GREENS leader Christine Milne has accused Julia Gillard of failing to come to grips with the reality of “power-sharing” in a minority government and of causing herself political problems by raising expectations she cannot deliver.
Senator Milne also criticised Tony Abbott for wasting more than 18 months on negativity when he could have sought to work with the Greens against Labor on areas of agreement — an approach she said would have allowed the Opposition Leader to deliver policy outcomes and improve his political credentials.
Senator Milne’s comments came in an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian this week as the parliament failed to find common ground on addressing people-smuggling, despite the deaths of more than 300 asylum-seekers in boat accidents off northern Australia in the past year.
The Tasmanian senator took over the Greens leadership on April 14 after the retirement of party founder Bob Brown.
Her party controls the balance of power in the Senate and its MP Adam Bandt is a key player in the House of Representatives, where Labor relies upon crossbench support to control a majority.
Reflecting on the progress of the nation’s first minority government since the 1930s, Senator Milne said the major parties had failed to adjust to the “new paradigm”.
She said they had treated the situation as an aberration rather than a reality and ignored the fact that political “fragmentation” was the way of the future.
“Neither of the major parties in Australia can get their heads around (the fact that) when they are a minority government, they don’t actually have the numbers to deliver themselves,” said Senator Milne. She was part of minority governments in her previous role as a Greens MP in Tasmanian state politics.
“They create the problems for themselves because when they can’t deliver on the political message, then they’re seen to have backed down, done a backflip.”
She linked the failure of the major parties to adjust to the Prime Minister’s difficulty in overcoming the opposition’s attack over her introduction of a carbon tax tomorrow, despite having vowed not to in the 2010 election campaign.
