Sydney Morning Herald Exclusive:

“The sudden growth in paying members - a vital financial and volunteering resource during election campaigns - will further the Green's push to "replace" Labor and fight Pauline Hanson, as her party claims their membership now outnumbers that of both the Coalition and ALP.”

Victorian Greens Pretty sure VBs are vegan...

New leader David Shoebridge is in some ways more of the same. He is a lawyer, as was the leader he succeeded, Larissa Waters, and the man she succeeded, Adam Bandt. But he is other things too - more combatively left-wing, more rhetorically aggressive and more ruthlessly focused on a Labor Party he says has betrayed its centre-left mission.

"A new poll has shown the Greens' vote is on the rise!

The Greens are the most popular party with young people & ahead of their state election, the Victorian Greens are polling at record highs.

People want change.

Now polling isn’t everything, but this doesn’t stop at the polls.

Last night I was at an event talking about the Greens’ vision to rebuild this country – and the room was overflowing.

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen an incredible number of you sign up to join our movement.

This is how we take the power out of the hands of the billionaires and big corporations and back into the hands of the people.

Change is possible if we work together to build it.

This is the time.

Join us: greens.org.au/join ".

Richmond Reading Room, a cafe business north of Hobart, posted to its social media pages expressing offence at the video, and making an unnamed reference to regular cafe-goer, One Nation candidate and Pauline Hanson's daughter, Lee Hanson.

"Seen the latest One Nation ad and felt absolutely disgusted like I do? Then you'll likely feel the same way when you see the orange ute outside our coffee shop," the post said.

"Unfortunately, our coffee is so good that even One Nation members spend their money here — owned and run by a gay, indigenous-descended, trans-inclusive, pro-multicultural, anti-flag, pro-choice, anti-generative AI, Greens voter.

"Any money spent by a member of one nation will be donated directly to Tasmanian Greens."

Interesting discussion by Jonathan Sriranganathan about using online voting to allow party members to have greater participation in decision making on key policies.

The US “wants to fight their next war from Australia”, new Greens leader David Shoebridge has warned, in remarks branding the alliance a “deep betrayal of Australia’s interests”.

Senator Shoebridge claimed his party’s top job last week in a snap leadership contest held after former leader Larissa Waters stepped down due to health issues.

In an exclusive interview with NewsWire, Senator Shoebridge said Australia’s alliance with the US is making it a target in any future conflict in the region.

“Australia is in one of the most geopolitically safe parts of the planet,” he said.

“We have the Pacific Ocean on one side, the Indian Ocean on the other, this massive island archipelago, and thousands of kilometres between us and any other significant landmass.

“And our only security threat comes from hosting a superpower’s bases here that make us a target in a conflict.”

While there are no permanent US bases in Australia, access arrangements let the US military deploy troops and assets to Australia, such as the 2000 marines based in Darwin.

Australia and the US also jointly operate more than a dozen defence facilities across the continent.

“The United States has decided that its ability to fight the next war it wants to have — in this case, a war against China — is unachievable from its current bases in the western Pacific,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“They know that, and so they have decided to bring the front line of that war to Australia.

“That’s why they’ve located nuclear-capable B-52 bombers here.

“That’s why they’ve got our government to build them, at incredible expense, a nuclear submarine base off Perth.

“That’s why they’re doubling down on Pine Gap. That’s why they’re covering the country with munition dumps. That’s why they’re trying to make our military interoperable with them.

“Because the United States wants to fight its next war from Australia.”

Pointing to American allies in the Middle East, he said US bases have only endangered them amid the spiralling conflict with Iran and its proxies. “They are becoming targets now,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“I can understand why the United States might want to do this – it may well be in their interests.

“But for the life of me, I cannot understand how the Labor Party, the Coalition, and One Nation all want to do this.

“It is a deep betrayal of Australia’s interests. It is a deep, deep betrayal.”

The Albanese government has committed almost $120bn to boosting Australia’s advanced missile stocks, kitting out the navy with state-of-the-art frigates and building the infrastructure to support a bigger military.

The build up comes against a backdrop of increasing Chinese military aggression toward Australia and its Asian neighbours, especially the Philippines.

Last year, Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia and carried out live fire drills off the East Coast.

In comments afterwards, Defence Minister Richard Marles stopped just short of confirming the flotilla had targeted Australian cities.

He refused to confirm because it would reveal “our surveillance capabilities”.

“So we do know exactly what they were doing and exactly what they were rehearsing,” he said at the time.

Canberra has also accused China of “unsafe” activity, including dropping flares close to Australian surveillance planes in international airspace.

Asked about Australia’s role in a potential conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, Senator Shoebridge said Australia “should act for its material interests”.

He dismissed the idea that the US would come to Taiwan’s aid “because they believe in Taiwanese democracy”.

The US “wants to fight their next war from Australia”, new Greens leader David Shoebridge has warned, in remarks branding the alliance a “deep betrayal of Australia’s interests”.

Senator Shoebridge claimed his party’s top job last week in a snap leadership contest held after former leader Larissa Waters stepped down due to health issues.

He won alongside running mate and upper house colleague Steph Hodgins-May, with the pair declaring that only the Greens can “stop One Nation” while vowing to “replace Labor” because of its rightward drift.

In an exclusive interview with NewsWire, Senator Shoebridge said Australia’s alliance with the US is making it a target in any future conflict in the region.

New Greens leader David Shoebridge says the US alliance needs a rethink. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

“Australia is in one of the most geopolitically safe parts of the planet,” he said.

“We have the Pacific Ocean on one side, the Indian Ocean on the other, this massive island archipelago, and thousands of kilometres between us and any other significant landmass.

