Green shoots: Has the return of Trump given the minor party its mojo back?

When I spoke to Adam Bandt last October, things weren’t looking so rosy for the Greens.

The party had struggled in recent elections, losing seats in Queensland and the ACT. While the situation wasn’t as bad as Labor proclaimed (the Greens’ primary held in Queensland, while Labor’s plummeted), it wasn’t ideal, with the minor party failing to make gains amid widespread disillusionment with the duopoly.

Six months later, with a hung parliament on the horizon, the outlook is starting to look more promising for the minor party. Though a February MRP poll had the Greens losing their three Brisbane seats (leaving just Bandt in Melbourne), recent polls suggest they could hold them all, their steady primary tilting upwards. Why? Partly because women drifting from Labor are turning to the minor party, with female support now at 15%, while almost a third of 18-34 year olds intend to vote Green.

According to one forecaster, Greens may win Macnamara, a three-way contest hinging on who finishes second. The party may pick up Wills in Victoria, where Labor’s margin was halved by a redistribution (candidate Samantha Ratnam is endorsed by Muslim Votes Matter), and climate-vulnerable Richmond in NSW, which has just been hit by flooding again. The party is running hard in Perth and Sturt, while campaigning to retain the four seats they currently hold.

Bandt constantly emphasises a readiness to work with Labor, following a late 2024 shift in tone. “Industry groups” are rattled (coal advocate Joel Fitzgibbon thinks the Greens are “salivating” at the prospect of a hung parliament), while Labor dismisses claims that progressive achievements during the Gillard minority government had anything to do with the party of Bob Brown.

Bandt, who clearly knew something was wrong last October, says the party has worked hard in recent months to outline its “straightforward social democratic platform,” arguing there’s still “a big beating social democratic heart in Australia”.

“Our candidates have been out and have been out early,” he says, noting volunteers have knocked on thousands of doors. “The more that we talk to people and tell people what our plan is, the plan that we’ve been outlining now for a while, the more they’re responding to it.”

Perhaps the biggest change since last year is the return of Donald Trump, and the chaos that has ensued. Bandt says Labor has failed to relieve people’s economic pain — something the far right feeds on. 

“Part of why we are pushing this social democratic platform so strongly is that we think it’s an antidote to the rise of the hard right,” Bandt says. “If governments actually use their power to make people’s lives better and deliver on the basics like housing, healthcare and food, then it removes the discontent that the likes of Trump and Dutton feed on.”

Trump is no doubt in the Greens’ talking points — which is not to say this isn’t also true. The Trump factor is raised by both candidates I speak with, Brisbane MP Stephen Bates (the party’s most likely loss) and Macnamara candidate Sonya Semmens (perhaps its most likely gain).

Bates believes there’s been a Trump-related vibe shift, benefiting not just Greens but independents too. The millennial MP says constituents regularly raise the US, and “how much they don’t want us to go down that path”. It rings true for Bates, who got involved in politics after working (and being exploited) in America, and recognising the need to protect Australia from the “creep of Americanisation”.

“People feel very overwhelmed with what’s happening in the world,” he tells me. “[We’re] trying to give people that bit of hope that things can be different, and can be better, and that we’re going to be the party that walks the walk and doesn’t just talk the talk.”

Bates won his seat off a Liberal, but some forecasts now put Labor as favourites. Are progressives turning to Labor out of fear of a Coalition government?

“People are definitely concerned about the threat of a Dutton government, 100%,” Bates says, noting it’s often mentioned in the same breath as Trump. But he thinks Brisbane voters understand voting Green keeps Dutton out, having had him in for the past three years.

Bates, who is gay, is running ads on Grindr, echoing his last campaign, with slogans like “YOUR STRONG LOCAL MEMBER” and “THE BEST PARLIAMENTS ARE HUNG”. He reckons there is hunger for a hung parliament.

“People are so over the status quo,” he says, adding many in his seat don’t think Labor deserves another majority, having failed to make bold changes with the current one. “This was Labor’s chance the last three years to prove that they could do more than what they said they were going to do on the tin … It just didn’t happen.”

Down in Macnamara, Semmens also raises the spectre of Trump, when asked how this campaign differs from her last (Semmens ran for the Greens in now-abolished Higgins).

“We called that the climate election, and it was very anti-Morrison,” says Semmens, who has been doorknocking Macnamara for more than 12 months. “This conversation is about what it means to have hope for the future, which is super existential, in the light of what’s happening in America — which in the last month started to come up on the doors. People have this sense of an existential threat that they can’t quite put their finger on.”

Renter-heavy Macnamara was tight in 2022. With a primary split three ways, it took weeks to declare Josh Burns the winner, with the real battle between Labor and the Greens for second (third place’s preferences will almost certainly help second overtake the Liberal in first).

An expected decline in Labor’s vote could see Semmens overtake Burns, winning on preferences. The Herald Sun worries this is exactly what will happen, demanding Labor put the Greens last. Ironically, Jewish voters (the seat is around 10% Jewish) moving from Labor to Liberal could be what pushes the Greens in front, though Semmens is hesitant to make that analysis. 

Israel-Gaza is clearly a sensitive issue, one Semmens says she takes very seriously.

“It’s certainly in my mind and heart because I have a lot of Jewish friends and so it’s perhaps one of the most tragic personal experiences that I’ve had campaigning,” she says. “I feel a great sense of sorrow about where that narrative is and what I think the representation of the Greens’ perspective has been by the media and other interests. On a personal level I feel really frightened for my friends who are Jewish who have a negative experience of being Jewish in the community.”

Semmens mentions a graffiti attack on the business of her friend Yaron Gottlieb, and the fact there were recently neo-Nazis on the Elwood foreshore. She says the Greens will be matching funding from Labor and the Coalition to rebuild the firebombed Adass shul.

“I think we need to go all in supporting the Jewish community… It falls on me, I think, as the candidate and perhaps the representative of this community to try to repair the relationship and rebuild the bridge that has been broken. And I will feel that weight of responsibility.”

As for whether she is “salivating” for a hung parliament, as Fitzgibbon so viscerally put it?

“I would say I don’t salivate for much that isn’t food,” she quips, before turning to the benefits of a hung parliament.

“What we have here as a parliament is an opportunity to show voters that we can be bigger than our own political interests and that we can genuinely be for the people of the people to work together across the aisle,” she says. “That will mean some sacrifices on all parts and maybe a big spoonful of humility for people. And you know what? As a 46-year-old woman I am super comfortable with humility.”

All this door-knocking, all this Trump-related angst. It begs the question: why aren’t the Greens doing better than they are? And what will it mean if the Greens don’t progress this election, or worse, go backwards?

Bates, who may yet lose his seat, says it won’t be the end of the Greens, which will likely still hold the balance of power in the Senate.

“We’re still going to be here because there’s still the existential crises that need addressing. There’s still climate change that is going to happen. The housing crisis, cost of living, everything that is going on in the world … We’re still going to be here and we’re still going to be fighting to address them because if we don’t do it, it is very clear that the major parties are never going to.”

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