Whitlam's children? Labor and the Greens in Australia

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the gradual rise of the Australian Greens has transformed Australian politics. Where the Australian Labor Party once enjoyed parliamentary dominance over the progressive left, it now shares space with the minor party. At both the state and federal level, Labor has depended on Greens support to form government, and even more frequently to pass contentious legislation. After the 2010 federal election and its resulting minority parliament, the first in almost seventy years, the two parties signed a formal ‘Agreement’, with the Greens guaranteeing Labor confidence in return for policy demands and a great role in government. In the following three years, the Labor and Greens relationship received unprecedented public scrutiny. The Agreement and surrounding theatre became a major theme of the government – one amplified by Labor’s opponents.

Focusing on this first federal minority experience, the thesis examines the Labor and Greens relationship in Australia. Across forty-one interviews with federal representatives, it sought each party’s institutional perspective on a range of issues. Was the formal Agreement an effective model for minority government, and did it serve either party’s interests? What were the defining institutional and ideological differences between Labor and the Greens? In the longer term, was a closer arrangement possible, and did either party desire it? On top of these questions, the thesis examined a number of difficult policy areas facing the minority arrangement – carbon pricing, refugee processing and mining taxation. While the research revealed a number of different perspectives, even within parties, it uncovered a productive, though often hostile parliamentary relationship; united by a series of shared values, but divided by different approaches to parliament, politics and pragmatism. Show more