The rise of the Greens

Many Greens members and supporters are former Labor people, overwhelmingly from the party's left and from its branches, rather than the trade unions. The broad church that is the Labor party embraces a large diversity of opinion, especially on social issues, with deep divisions on issues like abortion and gay marriage and on human rights issues like the treatment of asylum seekers.

The tensions created by these divisions are never very far from the surface. They destabilise the party and narrow its appeal. This is starkly evident on policy towards asylum seekers. Many on the left have abandoned Labor because they regard its policy as inhumane. But in the wider electorate the same policy is seen as soft and costs Labor votes.

If Labor were to abandon the inner city to the Greens and its left leaning supporters increasingly go over Greens, this could over the long term maximise the overall left-of-centre vote.

Labor would be free to adopt policies more in line with the social conservatism of the wider electorate and thus reduce internal party tensions and hold more mainstream votes. The Greens would be free to garner those votes unburdened by a right wing of social conservatism.

Internal Labor Party tensions would be replaced by tensions between the Greens and the Labor Party, which would emerge in coalition negotiations. The give and take of such negotiations ought to produce a better way of resolving the current policy issues that divide Labor internally and reduce its electoral appeal.

The prediction of long-term Labor-Green cooperation and coalition governments is based to a large extent on the recent history of Germany. There the Greens have largely replaced the Social Democrats as the party of the progressive left and the two parties have formed coalition governments at State and federal levels on many occasions.

Indeed, in the recent State election in Baden-Württemberg, the conservative Christian Democrats lost Government for the first time to be replaced by a Green-Social Democrat coalition in which the Greens are the senior partner and the Premier is from the Greens.

The German experience is not directly translatable to Australia. Public awareness of environmental issues is much greater there. The voting system, with proportional representation in the lower house, gives smaller parties more power.

Most importantly, the Greens as a political movement are far more advanced than their Australian counterparts. The German Greens have behind them a protracted period of internal division between the "Realos" (realistics) and the "Fundis" (fundamentalists). This internal debate was won by the Realos and freed the Greens to participate in the pragmatic business of forming coalition governments.

The Australian Greens may not need to undergo such an upheaval but there are bound to be internal tensions caused by the necessary compromises of power. The refusal by the Greens to engage in negotiation over Rudd's ETS, though it would not have guaranteed its implementation, nevertheless betrayed a lack of pragmatism.

Many Greens members and supporters fall more within the German "Fundi" camp and the compromises of power would inevitably create a lot of internal tensions. This is why the experience is Tasmania will be so important. The willingness of the Greens to make real compromises over the carbon tax, on such key matters such as the rate and compensation, does however bode well.

Labor too will be challenged by a future in which it depends on Greens support to form Government. If it cedes socially progressive policy to the Greens, it will find it even harder to distinguish itself from the Liberal Party.