To quote Alanis Morissette: isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
asserted
you → quote → Morissette
The fictional Roy family from Succession is everything the Greens detest: an avaricious and amoral media dynasty clearly based on the Murdoch family.
asserted
Greens → detest → family
Yet the Greens’ leadership battle this week resembled a scene from the beloved HBO show, whose scriptwriters found increasingly extravagant ways (like a superyacht anchored off the coast of Croatia) to isolate their protagonists from the outside world as they schemed for power.
asserted
they → resemble → power
Larissa Waters’ surprise resignation as party leader on Monday came ahead of a two-day Greens’ retreat in Sydney, where the party’s federal MPs were gathering to talk policy and strategy behind closed doors.
asserted
MPs → come → doors
The retreat suddenly took on a heightened significance as the place the Greens would decide their new leader.
asserted
Greens → take → leader
(The Succession scriptwriters may well have picked somewhere more cinematic – an eco-lodge in the Blue Mountains, perhaps, rather than the sterile Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices in the Sydney CBD.)
uncertain
scriptwriters → pick → CBD
By lunchtime on Wednesday, NSW Senator David Shoebridge had been anointed the new leader after defeating colleagues Sarah Hanson-Young and Mehreen Faruqi.
asserted
Shoebridge → anoint → Young
The rapid handover avoided a drawn-out, messy contest in which the leadership contenders would have had to make a public case for why they were the best person to lead the party to the next election.
asserted
they → avoid → election
The only thing Greens’ members and the public heard from the three contenders ahead of the vote came via anodyne Instagram posts declaring they would contest the ballot.
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they → hear → ballot
None offered any insight into fundamental questions, like whether the party should focus on environmentalism or left-wing economics, or whether it should prioritise parliamentary compromise or picking fights with Labor.
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it → offer → Labor
This hasty and opaque process minimised infighting but denied the party a chance for a meaningful and vigorous debate about its future at exactly the moment it needs one.
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it → minimise → one
It was a similar story after last year’s federal election, when the partyroom quickly fell behind Waters as a consensus candidate when three of the four Greens’ lower house members, including long-time leader Adam Bandt, lost their seats.
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three → fall → seats
The outcome: the Greens’ primary vote remains stuck around 12 per cent despite growing frustration with the major parties and voter anger at the rising cost of living.
asserted
vote → remain → living
Left-wing populists in other countries have made impressive recent gains – most notably, New York’s democratic-socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani but also Germany’s far-left Die Linke party, which last week won the most votes in Berlin’s state parliament for the first time.
asserted
which → make → time
Yet in Australia, only Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the teal independents are benefiting from voters’ desire to flick a middle finger to the status quo.
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Nation → benefit → quo
The Greens’ leadership contest this week is emblematic of a party that regards itself as a champion of transparency and grassroots democracy yet, in its internal machinations, is too often secretive and insular.
asserted
that → regard → machinations
In 2010, it famously took weeks for it to be revealed that Hanson-Young had unsuccessfully challenged Christine Milne for the deputy leadership.
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Young → take → leadership
Max Chandler-Mather, one of the Greens MPs who lost their seats at the last election, made an important contribution this week when he lit a fire under the party to give ordinary members a say in leadership contests.
asserted
he → lose → contests
Now running the Green Institute think tank, Chandler-Mather said progressive voters were asking how the Greens could emulate the success of Mamdani and UK Greens’ leader Zack Polanski (whose party was surging in polls before UK Labour dumped Keir Starmer for Andy Burnham).
uncertain
Labour → run → Burnham
“The recipe for their success doesn’t just lie in their policies, rhetoric or even organising strategy.
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recipe → lie → policies
It lies in the process by which they won their elections.
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they → lie → elections
In both instances they were elected by direct member elections,” Chandler-Mather wrote in an open letter.
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Mather → elect → letter
In the UK Greens’ 2025 leadership contest, Chandler-Mather noted, the party quadrupled its membership from 68,000 to 230,000, injecting the party with a surge of energy and resources.
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party → note → energy
Faruqi may have sounded like a sore loser when, after failing to convince her colleagues to back her, she declared the Greens “cannot call ourselves a grassroots party” without a member vote.
uncertain
Greens → sound → vote
To the Greens’ embarrassment, it is not only their UK and New Zealand counterparts who allow rank-and-file members to vote in leadership ballots but also their Labor opponents.
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members → allow → ballots
After traumatic Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, Labor moved to a system where party members as well as MPs have a say in picking the leader – though this has only been tested once, when Bill Shorten defeated Anthony Albanese in 2013.
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Shorten → move → 2013
Shoebridge, as far as we know, emerged triumphant because of his successful use of parliamentary hearings to grill defence and law enforcement officials and provide important scrutiny on the AUKUS pact.
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we → know → pact
It’s clear the hard-left warrior, a former ally of Lee Rhiannon, is determined to focus on economic issues.
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warrior → ’ → issues
As leader, he now faces a more difficult task than interrogating and criticising: he must inspire and mobilise progressive voters to back the Greens.
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he → face → Greens
Crucially, the charismatic Mamdani channelled New Yorkers’ frustrations at rising inequality by acting as a hopeful warrior with a plan to bring prices down, not a shrill dogmatist.
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Mamdani → channel → prices
Shoebridge has committed to giving members a say in the next leadership ballot, but in media interviews on Thursday, he alluded to why such a move has not happened and will be difficult to implement.
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move → commit → Thursday
Party members in smaller states such as Tasmania, the Greens’ birthplace, would resist being outnumbered by inner-city voters in NSW and Victoria.
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members → resist → NSW
While it won’t be easy, the party has an urgent need to reform and re-energise, to become more outward-looking and less cloistered.
asserted
party → have → need
It might not make for compelling television, but could lead to electoral success.
uncertain
It → make → success
The Aporia
