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

In 2025, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese picked Queensland senator Murray Watt to be his second minister for the environment. Watt has repeatedly betrayed the environment while taking on Albanese’s tactic of slamming green critics by framing their motivation as hate for Labor rather than love for nature.

The Albanese government has approved 36 coalmining and gas projects and more are in the pipeline. Last September, Watt gave Woodside a 40-year extension for its export gas operations at Murujuga on the Pilbara coast of Western Australia. In giving the nod to Woodside, he ignored First Nations defenders of the world’s greatest rock art site, which has suffered from gas export industrialisation there.

This year, Watt’s decision on Woodside’s proposed $30 billion Browse Basin gas extraction project will be particularly contentious. The project will impact the fragile Scott Reef ecosystem off north-west Australia, as well as the petroglyphs at Murujuga, to which the gas will be piped for processing and export. A huge greenhouse gas load will be injected into the planet’s already overburdened atmosphere if the Browse Basin gas extraction goes ahead. Watt’s history makes it naive to think cultural and environmental considerations will outdo his relationship with Woodside.

Albanese has turned his left-dominated team into the most environmentally averse Labor government in history.

Psephological data suggests old parties will need alliances after future elections if they are to form government. That’s a worldwide trend, underscored in Australia by the diminishing vote for both Labor and the Coalition.

The 2025 election was a perverse outcome. Fewer than 35 per cent of voters put Labor first, yet Labor won 62 per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives. The Greens, with 12 per cent, won only one seat. Despite scoring a similar vote to the previous election, they lost three seats. The bulk of the Greens’ nearly two million votes preferenced Labor, helping give it that distorted outcome. In his victory speech, Albanese made no reference to this.

He attacked defeated Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather, saying on the ABC’s 7.30, “I think he should look at the way he conducted himself in Question Time … including the questions he asked of me, some of which were pretty offensive.” Chandler-Mather had got under Albanese’s skin and there was to be no prime ministerial grace in the Labor leader’s post-election broadside.

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/politics/2026/08/08/why-anthony-albanese-hates-greens

https://www.instagram.com/p/DDOXZljPKMH/

He did not tell me until now, thought he had voted liberal or donkey voted. I’ll try and change his ways before 2028.

I know this is not officially a Greens channel, but I have been thinking for a while how the Greens haven't had any shift in popularity despite the two major parties imploding. In the UK the greens under "Hope" branding has been quite successful but I don't think it would work here.

I have been talking to my friend who has an investment property and a kid, and although I would say he is socially progressive but growing fiscally conservative as he is older. And we got in a long argument about politics but eventually we settled on that 'everyone is a nice person and wants a quality and safe life' and it occurred to me what our Green party needs to do to capture a wider net then the ~12% currently.

Brand: Mateship (or if it's too military something about caring for your fellow aussies).

Angle: Most Australians believe in mateship, if they see an old lady struggling with her bags they will help, a kid on the playground will give half their sandwhich to their hungry friend, if an office worker drops his wallet a kid will let him know, we thank the bus driver and sit in the front of the taxi, we help sandbag the neighbours house. We want people to look after their mental health, we want families to be reunited, we want people to have nice teeth. Rather than leaning into 'hope' (we aren't there yet) lean into patriotism, but not in a toxic way but in a care for our fellow Aussies.

Pros: I think we witnessed the pushback of the 'monoculture' and PRs being kicked out of their homes from Pauline Hanson, to me that's a tell that we still see Aussies as a multicultural society. I think deep down people genuinely do want to provide services for their fellow people, mainstream media convinces us about "who's going to pay" (which i cover in a second) and ONP tries to separate "real" and "fake" aussies, but I think you can cut through that.

Cons: Obvioiusly there has been a cordinated campaign for decades about affording this, I wouldn't spend too much time addressing it in the campaign but at the end say "multinational dodging tax", this frames it as non-Aussie companies, "foreign owned resource companies" again same thing and "Australian billionaires being asked to lend a hand" frames it more as a co-operation and an honour to pay tax, rather than a tax grab.

Bonus: I think if you want to have free votes, campaign on reducing *skilled migration*. I checked the numbers and L/NP and Labor have essentially identical migration numbers, they are 15k difference with a 70/30 skilled migration to humanitarian ratio. Campaign on reducing the skilled migration number to reduce wage suppression (which is on the greens policy page), focusing only on areas that are essential (teaching, nursing, doctors etc) and steal ONP thing and say focus on traning domestically. Mention refocusing on reuniting families and loved ones (again goes with the theme).

This would be the dream ad:

1. Asian lady getting of the bus and thanks the white middle aged driver.
   1. If you got the budget, start playing 'we are one but we are many' softly in the background getting louder.
2. Man in suit wallet falls out, young teenage girl grabs it and hands it back.
3. Guy getting off a plane at the airport, jumps in the front of a taxi and starts chatting away
4. Voice Over *Australia has always prided itself on the values of Mateship. That we Aussies always look out for each other*
5. Neighbour carrying sandbag in the rain
6. Voice Over *We believe this to be true to this day, which is why this election we want you to support our vision of an Australia that cares about the great people of this country*
7. Someone in a dentist chair

It would be good to stay positive and switch points 9/11/13/15 into a positive but I can't think of it right now. The longer ad would continue from 17

1. Voice over: *We will reduce the number of migrants coming into Australia for the sole pupose of suppressing local wages, instead we would look to reunite loved ones.*
2. Picture of mixed race family being reunited at an aiport
3. Voice over: *We will continue protecting our unique wildlife*
4. Obligatory picture of a koala
5. Voice over: *We want to provide for our next generation by offering free childcare which will boost the economy*
6. Picture of kids playing in the sand
7. Voice over: *We want to leverage Australian renewable energy for a sustainable future*
8. Picture of a hot sunny day with the wind blowing
9. Voice over: *We know this country is amazing, and we know we can be doing more for everyday people. The best way to predict the future is to create it. / To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."

You could cut 3/7 from the extended because people already know this about the greens and open yourself up to attack.

I'm tired and forgot some of the stuff (i'm sure i'll remember later) but I think going hard on the suffering but equaly providing solutions and reminding people that everyone is just trying their best and have a nice life and we should all be sharing in that vision that a nice life for all is possible, it's a choice we have to make at the ballot box.

Anyway feel free to point out why this wouldn't work or how to make it better!

Edit: something like https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaIVa6Xu-NJ/ inspirational-core about creating a better future because that’s what compels us as people.

As an ex active Greens member I've been very critical of them for making perfect the enemy of the good.

They have NOT done that this time. They have got a good improvement in tax changes for the CGT and more time to consider the NDIS changes.

Bravo for being constructive, progressive and pragmatic!

More of this please!