Will a Change in Greens Leadership make the Nationals Redundant?
With the moderately surprising news that Christine Milne had decided to step out of her current political life, Dr Richard Di Natale moved into the driver’s seat for the Greens. And I flag that this spells trouble for the National Party because this shift, this change in voice and style, connected to similar passions, will offer the traditionally National voting rural constituent, the ‘go signal’ for change. And here’s why:
- The high level of disenchantment with the national’s support for mining over farming particularly across NSW and QLD;
- The ongoing saga of perceived practises of the #Duopoly, Coles & Woolworths, and their treatment of farmers;
- The threats posed to rural and semi rural communities through Coal Seam gas fracking and threats to fresh water supplies from the chemicals used in that process;
- The perceived collapse in ‘independent voice’ at the Federal level with too many coalition aligned policies seemingly out of whack with rural concerns.
- And into that mix, the support many rural communities received from the ‘feral’ green types trying to stop Maules Creek and other mining projects.
What those protests enabled for perhaps the first time, was a realisation on the part of the rural communities, that the people they thought were merely tree huggers, actually shared a similar concerns and passion – love for the land, the environment and the future. When you have a local farmer coming out publicly and saying that ‘I would have lost my farm if not for these people’ then you have a shift in awareness. That message, that impetus was clearly shown in state voting patterns, especially in NSW where inroads into vote % were significant. This was no protest vote, it was a fundamental shift in thinking of large sections of country Australia.
And now, with a new face at the helm of the National Greens, someone who has worked in the rural sector, who has seen the plights of people some distances from the cities, is a messenger that could parlay that growing Greens/Rural alignment into a significant shift in political representation. For over a decade I’ve suggested that the natural political alignment is between the Greens and the Nationals. It’s not yet a comfortable fit, but it is a natural one. This new Greens leadership could well make the Nationals (at least the current group) redundant, for if all they do is represent non rural sector interests over those of their constituents, those same constituents will find voice through those who do.
A series of recent activities has me writing on the idea of ‘future strategy’ and how different organisations are approaching their future development. What is interesting is the strong sense that preparing for your potential future requires multiple paths forward, not a single ‘home run’. To that end I’ve recently considered sporting bodies and local…
Read More >Stephen Downes is one the handful of bloggers I follow consistently. I do so because Downes (unlike many others unfortunately) like to write about his thinking AS WELL AS promoting the thinking of others, whether or not he agrees with them. In that way you get a solid collection of alternative views within his field…
Read More >Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I’m in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek…
Read More >Every now and again you have an opportunity to listen to some rare insights to an industry sector. These opportunities are typically rare because the insights need to come from someone who not only ‘knows their stuff’, they need to be able to translate their knowledge in a way that the average person in the…
Read More >The ‘Supertax’ debate is an interesting one and as expected, both parties are heavily invested in their own outcomes. One thing the Mining Companies understand is that the tax will lower the size of their profits in boom times for the resources sector – they’ll still be raking in billions, its just that some of…
Read More >As more organisations look to gain an understanding of how to both identify and prepare for their potential and desired futures, Design Thinking is on the current radar screen as a skill set likely to provide significant value. On the 25th to 27th of may you can attend a highly interactive and practical conference on…
Read More >One of the current affairs TV programs did a story recently on the efforts by NSW police to crack down on ‘hoon’ drivers through a specific squad targeting them. The Victorian Police recently announced a similar project with the squad headed up by one of Victoria Police’s most effective senior officers, Inspector Bernie Rankin. Unusually…
Read More >Lewis Hamilton, the former automotive Formula One ‘number one’ had his car impounded on Friday night for alleged ‘hoon’ driving, having been spotted by police spinning his wheels at a busy intersection in St Kilda. Whilst many character witnesses have already jumped to his defence, with one interesting observation from Mark Webber suggesting we have…
Read More >Following on from the highly rated ‘Skimming the Cream’ forum in Brisbane on the 9th of February, members of the Young Dairy Network and SubTropical Dairy groups reconvened to consider the impacts of Climate Change on the dairy sector in Australia using the high-impact ‘Accelerated Scenarios process’. The ‘2030 Dairy Scenarios’ brought together the members…
Read More >Queensland is one state that leverages its weather to the hilt – and the fact is the ‘Sunshine State’ earns its reputation. The odd thing is that in the past week I’ve spent in the Gold Coast experiencing the warm, humid and often wet weather it has occured to me that Queensland might be missing…
Read More >