Greens firebrand Max Chandler-Mather is promising to recharge left-wing politics in Australia, taking the reins of the party’s think tank with the mission of building a populist movement that can replace Labor and rival a surging One Nation.
Chandler-Mather said the Australian Greens should learn from strategies that have swept left-wing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to power and propelled the UK Greens above the Labour government in opinion polls, so they can start capitalising on the major political parties’ decline in national polling.
“The Greens’ job is to build a big enough mass movement – similar to the UK Greens – that can present a genuine progressive break with the status quo, and offer a form of progressive economic populism that can describe, in clear terms, a positive transformation in people’s lives,” he said.
“It’s pretty clear that both major parties are hollowing out and decaying – it’s just that the Liberal Party is doing it faster. Both parties are clearly the standard-bearers of the political and economic status quo. The conclusion I’ve reached is that if we want substantial change, it needs a movement big enough to replace establishment politics.”
Chandler-Mather was a thorn in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s side as he built a strong social media presence and took Labor to task on housing reform in the last term of parliament.
But the Greens entered a period of soul-searching after last year’s election, when both Chandler-Mather and then-leader Adam Bandt were turfed from their seats. As both Labor and the Coalition have lost ground in opinion polls since then, the Greens have failed to make inroads while One Nation ascends.
Support for the Greens in this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor has remained largely unchanged since the first post-election poll from last July, hovering at about 12 per cent.
Meanwhile, Labor’s support dropped from a high of 37 per cent to 29 per cent, the Coalition has dived from 27 per cent to 22 per cent, and One Nation has soared from 8 per cent to 24 per cent.
Chandler-Mather argued the populist right has emerged as major parties turned their focus from ordinary people to corporate interests. “The way to combat that is to reach out to people and offer a progressive populist alternative,” he said.
He will relaunch the Greens Institute as its new executive director on Wednesday – the policy think tank that is the minor party’s answer to the Labor Party’s Chifley Research Centre or the Liberal-aligned Menzies Research Centre, which help inform party policy ideas.
It will have two priorities. The first is to “dismantle key pillars of neoliberalism”, which he describes as the privatisation of key services and industries that have turned aged care and childcare over to profit-driven providers.
The second is to lay out a “transformative vision of 21st century progressive economic populism” which is likely to focus on centralised public services, more public housing and a shorter working week.
Chandler-Mather is harnessing the same language around populism that has been embraced by UK Greens leader Zack Polanski. Elected last September, Polanski has cited Mamdani as an inspiration and unashamedly championed a left-wing “eco-populism” that puts billionaires and big businesses in its sights.
Under his leadership, the UK Greens have surged ahead of Labour in the latest YouGov opinion poll, equal with the Conservatives behind Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK. They dealt a blow to UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer in February, winning a north England seat from the government at a byelection – Labour’s first election loss in the area since 1931.
Chandler-Mather said both Mamdani and Polanski had campaigned on policies that resembled the Australian Greens’ platform: rent freezes, free public transport, free childcare, wiping student debt, taxing big corporations.
He said Mamdani was a “fantastic example” of breaking with mainstream Democrats while outlining a “clear, direct and materially focused economic platform that proved extremely popular”.
Meanwhile, the UK Greens were “unafraid to break with the way Greens can be traditionally seen, which is as an appendage of the Labour Party, and instead be clear that the goal is to replace Labour”.
But they both also leveraged sophisticated volunteer networks and deep community connections that became movements which could propel them to electoral success.
“The reason I took up the role is that change doesn’t start or end in parliament. What both Mamdani and Polanski benefited from was vast networks, built over decades, of the sort of infrastructure you need for a mass movement,” he said.
The Greens’ new leader, Larissa Waters, came into the role after Bandt’s shock defeat by promising a consultative and constructive approach. This has helped Labor pass key legislation such as its Environment Protection Authority and superannuation tax changes.
Chandler-Mather said the party was not going to achieve change by negotiating with Labor. “Change is only going to happen when we replace those establishment parties,” he said. “We need to be an alternative.”
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Natassia Chrysanthos is Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via X or email.