"But the Greens just vote down good Labor legislation in pursuit of the perfect!" Wrong. They don't. They understand they're not the government and negotiate like every other minor party. Literally the only example Labor supporters ever bring up is the deeply flawed Emissions Trading Scheme back from 2009.
A) Literally only one Greens member from 2009 is still in office so why are you criticising people who had no input on that?
B) The legislation was bad and the government should've worked with the Senate to improve it - LIKE IT NORMALLY DOES ON IMPORTANT LEGISLATION.
C) Labor and the Coalition do terrible things that are criticism worthy every other week and yet the biggest criticism of the Greens is from nearly 20 years ago.
You know what productive thing Greens have been doing? Here are but a FEW examples:
Strengthened Australia's environmental laws to protect native forests.
Negotiated $3 billion in funding for public and community housing (as opposed to Labor's previous promise of $0 guaranteed money)
Dental in Medicare for children under 18
Right to disconnect
Made it harder for new gas projects to proceed and protecting the climate
Secured $1.7 billion for homes and businesses to lower energy bills and transition off gas.
Greens could've blocked SO MUCH legislation during Labor's last term if they chose to but they didn't because that's not how parliament works. Many Labor achievements were made possible by Greens. Many Labor achievements are achievements because Greens negotiated amendments to fix the problems in the Labor legislation.
Sometimes even Labor policy IS JUST GREENS POLICY that they stole or eventually realised was popular enough to adopt! And then Labor claims it as its own!
Labor recently held a party conference to discuss policy where they decided to back under 18s being paid superannuation, regardless of hours worked. They voted down a Greens motion to do just that in Parliament weeks prior.
Greens aren't obstructionists preventing Labor from getting work down.
Labor would suck without the Greens to make them better.
