The curious case of the missing Greens voters

The rise of One Nation should come as no surprise to anyone who has been watching politics in the US, the UK and the rest of Europe in recent years.

But Australia’s belated embrace of right-wing populism is perhaps more unusual because of what has happened on the other side of the political spectrum.

Why have the Greens not been able to capitalise on disillusion with mainstream parties and the hollowing out of the political centre, as their counterparts in the US and the UK have?

Since the last federal election in May 2025, One Nation has surged in opinion polls to become the most popular party in the land, with about 30 per cent of the first-preference vote.

The Greens, meanwhile, have barely budged from their haul of 12 per cent at the last election.

In the same period, the Green Party of England and Wales, under leader Zack Polanski, has increased its voter share from 10 per cent to 18 per cent in recent local government elections.

So why aren’t voters flocking to the Greens in Australia?

It turns out they are but only in certain demographics, Redbridge polling analyst Kos Samaras says.

Among generation Z voters, who were born after 1996, the Greens vote is more than 30 per cent - significantly higher than that of millennial voters at the same age.

That figure rises to more than 40 per cent for generation Z women.

“Generation Z is absolutely different to every other generation that’s come before them,” Mr Samaras tells AAP.

“They are very much skewing towards the Greens, women in particular.”

The reason the overall Greens vote has stayed relatively stable is that they’re losing support amongst older Australians - to Labor, the teal independents and, to a lesser extent, One Nation.

Mr Polanski told a Victorian Greens conference in May the party needed to take on One Nation and connect with the anger of voters deserting the major parties.

Echoing Mr Polanski, Greens leader Larissa Waters says her party is ready to replace Labor.

“What’s clear is that people are now realising that the system is stacked against them, and that the major parties don’t actually want to change that system, and so they’re looking for an alternative,” she says.

“What they will soon come to realise is that One Nation is working for the same interests that are funding the Labor and Liberal parties.”

Echoing New York mayor Zohran Mamdani in the US, Senator Waters says Australia needs to tax the one per cent, especially gas exporters.

In housing, she criticises the government for not going far enough on proposed tax reforms, arguing that grandfathering existing negative gearing and capital gains pulls the ladder up for future generations.

Paul Smith, director of public affairs at pollster YouGov, says there’s a significant opening for the Greens to capture the discontent around economic inequality and housing affordability.

The next election will be a battle over who can win the support of working-class people, who feel unrepresented in politics, he says.

But Mr Samaras says the Greens have failed to tap into that disaffection.

The Greens have latched onto the viral gas tax campaign but failed to get the same traction as independent senator David Pocock, whose social media posts comparing the tax on gas exports to the tax paid on beer have gone viral.

Nor have the Greens made significant inroads with their calls for a rent freeze and the establishment of a public housing developer.

Analysts say the Greens have failed to make inroads with disaffected working-class voters.

Mr Polanski has managed to resonate with working-class voters in the UK, picking up the traditional Labour seat of Gorton and Denton in a by-election with a former plumber candidate but in Australia, the Greens are still mainly seen as a party of inner-city elites, Mr Samaras says.

Asked repeatedly by AAP if she wanted house prices to go down, Senator Waters equivocated, saying homes needed to be more affordable.

It mirrors responses by Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, who also refuse to say whether they want house prices to fall.

Voters want politicians to articulate more forcefully that they are on the side of wage earners, Mr Smith says.

Three in four Australians polled by YouGov said they wanted property prices to go down, including the majority of mortgage holders, he says.

In a statement provided to AAP following the interview, Senator Waters clarified the Greens wanted house prices to be lower to give first home buyers a chance.

Mr Samaras says it was a tactical error not to be more upfront with the electorate and say the Greens want house prices to go down in places where they are too expensive.

“The reason she can’t say that is because her voters live in those very expensive suburbs,” he says.

Although his polarising, firebrand style of politics was unable to save his seat in the 2025 federal election, former Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather struck a chord with voters angry with the status quo.

Now head of a Greens-aligned think tank, Mr Chandler-Mather was much more forthright on housing.

“It is abundantly clear that we need property prices to go down,” he told a parliamentary inquiry into housing affordability on Wednesday.

Mr Chandler-Mather, who turned down an interview with AAP, said the Greens needed a “major strategic pivot” in an essay for online journalism outlet Deepcut earlier in the year.

He took aim at Senator Waters’ comments positioning the Greens as open to deal-making with the government to secure progressive reform.

“The Greens need to stop conceiving of change as something that is negotiated in parliament with Labor,” Mr Chandler-Mather wrote.

“People already disconnected from politics will never believe anything good can come through backroom deals with the political establishment.”

While Senator Waters says the Greens will use their balance of power to get outcomes in the Senate in the short term, she has no intention of being a doormat for Labor legislation.

“We’re not a pressure group. We’re a political party and our aim is to win government,” she says.

“We’re not accepting that tinkering around the edges is the best that we can hope for, and people shouldn’t expect that either.”