Extremism is all the rage. But there’s a moment that will truly test Shoebridge and Hanson

Going hard and going extreme is all the rage. We’ve got the Greens returning to Labor-bashing mode by installing the hard-left lawyer David Shoebridge as leader. His stated aim is for the Greens to replace the Labor Party. And the Coalition is trying to ape Pauline Hanson via Angus Taylor’s promise of “the biggest cut to immigration in the history of this country”, that slogan being the only bit of his policy announcement intended to stick in the public mind. It’s easy to see the appeal. One Nation’s recent experience highlights the possible rewards on offer.

But will this overheated style make it through to 2028 and survive the rigours and scrutiny of an election campaign? True, the orthodox party system that has toggled between centre-right and centre-left alternatives has never appeared to be under this much strain at the national level.

However, even allowing for the way that three-year electoral terms have encouraged the descent of federal politics into one ceaseless campaign, that system still counts for something in the wider public imagination. Those of us who look at politics for a living don’t need to peer too far back into the past to be reminded how public sentiment can rearrange itself once an election is called.

Let’s look back at oh, I don’t know – last year? In the early months of 2025, with an election due in May, Labor’s two-year struggle in the polls continued. The wide expectation was that it would go backwards and at best be forced into minority government. Under Adam Bandt’s leadership, the Greens worked hard to frustrate and delay the Albanese government’s agenda in the Senate. With their energetic and pugnacious housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather winning attention with his advocacy of a rent freeze, the Greens were said to be hoovering up the support of young voters. Bandt was so confident that the government was cooked that he pressed Labor to reach a formal power-sharing arrangement ahead of the election, which Anthony Albanese rejected instantly.

Things did not go as planned for the government’s doomsayers. While the Greens’ national primary vote remained at 12.2 per cent, they lost three lower house MPs, including Bandt in Melbourne and Chandler-Mather in Griffith. In all three electorates, the Green vote fell, Labor’s rose and a greater number of Liberal voters gave their preferences to the ALP. The Greens now have just one seat, Ryan, which they took in 2022 not from the Labor Party but from the Coalition. Meanwhile, Labor smashed the Coalition and won its biggest lower house majority since 1943.

Once voters had to make a formal and binding choice on who could be trusted to look after them and the country, a substantial majority went with the government. That is the difference an election can make. Things do move quickly these days, but for the next election not to have a moderating effect on voters’ choices apparent anger would be a monumental change.

Shoebridge’s elevation means a return to the Bandt model. Bob Brown, who served as leader from 2005 to 2012, also wanted the Greens to replace Labor. What sets Shoebridge apart is that he has declared it boldly as his mission from the get-go. By implication his success as leader will be judged by how he delivers on it.

In the coming months, his every public utterance and action, driven by his aggressive approach towards Albanese and Labor’s agenda will get vast media attention. It could well lead to a bump in the polls as well as boosting a reported lift in party membership. The most recent mainstream polls had the party attracting between 11 and 13 per cent.

But there are two sides to the Shoebridge coin. As leader he will retain his role as defence and foreign affairs spokesman, which will make more prominent the party’s positions on national security, including its opposition to Australia providing military support to Ukraine. The party is very much at the pacifist, peacenik end of the left. Shoebridge’s stated policy of giving Ukraine military support only if it was backed by the United Nations Security Council is, given the obvious fact that Russia as a permanent member would veto it, a ridiculous policy.

His stridency looks for the moment to suit the temper of the times but, as with Hanson, everything he says should be viewed through the prism of a leader who aspires to run the country and represent the goals and best interests of the greatest number of Australians, (even though both of them sit in the Senate and not the lower house).

Things have gone OK for Hanson so far, although the Victorian and New South Wales elections will put in view more of her party’s outre positions. That it will work as well for Shoebridge and the Greens is not as clear. The temptation to believe that it can is understandable. With the One Nation insurgency mostly cannibalising the Liberal and National vote on the right, it’s assumed that there must be an unmet appetite for an insurgency on the left, which can knock over the ALP.

That’s a big mountain to climb. Take the seat of Isaacs in Melbourne’s south-east, which stretches from Moorabbin and some bayside suburbs south to Chelsea and east to working class Dandenong and its outer suburban hinterland, and has been held by Labor for the past 30 years. If the Greens are to replace Labor, they’ll need to go way beyond the inner city and win seats like Isaacs. Last year, Labor’s Mark Dreyfus got a primary vote of 49 per cent while his Green opponent took 14 per cent. It’s incredibly hard to see Isaacs being in play for the Greens any time soon.

What’s Shoebridge’s timeframe for the Greens becoming the party of government on the left? How many Coalition and/or One Nation governments would have to be elected while the Greens’ demolition job on the Labor Party is executed? The political environment is incredibly febrile and Shoebridge figures he might as well try to get a piece of the action. To take government, 76 seats are needed for a majority. The Greens only need to win 75 more.

Shaun Carney is a regular columnist, an author and former associate editor of The Age.

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