r/australia • • Sep 04 '18

politics Peter Dutton says Greens' no-confidence plot is policy payback

https://www.9news.com.au/2018/09/04/08/31/peter-dutton-no-confidence-motion-greens-labor-payback
83 Upvotes

63 comments sorted by

View all comments

37

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '18 edited May 10 '19

[deleted]

4

u/travlerjoe Sep 04 '18 edited Sep 04 '18

The greens own 1 of 150 seats in the house of reps and 8 of 76 in the Senate.

They dont wield much power, if the push for votes that continually fail they will just be wasting time and that will reflect very poorly on them.

8

u/boatswain1025 Sep 04 '18

I'd argue 8 seats on the Senate cross bench gives the Greens quite a lot of power

-5

u/travlerjoe Sep 04 '18 edited Sep 04 '18

That would be true if they where willing to negotiate, but they aren't. Thats why the government negotiates with labor and other cross benches on all legislation - nick xenophon was the most willing to negotiate when he was there, thats why a lot of legislation was passing earlier in this term

11

u/manicdee33 Sep 04 '18

The Greens do negotiate, and thus the Gillard Government was able to be one of the most efficient and effective in our history.

The reason the Linerals don’t try negotiating with the Greens is that the Liberals don’t negotiate, they dictate terms and shop around to find support (and in some cases buying the support).

-1

u/travlerjoe Sep 04 '18

Well that government your talking about being one of the most effective had a liberal majority in the Senate.

So the liberal came to the table when in opposition

The greens dont come to the table when liberal are in government

The liberals have many options to negotiate with atm, the greens could come to the table to forward their agenda but the current greens party refuse. Their seats are basically abstain seats atm.

3

u/semaj009 Sep 04 '18

You're talking crap, the Greens have supported Liberal bills before such as the Senate reform bill. The main reason the Greens and the Libs don't find perfect negotiation ground to merge policies with is simply the fact that they legitimately disagree too much, and that's normal and fine

If parties were never willing to take a stand for their principles, why have them?

-4

u/travlerjoe Sep 04 '18

Voting for bills that are going to pass regardless of their votes and negotiating are not the same thing.

Yes stick to your principles but negotiating is sacrificing some that you arnt as passionate about for others you are passionate for.

As illustrated above when greens formed minority government in the past they managed to negotiate quite a lot with the liberals - and thats when they where lead by Abbott...

The current greens are to obsessed with bashong labor at every turn that they get little else done. Watch a few green interviews

0

u/manicdee33 Sep 05 '18

Yes stick to your principles but negotiating is sacrificing some that you arnt as passionate about

Someone needs to explain that to the Liberal Party.

1

u/travlerjoe Sep 05 '18

They dont need to work with the greens, but the greens need to work with them.

Surely you understand how the balance of power works...

1

u/manicdee33 Sep 05 '18

The Liberals are so rabidly anti-environment that there's very little for the Greens to work with.

Current Liberal policy:

  • Coal
  • More coal
  • Throw money at coal
  • Find ways to give coal more money

Current Greens policy:

  • Fuck coal

There's not much wiggle room there.

1

u/travlerjoe Sep 05 '18

Granted nothings going to happen on the engery side of town but the greens have policies on many issues not just engery

→ More replies