The Australian Greens

Openly Gay Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown

The Australian Greens are a political party gaining popularity. In fact they could end up holding the balance of power in the Senate at the upcoming election. There seems to be a very strange deal done between the Greens and Labor Party. Labor has promised to give them their preferences in the senate if the Greens will give them their preferences in the House of Reps.

There was an interesting article written by Miranda Devine yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald about what it would be like under the Greens. So if you are thinking of voting Labor, this is what the Greens will want:

Mandated zero net greenhouse gas emissions, the effective end of coal-fired power generation, phasing out of coal exports, a ban on new coalmines or power stations, removal of Genetically Modified (GM) crops, and active discouragement of cars. They want a ban on the exploration, mining and export of uranium and closure of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, which produces medical isotopes used for cancer treatment. They want to restrict funding of private schools. They want to abolish mandatory detention of asylum seekers and to expand the definition of refugee to include "environmental" or "sexuality" refugees. They want to legislate for same-sex marriage, tinker with age of consent laws, establish "intersex" as a legal gender, fund gender reassignment, require government to consult lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex people on policy, and provide easier access to abortion. On drugs, they are harm minimisation all the way, with more needle exchange programs and injecting rooms. And be prepared for a barrage of nanny-statism, starting with a ban on junk food. advertising.

The Greens published policies are carefully couched in escape clauses to avoid the scare campaigns of past elections, when their extreme social agenda cost them votes. But the effect will be the same. And of course, their big-ticket policy, the one with the most nation-changing consequences, is an ETS or carbon tax, with holdholders paying the price in soaring energy costs.

I can't understand why the Opposition Leader isn't educating the public that this is a likely scenario if the Greens gain more power in the upcoming election. I hope Tony Abbott will talk more about this important issue in the coming weeks.