Greens see red-hot anger as an opportunity to take on Hanson, Labor

David Shoebridge has big ambitions for the Greens, but his party is still wrestling with how to turn voter disillusionment into greater support.

The new leader wants to harness the anti-establishment anger rife in Australia, declaring the Greens will fight and ultimately seek to "replace" Labor.

That won't be easy at a time when the populist right is capturing much of the voter anger here, though Shoebridge is not alone in seeing widespread economic frustration as an opportunity for the left.

Insurgent political movements in Britain, the United States and Germany have built support around everyday frustrations like rent, wages and living costs, and directed voters' anger toward inequality and concentrated wealth rather than the targets favoured by their opponents on the right.

Zack Polanski took the Green party in the UK and explicitly embraced "eco-populism" to achieve extraordinary membership growth and a surge in the polls.

In New York, Zohran Mamdani defeated an establishment Democrat and won the mayoral election by relentlessly translating socialism into rent, buses, childcare and groceries.

While a revitalised Die Linke party in Germany has almost doubled its vote through young supporters with a pitch on rent, wages and inequality.

All three have embedded climate, minority rights and other progressive causes inside a simple economic story.

Their circumstances and politics differ significantly, but each has demonstrated the potential for the left to turn economic dissatisfaction into electoral support.

If some of that sounds familiar, it's because the strategy is hardly new to Australians.

Long before Polanski or Mamdani became globally recognised names, the Greens here were trying to harness economic frustration with a pitch centred on inequality and the cost of everyday life.

Particularly under former leader Adam Bandt, the Greens consciously broadened beyond environmentalism.

Housing, inequality, free childcare, dental in Medicare, taxing billionaires and corporations and cost of living were all brought to the fore.

The strategy delivered the party four lower house seats and a 12.25 per cent primary vote nationally in 2022.

But three years later the Greens got a taste of just how fragile success can be.

Greens' changing strategy

The 2025 loss of three lower house seats — including Bandt's — showed the limits of a strategy that had produced spectacular gains, even as the party's national vote barely moved.

The Greens' attempts to extract concessions from the Albanese government on housing and climate were ultimately presented by Labor as blocking progressive outcomes rather than achieving them.

When Larissa Waters became leader of the party last year, she instead promised to be "firm but constructive" with Labor — to "get shit done".

The party's strategy basically went from "Labor isn't good enough so fight them and force them further left" to "Labor isn't good enough so negotiate and show voters what Greens leverage delivers".

But that leverage has yet to translate into a significant boost in the polls.

Shoebridge has now swung the emphasis back towards confrontation, though in a dramatically different political environment.

"We're not here to make the Labor Party any better. The Greens are here to replace them," he said.

He's also vowed to fight One Nation but blamed Labor for the rise of the populist right party.

Radical change, but how?

Meanwhile, Shoebridge's rivals for the leadership have ended this week emphasising markedly different priorities.

The rare, contested ballot against Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young on Wednesday exposed a party still grappling with how to translate its ambitions into greater political power.

While they broadly share a vision of radical change, there is a live argument about who the Greens should fight and what voters should hear from them first.

Faruqi used a post-ballot statement to suggest she had not sought the deputy role so she could have the freedom to pursue "bold politics and radical action" from outside the leadership team.

Expressing her disappointment at the result, Faruqi appeared to imply she would have succeeded had the party held a membership-wide vote for the leader.

Her reaction contrasted starkly with Hanson-Young, who not only managed to congratulate Shoebridge but also kept her sights trained firmly on the populist right.

She cast the Greens as a progressive force to take on Pauline Hanson, rather than sharpen the fight with Labor.

It's been a week of free advice from outside the party room, too, with ousted MP Max Chandler-Mather also calling for a membership ballot — something Shoebridge has guaranteed would happen by 2028.

Meanwhile, Bandt told the Insiders On Background podcast the Greens could either choose "division and fear" or to "offer hope", working to "get good things done for people, for nature for climate".

When pushed on the idea that using the power of government to achieve those goals sounded "quite different" to the pitch from Shoebridge, Bandt replied, "well, that's right".

Opponents, allies and message

There is strong agreement inside the Greens about the problems they want to solve. But consensus on who exactly is their main opponent, which allies they need and what message will grow the party's support remains elusive.

For now, Labor and the Greens have a relatively reliable path to passing legislation through the Senate when they agree.

That arithmetic could look very different after 2028.

Shoebridge evidently believes there are gains to be made in chipping away at Labor, perhaps even more so if Labor is preoccupied fighting One Nation.

But it's unlikely Anthony Albanese would ever lose focus on a perennial political foe to his left.

That makes the Greens' message as important as the opponents they choose.

Each leadership hopeful offered a different strategy for success and while Shoebridge prevailed on the day, the battle for the future of the party is ongoing.