).
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 5 days ago
I think, given the (presumed) widespread perception that the Greens are arrogant, they ought to publicly air that reflection. If I’m speaking purely strategically, that would be more likely to win votes from me than what they ended up doing. I think the reason they don’t is because they’re incapable of such reflection. The only policy changes I recall them making are to support increased defense spending following Trump’s win, and to oppose IRV and support PR after Bandt lost his seat (I BTW, support going the opposite direction with Condorcet).
As for Chandler-Mather, I think the other MP’s complaining is more to do with them not seeing him as an adult than the severity of his treatment. Given how he went on the radio to complain about the treatment, I’d say they were right to.
spiffmeister@aussie.zone 5 days ago
I think the perception that the greens are arrogant is mostly a media thing to be honest, and I’m not sure how much they can do to fight that. Imo there is a general perception of any activist or left wing group that they’re all arrogant/holier than thou types.
They ended up backing Labor’s housing policies despite the analysis from think tanks like the Australia Institute saying they would do nothing. This all seems like a double standard anyway to me, did Labor change any policy on housing? It took months to extract some direct cash on top of the HAFF then they refused to negotiate, the greens at least tried to, yet the greens are arrogant.