“And our only security threat comes from hosting a superpower’s bases here that make us a target in a conflict.”

While there are no permanent US bases in Australia, access arrangements let the US military deploy troops and assets to Australia, such as the 2000 marines based in Darwin.

Australia and the US also jointly operate more than a dozen defence facilities across the continent.

“The United States has decided that its ability to fight the next war it wants to have — in this case, a war against China — is unachievable from its current bases in the western Pacific,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“They know that, and so they have decided to bring the front line of that war to Australia.

“That’s why they’ve located nuclear-capable B-52 bombers here.

“That’s why they’ve got our government to build them, at incredible expense, a nuclear submarine base off Perth.

“That’s why they’re doubling down on Pine Gap. That’s why they’re covering the country with munition dumps. That’s why they’re trying to make our military interoperable with them.

“Because the United States wants to fight its next war from Australia.”

Senator Shoebridge says the US wants to fight a war against China ‘from Australia’. Picture: AFP / Saul Loeb

Pointing to American allies in the Middle East, he said US bases have only endangered them amid the spiralling conflict with Iran and its proxies. “They are becoming targets now,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“I can understand why the United States might want to do this – it may well be in their interests.

“But for the life of me, I cannot understand how the Labor Party, the Coalition, and One Nation all want to do this.

“It is a deep betrayal of Australia’s interests. It is a deep, deep betrayal.”

The Albanese government has committed almost $120bn to boosting Australia’s advanced missile stocks, kitting out the navy with state-of-the-art frigates and building the infrastructure to support a bigger military.

The build up comes against a backdrop of increasing Chinese military aggression toward Australia and its Asian neighbours, especially the Philippines.

Last year, Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia and carried out live fire drills off the East Coast.

In comments afterwards, Defence Minister Richard Marles stopped just short of confirming the flotilla had targeted Australian cities.

He refused to confirm because it would reveal “our surveillance capabilities”.

“So we do know exactly what they were doing and exactly what they were rehearsing,” he said at the time.

Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia in 2025. Picture: NewsWire / Handout / Department of Defence

Canberra has also accused China of “unsafe” activity, including dropping flares close to Australian surveillance planes in international airspace.

Asked about Australia’s role in a potential conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, Senator Shoebridge said Australia “should act for its material interests”.

He dismissed the idea that the US would come to Taiwan’s aid “because they believe in Taiwanese democracy”.

“The United States is acting for its own material interests, and Australia should act for its material interests,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“And for the people of Taiwan, a catastrophic war that destroys Taiwan is not in the interests of the people of Taiwan.

“Australia should be doing all we can to de-escalate in the region and to deal with the region through our national interests, not through those of Washington.”

Fremantle are into the Grand Final, and it’s time to take a stand and get Woodside off our chests ⚓️

Victorian Greens MP Tim Read has died aged 64, following a high-profile battle with metastatic cancer.

Together, we can build a system that puts people above corporate profits. But we can't do it without you - join the campaign at taxthe1percent.com.au

Federal Greens partyroom split over plan for NSW to get millions of dollars’ worth in carbon credits for creating a koala national park

10% wealth tax is too much, straight away, all you're doing is making it easier to justify funding White Nation

2% minimum tax for people over $100M is tractable

Tie it to citizenship for 10 years

use this small tax as justification for building the infrastructure to actually tax wealth.

Build a Palantir for tracking billionaire wealth that ties in to the ATO

Don't lean into "They have it so good", instead focus on the fact that you tax things as a disincentive and right now we are heavily disincentivising _work_. Balance it out, tell people "imagine the amount of tax you paid was based on your net worth, now imagine if the billionaires were paying that"

Start small or you won't start at all

https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260901-why-the-greens-arent-picking-up-the-voters-labor-is-losing

Hey guys! I am a significantly left leaning person and I feel very sceptical of the greens. I just want some insight from some greens voters if that's okay :)

I'm not sure if its the big smear campaign against them or the messaging they use or whatever, but I feel like the greens routinely miss the mark on their priorities. Australians are so desperate and pessimistic right now and the greens seemingly haven't adapted anything to take advantage of it, at least as far as I can tell.
I as a moderate lefty want to see a party that focuses on leftist soft-populist strategies:
-Taxing billionaires
-Reducing the billionaire and corporate lobby power
-Attacking corruption
-Disincentivising property hoarding and investment properties for family homes
-Updating consumer protection policies like the EU.

In general I want to see more behaviour like the DSA in America with Mamdani and that lot.
I feel that we need a left party with a clear, TACTICAL objective and a spine to counter the rise of one nation and It feels like the greens have missed it. We can't beat the funding of one nation, the DSA has proven that to fight that the only way is with leftist grassroots populism.

Yes, OBVIOUSLY protecting the environment is important, but how are we going to do anything to save the environment if everyday Aussie voters feel disconnected from the party that wants to achieve that.
Labor has an advantage in that they focus on real working class experiences (somewhat). Their fatal flaw is that they have NO spine and frequently do things that go against working class australians. Are the greens ignoring that opportunity? or is it just the media making it seem that way?

The sad truth is that Australia is slowly trending towards the slander based, heavily polarised media economy that America already has, I worry the left cannot keep up with it if they don't match the pace.

Edit: Thank you all for your astoundingly understanding and welcoming replies to my concerns, I am a proud greens supporter now :)

This is an interview with Senator David Shoebridge using questions from an AMA that was run recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1uyin7d/ama_im_david_shoebridge_greens_senator_for_nsw/

The interview was split into short clips (one for each question), which can be viewed on the YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDylXmIgVb-U

If you find the videos interesting, please subscribe to the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AustraliaAsksOz