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I can't disagree with that. The Greens have always been fruit loops, but they've gotten significantly crazier lately. The chance of them controlling the balance of power is terrifying.
I used to be a Greens voter, actually; it's only lately that they've lost me (both because I've swung toward conservatism and because they've gotten into SJ). Prior to SJ, and in the 90s/00s when great-power conflict wasn't such a big deal, their big policies amounted to environmentalism (which I mostly agree with), social democracy (which I agree with) and marijuana legalisation (which I agree with, although I've never used it personally). But yeah, wanting to ban opposing parties (even if for now it's only minor ones; come on, we've all read that poem in school) is an immediate "welcome to just above the bottom of my preference list, right above single-issue parties whom I think are pushing the wrong way on that single issue (e.g. the Animal Justice Party, since I oppose animal rights)". I was already pretty cross with them over their peacenik tendencies (they're opposed to our alliance with the USA, basically hoping to let the US do the dying for our freedom in WWIII, and I think that's dishonourable), but wanting to ban opposition parties is "no way, no how, this risks irrevocable harm" territory.
I think I preferenced the Greens once in the mid-2000s, in one of the first elections I voted in, but I went on from that to be a pretty consistent Labor voter, and only over the last few years I am drifting towards the Coalition. The thing is, in the 2000s the Greens genuinely seemed credible - anti-war looked great when Iraq was still going on, environmentalism is a concept that it's easy to have warm and fuzzy feelings around, and their stance on social issues at the time was basically secularism and gay marriage. Of course, I may also have been fooled or just an idiot back then.
Now, though, I feel more aware that they're just, well, kind of nuts. They're currently all-in on Gaza, they're demanding rent and price controls, they're the loudest supporters of the Voice and treaty, they oppose the US alliance, and they suck up to China as well. Pieces like this are pretty eye-opening for me.
I just don't want to let those people anywhere near the levers of power.
*looks into recent Greens actions*
Oh Jesus, what the fuck? I haven't been paying enough attention to domestic politics; we had our own Parliament invasion?! And this China article is a lot crazier than I was crediting them with being; I was talking about this interview years back, where he at least does agree that the PRC is doing terrible things but thinks that talking to them is going to make them stop and implies we want to sit out WWIII. Outright pro-China rhetoric... well, that raises some ugly possibilities, most notably "the Greens may have been bought" and more generally an upward adjustment in P(organised sabotage campaign|Australia joins WWIII).
There is some diversity - a few months ago they wanted to raise human rights abuses in China. However, they do remain strongly opposed to the US alliance in a way that I think rounds out to giving China what they want - it feels like they think it's the Cold War still. And just today we've seen Greens MPs attend and encourage that rally against the arms expo in Melbourne. (Sorry for the poor quality article, but others don't seem to be up yet.) I remember interviews like this as well - I think the Greens at this point are functionally isolationists.
Suffice to say I think that isolationism in the face of Chinese hegemony in Asia is not a wise move for Australia.
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