There were two equally significant history making moments in Australian politics in the last week.The better known one was the ALP’s claiming of the seat of Aston from the Coalition in a by-election caused by the resignation of former Minister Alan Tudge. It is the first time that a federal government has won an additional seat from the opposition in 100 years, which suggests that despite the trials and tribulations of daily life and no doubt a concerted effort by every person or group wth an axe to grind, the Albanese Government is reasonably popular in Aston (a electorate based in suburban Melbourne).
The other history making event in Australian politics in the last week was the resignation of Councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan from the Brisbane City Council. Councillor Sriranganathan – better known as Jonno Sri – was the second elected Greens politician in Queensland, the first being Senator Larissa Waters. Last week Sri handed his seat in the Council over to fellow Greens member Trina Massey. Obviously Sri and the Greens felt that there was enough support for the Greens in his seat, rather than just him personally.
The Brisbane City Council is rather unusual in Australian politics as it is highly party politicised and controls a considerable part of the greater Brisbane area rather than just the inner City as Sydney and Melbourne’s Councils do. Brisbane City has a population of 1,264,024 in the local government area. As well as the usual roads, rubbish and recreation spaces, Brisbane CIty has considerable ability to influence planning and development policy in Queensland. Since the ALP claimed victory in the NSW state election a week or so ago, Brisbane’s LNP Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner is the leader of the largest government in Australia controlled by the the Coalition parties. While the Tasmanian Liberal Government controls a larger land mass, Tasmania’s population was estimated to be 567,909 in 2021 and the state’s budget is smaller than Brisbane City’s.
In The Guardian, Sri claims
“To be honest, we got kind of lucky that we won in the Gabba ward,” Sriranganathan reflects over a cup of chai on his houseboat in a muddy and mangrove-lined creek this week.
“But then that little green crack, we’ve been able to widen into something much bigger.”
Since Sri’s election and possibly despite his usual attire of scarves, mismatched socks and beanies he has seen the election of Greens members to state and federal parliaments from the southeast corner of Queensland. While Sri claim that the Greens could win a number of seats in the Brisbane City Council and maybe topple the LNP Lord Mayor is yet to be proven, the electors of the state and federal seats that are now coloured green around Brisbane obviously saw Sri’s regular incursions into the nightly news – either drawing attention to the lack of community services or getting arrested at protests against ‘over-development’ or mining – and liked what they saw.
One of the community services that Sri and other Greens have chosen to make a stand on is social and affordable housing. It shouldn’t have been a shock got anyone when the Greens federally drew the line in the sand when they thought the Albanese Government’s housing fund went nowhere near far enough. The Monthly recently reported that
Labor’s policy would reportedly provide up to $500 million per year to build up to 30,000 social and affordable homes over the next five years. The Greens want $5 billion annually, plus $1 billion for First Nations housing, and a national agreement to freeze rents.
According to the Productivity Commission, 176,000 households are on the social housing waitlist around the nation, with others suggesting the number is higher.
Despite the Prime Minister being justifiably proud of his heritage, which includes some time in social housing, the legislation to increase the funding of social housing across Australia has been withdrawn from Parliament rather than coming to some agreement with the Greens. As The Monthly reports
Labor doesn’t have a majority in the Senate; it must compromise if it wants to pass this and other legislation. But, by the same token, neither do the Greens. It’s not clear who is failing to come to the table, and we don’t know who has offered what – both sides have accused the other of failing to negotiate. But it is incumbent on both sides to do so, especially on an issue of this much importance.
These debates are getting extremely tiresome. We have a Labor government, with a progressive balance of power in the Senate. We have a housing crisis, which we all agree needs addressing. We have a shell of a Coalition that has made itself entirely irrelevant to the national debate. This shouldn’t be hard. It’s obvious that both Labor and the Greens are playing hardball – but could they please speed things up? All they have to do is put pride aside and meet somewhere in the progressive middle, taking into account their respective shares of the national vote, and perhaps, you know, the national interest.
The Aston by-election result tells us that the Coalition hasn’t improved its position since the 2022 election. On top of the 6% or thereabouts swing to the ALP this time, in 2022 when Tudge last contested the seat, he suffered a swing against him of around 7%. At the same time Tudge was losing support as a sitting Coalition member, the Greens were taking seats in Brisbane that no one outside the Greens thought they had a hope of winning. Former PM Rudd’s seat and two seats along the Brisbane River which include a lot of ‘old money’ suburbs that had been held by the LNP for years, are now represented on Capital Hill by the Greens. And while we probably won’t be talking about a Prime Minister coming from the Greens any time soon, if the ALP and Greens could work with each other rather than attempt to score political points we could be living in a country with a progressive federal government for years to come.
As the last decade demonstrates, progressive government sure beats the alternative.
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