Lidia Thorpe has resigned.
She was at odds with her party so not surprising but let’s see what nutjobs she aligns herself with next.
Usual dramatics from her whenever she disagrees with something that has good intentions or anything that isn’t extreme. Good riddance.
Not fair that she’s allowed to sit on the crossbench so soon into her term. The public voted her in as a Greens member. There should be a rule you can only quit your party and move to the crossbench after the halfway mark of your term, otherwise you’re out.
It’s a difficult problem to solve. I would agree that there are quite a number of people who voted ATL Green who might be dissapointed at the news since it reduces representation that match their views. The problem arises in how you would go about replacing a Senator given the complexities of the electoral system.
As Senators are elected as part of multi-member districts, it makes a by-election very difficult to hold compared to the House of Representatives. The next option would be to extend the current replacement system, but that would be doing a disservice to the 40k+ that voted for her BTL and those that voted Green ATL because she was the top of the party ticket. Another option would be a recount similar to when a Senator is disqualified, but again would have similar issues to a replacement.
I suspect the only real winner out of this is the Greens, who have basically got rid of a potentially ongoing issue for them.
Thorpe’s position really feels like cutting off her nose to spite her face
Is a disgrace to the Greens and politics altogether. All this about ‘me, me, me’ even though she claims to represent her mob. I don’t think they’d want a bar of this loose cannon in all honesty.
All of those stupid drama queen antics she did in the parliamentary opening last year and her absolutely condescending attitude towards the voice (even in her resignation speech, where she whines about how being in the Greens doesn’t allow her to express herself, LOL what?) goes to show she’s all talk and fluff, where’s the actual action and essence she actually claims she has for her community?
It’s stuff like this that will end up costing the Greens, and probably benefiting Labor. The Thorpe sagas (this latest fiasco and the bikie relationship one) really show that the party is struggling to manage having a bigger parliamentary presence and therefore more media scrutiny.
My analysis is that Bandt needs to be more aggressive in cauterising issues and acting quickly to assert leadership. It’s never a good look for a leader to publicly back a senator in a scandal, only for said senator to leave the party just months later. Especially when only a small percentage of Victorian Greens voters actually voted below the line specifically for Thorpe.
That speaks to me that they need to be selecting better candidates for both the House and the Senate. Those who got elected have been relatively measured and also relevant with their positions on issues which are broadly in line with party position, it’s the likes of Thorpe (and to a lesser extent, Faruqi) that they need to be careful of because the likes of them are the ones who are more likely to derail the sensible party that the Greens are aiming to chase.
…averaged 10% of the vote in a good election year.
What the Thorpe story has exposed is that the Greens don’t need anyone else’s help undermining their own MPs and candidates: they have as many rats behind the scenes as Labor and the Coalition.
Possibly more per capita…
Good to see if true. He’s vile like his leader. Looks like he got busted on robodebt and decided to take the easy road out instead of being rightfully pilloried.
They’ll probably give his portfolio to someone who’s just as useless, Stuart Robert or someone else.
That would be a very interesting byelection. Running Frydenburg in Aston could have the same outcome as Kennealy in Fowler. Aston is not as safe for libs as Fowler was for Labor.
Albanese is having an extended honeymoon period, so the usual byelection trend of swings against the party in power might not apply. Then again, the people of Aston did vote for Tudge, so there must be a lot of rusted on, loyal liberal voters there.
What’s the demographics like in Aston? It’s been a safe Liberal seat since the 1990s until about now. Is it because of a lot of affluent new money spenders there who seems to be very wary of the economic policies (like my electorate), or are there a lot of unabashed conservatives who’d vote for Liberals hell or highwater?