Adam Bandt on the Greens’ journey from state forests to hip-pockets
As the prospect of a hung parliament looms, the Greens are making cost of living just as central to their pitch as the climate.
Greens leader Adam Bandt sat alone in the House of Representatives for over a decade. But the party’s best ever result in 2022, driven by a surge in Brisbane that surprised many pundits, catapulted three new MPs into the lower house.
But Bandt insists that number can grow at the next election, which must be held by May 2025. And if the three Labor seats on his hit list fall, the government’s majority will evaporate before any other losses are even factored in. Unsurprisingly, Bandt is promising to wield leverage in a hung Parliament to drive through serious reforms, but not just on climate change, with hip pocket issues like tax and housing also on his list.
“I think that Labor and [the] Liberals are going to have to get used to the fact that they don't run the show any more,” he tells Capital Brief from inside his office in Parliament.
Since taking the reins in 2020, Bandt has made a concerted effort to broaden perceptions of a party which many previously viewed as purely focused on the environment. He’s more often photographed on the streets of Melbourne’s inner-north than in a state forest, where the party’s first leader Bob Brown was arrested during an anti-logging protest last week.
