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The Australian Greens have elected a new leadership team as internal pressure mounts to reconnect with voters, while Labor's poll slump and One Nation's rise raise questions about the party's future strategy.
The Australian Greens have a new leadership team, with David Shoebridge and Steph Hodgins-May taking the reins after Larissa Waters tendered a shock resignation over health issues.
Greens Leadership Faces Internal Frustration
The change comes as the party faces mounting internal frustration over its failure to capitalise on Labor's declining poll numbers. Greens supporters hope the new leadership will provide the answers the party has been searching for. The political mood has shifted since last year's election returned a lousy result for the Greens, who lost three lower house MPs while interest rates are again on the rise.
Waters kept the party's vote intact despite turbulence elsewhere, and most people in the Greens emphasise their respect and affection for her. But they believe her leadership has been lacking bite and energy. Larissa was great in trying to get the best out of others, but that does not lend itself to being a firebrand in the public eyes, a member close to the NSW Greens says.
She was a good internal leader, but I am not sure she cut across. The party is spying opportunity in this week's change. Leadership contender senator Sarah Hanson-Young said as much in her pitch to colleagues this week, according to people in the room. The Greens have to be able to work with the government to get things done that our voters and supporters want, says another source in the federal party.
But you have to be able to do that while calling bullshit when you see it. The challenge for David is whether he can do both. Shoebridge clearly thinks a breakthrough is possible. He wants the Greens vote to be higher, and its influence in parliament to multiply, although he is not yet setting targets.
Shoebridge Seeks a Combative Direction
This is an extraordinary moment in politics, not just in Australia, but across the world, Shoebridge says in an interview. The challenge for the Greens has been connecting with that anger, letting people understand that we see it and we feel it. And directing the political focus, not on migrants or your neighbour from the Philippines working in the local emergency department, but on the 1 per cent who are driving inequality. This is already the Greens message, though.
Pressed again on what has been missing, Shoebridge says: I have been hearing people want a party that is going to be out there overtly fighting for them. Going into parliament and rejecting the status quo and incremental change loudly, clearly, and directly.
The feedback I have been getting about the team that we put together, Steph Hodgins-May and myself, is there is this powerful sense that we have the leadership team connected to a party room that is up for this fight. Look at my political history. That was the combative approach of Max Chandler-Mather, the one-term MP and firebrand who is now leading the party's think-tank, the Green Institute.
Building a Grassroots Mass Movement
Both he and Shoebridge have emphasised another missing factor: a grassroots mass movement of everyday Australians. People often ask how to recreate the political success and energy of UK Greens leader Zack Polanski or New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Chandler-Mather wrote in an open letter to the Greens MPs on Tuesday, before the leadership vote. The recipe for their success does not just lie in their policies, rhetoric or even organising strategy.
It lies in the process by which they won their elections. One way to do that, he argued, was giving all Greens members a say in choosing their leader. We say we want to build a movement, but if we are serious about that it means putting real power and trust in the hands of ordinary people and trusting they will make the right choice, he says. It did not happen this week, but remains a live debate.
Meanwhile, Chandler-Mather's Green Institute has been working on that project, pulling together research and focus groups to help map the electorate and guide the Greens targeting strategy. Core to the vision is a version of the Greens that sets itself apart from Labor and positions itself as an alternative party of government, not a crossbench party that helps the government pass progressive legislation.
Greens Recalibrate Their Electoral Strategy
Shoebridge has indicated this could see a return to a more obstructionist approach to parliament than the past 18 months under Waters. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a notorious Greens detractor, has rubbished Shoebridge's vow to replace Labor. It was somewhat concerning at a time when we see a rise of a far right-wing party, he said this week.
It sounded a lot like some of the people who did not win their seats at the House of Representatives election last year. But the Greens took a different message out of their election result. The party's 2025 election review, which was not made public, said the party did not do enough to differentiate itself from Labor. Its core campaign message, Keep Dutton out and get Labor to act, failed to make a compelling case for the Greens.
Some within the federal party say they railed against the message at the time, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. The broader picture is one of discourse fragmentation in Australian politics. The electorate is increasingly drawn to anti-establishment voices, and the Greens perceived role as a moderate partner keeps them sandwiched between Labor's traditional base and the rising populist factions.
One Nation has firmly secured its base, quietly eroding Labor's vote share in its strongest electoral strongholds and threatening to turn former Coalition bastions into marginal contests. The ambiguous stance of the Greens, simultaneously working within the federal system and claiming to challenge the status quo, could be a double edge: when voters seek radical change, they may view the Greens as part of the establishment; when they look for pragmatism, they may see them as ineffective collaborators.
This dilemma is compounded by the rise of outspoken opponents within the broader political landscape, such as Dinah Shoebridge, who openly vows to replace Labor rather than reform it, indicting incremental politics and targeting the affluent 1 per cent. These dynamics highlight how the Greens must recalibrate their messaging to remain relevant while distinguishing themselves from the new wave of populist movements.
To survive, the party will need to articulate clear policy initiatives that combine practicality with principled standing while avoiding the perception of being a gatekeeper for reforms. This balancing act could decide the outcome of the next federal election and set the political tone for the coming years.
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smh:The Greens want to catch the Mamdani wave. But can the minor party really become ‘unashamedly populist’?This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Australian Politics Labor Party Greens One Nation Populism Australian Greens David Shoebridge
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