Over the last decade there has been a far greater focus by the media and the public over the leadership of our political parties. Hardly a month goes past without talk of leadership challenges and spill motions.

Recently we have seen debate within the Labor Party over the process of the leadership ballot between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese. A few months back we had a change of leadership in the NSW Labor Party.

The greatest of these drama’s for Labor however was the ongoing celebrity deathmatch for leadership between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

The Liberal Party have shown themselves to be no better at all. Currently we have Tony Abbott as Prime Minister who is clueless about which direction the knife will come from. Current possibilities include Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison, with Joe Hockey’s hopes plummeting faster than his budget deficit.

Abbott himself is only in the position after several leadership spills that saw the swift assassinations of Brendan Nelson in 2008 and then Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 as party leaders giving the Liberals three leaders in a two year period.

In NSW we only have Mike Baird as Premier due to the Liberal Leadership changing hands after former Liberal Leader and Premier Barry O’Farrell was forced to stand down after had his name dragged through the mud by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

IN NSW there is already talk of Labor’s Leader Luke Foley being replaced by the best mate of NSW Labor Secretary Jamie Clements who has been allegedly conspiring behind the scenes to ensure this happens. Clements mate is the newly elected member for Kogarah Chris Minns who has yet to prove he is capable of anything other than winning a safe seat. Speculation of this was rife even before Minns was even elected.

Some say if anyone wants to know what is wrong with democracy in this country all they need to do is look at what those in Labor’s Right have been doing in NSW since Clements was handed the Secretary’s position on a silver platter. There is an rumored incoming leader who has never even run an electorate office previously. They have had some pre-selection nightmares with factional strings being pulled and the party being brought into disrepute by a branch stacker who was eventually suspended from the party for six months after branch minutes were found to have been falsified. Labor now have Noreen Hay as Opposition Whip, something I predicted here at the beginning of the year. Hay is of course the mate of Joe Tripodi who somehow dodged the minefield of charges handed out by ICAC when she was called into it. One of the branches in her electorate was recently shut down after the branch minutes were shown to have been falsified, however under the control of her mate Jamie Clements the branch charter has not been removed, but then again neither have the branch charters of the branches Hicham Zraika stacked despite more falsified minutes.

So with both of the major parties plagued by factional infighting, leadership spills, and internal party chaos who is one supposed to trust?

There are those that would have us believe the alternative is The Greens, however the reality is this could not be further from the truth.

The Greens are a party full of factional infighting and have certainly not found themselves immune from leadership spills.

Factional infighting reached a new level last year in NSW when one faction sought to control the votes of the entire party on contentious issues, essentially telling the entire party how they must vote.

There are countries that have had a similar system of government, we refer to them as dictatorships.

When it comes to leadership spills and political assassination attempts, flying the assassins flag is Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young, although she has yet to achieve anything aside from failure in this regards.

Hanson Young’s attempt in August 2010 to take Christine Milnes then position as Deputy Leader of The Greens could perhaps be put down as perhaps the impatience or arrogance of youth, or perhaps inexperience. However it would appear that learning from mistakes is not one of Hanson Young’s strong points. She further promoted party instability the following year by refusing to rule out another attempt to kill off Milne.

In 2013 it was reported that Hanson Young had yet another crack that once again failed.

Hanson Young has attempted to hose down speculation on her challenge which was reportedly on Adam Bandt as Deputy Leader of the party apparently in the hope that he would challenge Milne for the leadership.

Despite all the talk of a unified party, Hanson Young came from the meeting saying the party had returned a leader that would see The Greens

 “marching to a slow death”

Hardly a glowing endorsement of party leader Christine Milne or a comment designed to inspire confidence in a party unified.

Unlike the major political parties however the numbers from Greens leadership spills are clouded in a veil of secrecy. Whatever you think of the Liberal and Labor leadership spills at least they are transparent, as are their party conferences which allow for media to attend. The Greens who call for transparency and honesty from other parties in this regard offer little other than denial and secrecy.

However accusations of hypocrisy are nothing new to the Greens.

Hanson Young has also been criticised for having a different set of standards for herself than those she expects of others. Hanson Young who has campaigned against the political donations process and corporate donations was more than happy to take a $300K individual donation from the wife of Internode founder and NBN Board member Simon Hackett. It is important to note this also was during a campaign where the NBN was a major public issue due to two vastly different plans, and crossbench support would be rather handy. If only it could be bought. WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlum also received a tidy sum.

The Greens were also the recipient of the largest single political donation in Australia’s history from the founder of Wotif.

Whilst in NSW the Greens in Coalition with the Liberals passed legislation that was eventually overturned by the High Court regarding political donations. The legislation was aimed at stopping unions from being able to donate to the Labor Party.

The Greens came out saying their policy had always been opposed to union donations.

Some saw this as the Greens not wanting workers to have a voice. However by accepting donations from unions themselves, such as $50K from the CFMEU for the 2013 campaign showed that their ideology is selective and dependent on where the cash is going.

After the High Court decision The Greens John Kaye came out saying

“…”The unions have successfully driven Barry O’Farrell back to the drawing board…”

I wonder how far the CFMEU’s $50K drove The Greens then using his logic.

Comparatively when the Labor Party has an ideological opposition to a particular type of donation, they stand by that position whether it has been legislated or not, such as in the case of big tobacco.

An ideology not followed is little more than a farce. A  mere slogan designed to suck in the gullible and the willingly blind.

So where does this leave the voter in the search for stability?

There are two parties that seem secure in their leadership, they should both bear the names of their leader. They are of course the Katter Australia Party and the Palmer United Party, which has shown itself to be anything but united.

One good aspect of both of these parties is that you know exactly what you are getting for your vote when you look at their leadership.

However if neither of these options suits your sensibilities there is but one other option.

There are those who say the age of the independent is dead, and with the makeup of the Senate currently you can be sure that electoral reform is high on the Coalitions list of priorities.

As voters, we need to ensure the age of independence lives on.

 

 

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