I was reading an article in Fairfax during the week and it suddenly occurred I may have been wrong about Richard Di Natale.

He may actually be the Messiah.

The article was about the seats The Greens will target if there is anything left of them after selling out their membership, and other minor parties, by doing a deal with the Coalition on Senate changes. The Coalition are hoping Senate changes make it easier to pass things through Senate. Little things like selling off Medicare, work for the dole, increasing subsidies for miners, weakening of the Discrimination Act etc. The Greens have sniffed political opportunity and leapt at the invitation to dance to the Coalitions tune. The chance to make it highly unlikely for any party they feel threatened by, such as the Sex Party or Animal Justice Party to ever enter the Senate proved too irresistible and Di Natale couldn’t help but find his dancing shoes and getting jiggy with it.

In the article Di Natale boldly speaks of what his Party has done for political debate in recent years.

Same-sex marriage and medicinal cannabis had become mainstream issues because of the Greens’ work, he said, predicting voluntary euthanasia was next.

Wow, I had no idea Di Natale was so influential.

Here’s me mistakenly thinking the push for marriage equality was a global one. How wrong could I be?

Dr Dick clearly has Messiah-like powers to have been able to be so influential in so many other parts of the world where they already have marriage equality. Even countries under Conservative rule like the UK and New Zealand must have been convinced by the teachings of Dr Dick, although curiously they failed to mention Di Natale in their announcements on the matter.

Maybe Dr Dick isn’t aware of what is going on elsewhere is the world? Although he seemed to be when he thought his skills as a doctor could save the world from Ebola when he wanted taxpayers to fund a trip to Africa so he could do what all the world’s top doctors couldn’t. Maybe he figured the touch of a Messiah was needed?

In fact the one thing every country that has legalised same-sex marraige has in common, it is the complete lack of involvement of the Australian Greens Party.

I look forward to the debate on voluntary euthanasia. I actually think It’s great that the Greens are around to bring the issue up at long last.

But, hang on, did the last 20 years not happen in Di Natale’s mind?

The voluntary euthanasia debate has been raging for decades, and it is not a fringe discussion either. Some may remember the Academy Award winning film Million Dollar Baby that Dr Dick somehow missed. A pro-euthanasia film made by the Conservative supporting legend Clint Eastwood over a decade ago in 2004. Here in Australia we had an excellent Aussie flick called Last Cab To Darwin last year that tackled voluntary euthanasia. To give an idea on how long the debate in Australia has been going on the film is based on a Stage production that premiered in 2006. That Stage Theatre Production was based on the true story of cab driver Max Bell who was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer in the early nineties. You know, last century.

Keep up Richard…

But medicinal cannabis I agree the Greens have been strong on.

In Victoria legislation making the medicinal use of cannabis legal was finally passed and it’s great that the Greens could bring this about.

Oh, wait a minute, there appears to be a mistake…

It was actually the Labor Party that brought the legislation regarding medicinal cannabis to Victorian parliament, the Labor Party that debated and negotiated the legislation with the minor parties, and the Labor Party that delivered the historic result.

Maybe the Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber forgot to mention this to his brother-in-law Di Natale as they sat down to watch Dynasty re-runs after family dinner.

Anyway it’s not like the Greens to take credit for someone else’s win. Or so we thought…

One of Greg Barbers Victorian Greens crew, Victorian MP Colleen Hartland was so keen to let people know how proud she was of her party’s efforts to bring in a safe zone around abortion clinics she spent her party’s funds on advertising it on Facebook with a sponsored post.

What Hartland neglected to mention however was her party’s contribution was to vote in favour of the legislation. The legislation itself was tabled and introduced by Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party. The Sex Party however didn’t receive so much as a mention in Colleen’s advert. More than a trifle deceptive me thinks…

When I queried this with Hartland this was the exchange.

With progressive policy like this from the Australian Sex Party it’s no wonder the Greens don’t want them in the Senate highlighting their insignificance.

I would suggest that if the Greens had made a contribution they would use their own victories to promote themselves, not rely on the Labor and Sex Party to provide wins to hijack.

There will be cynics out there that claim the Green haven’t had a win, but that is not true, they have had a few, although they don’t seem to be putting them on bumper stickers or turning them into their usual slogans.

One such win was the Greens vital assistance in screwing over around 330,000 pensioners. The cost to these pensioners will be a cool $2.4 Billion over four years.

Another win was their assistance to the multi-million dollar corporates who wish to hide their earnings from public scrutiny. The Greens have shown their true colours by giving the tax-evading billionaire a free-pass. Interesting to note that this victory for the Greens was in shutting down Labor legislation that was to hold tax-evading multi-million dollar companies accountable.

Dr Dick was also quoted in the Fairfax article as saying this about the Labor Party;

“angry because many of them know that we are right, and for their own opportunistic, political reasons they have to vote against things that they know in their hearts are right”.

The other Green victories include the gagging of debate on marriage equality multiple times, and the gagging of debate on political donations.

There is also the matter of Sarah Hanson Young breaking parliamentary travel spending records in the current term of government, even out-spending the chopper riding Bronwyn Bishop whom they had plenty to say about at the time.

These are things most assumed the Greens actually stood for, so why gag debate?

Was it political opportunism or do the Greens not know in their hearts that these things are right?

I wonder.

 

 

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