Are the Greens finished? The Sun Herald’s Andrew Bolt thinks so. “They are the party for dreamers, not doers,” he says. “Playing with real power has destroyed them.”

Writing in the Conversation, Michelle Grattan says the Greens are now generally on the back foot, widely seen as too hardline and uncompromising. ”It is time for the Greens to do some fundamental thinking about their future.”

Most commentary on the Greens’ performance focuses on political and policy specifics: Bob Brown’s resignation, preference deals, power-sharing and so on. There are other explanations.

Modern politics is not responding adequately to the contemporary human predicament. Less than a third of Australians think quality of life is getting better; more think it is getting worse. This is a foundational feature of politics today, both transcending it and yet also shaping it, but it is widely ignored by politicians and political commentators.

Work and family pressures, greed, consumerism and the cost of living are among the more obvious reasons for this dissatisfaction. But beyond these are deeply existential questions relating to identity, belonging and purpose: who am I? Why am I here?

Modern western nations like Australia do poorly in this area, with too much emphasis on transient personal attributes (money, looks, popularity, status), and too little on deep and enduring personal and social relationships.

Then there are threats of global warming, biodiversity loss and natural resource depletion (including energy, food and water security) – all underestimated by governments.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/21/greens-australia-politics

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For Gus it's quite simple: in Politics, its all to do with Personality, Policies, Power and Performance... (apart from the hand in the cookie jar...). At the moment the Greens have been a disappointment on all four...

When Milne did a deal with Joe Hockey about "raising the debt ceiling" I though "what a cow! Make Joe sweat! Don't give him any Kudos THAT HE DOES NOT NEED..." If it had been a male Green leader doing this caper I would have though "what an idiot" or "BLOODY loony bastard". Thus my reaction was quite sexist... or was it? A spade and a shovel,  what's the dif?...

All I though after that episode of selling out to Joe is that the Greens were going to go down the gurgler... The Greens also misread the foot-in-the-door value of Rudd's ETS (It was poor, I know but better than NOTHING and it led to the ascension of Tony Abbott who sidelined Turnbull).... Thus my reaction in regard to the deal with Joe has nothing to do with the sex of fish. That was BAD POLICY. Expedient, but bad as one cannot trust the Liberals (CONservatives) one iota.

On the Personality level, Milne is not inspiring. Sorry. One needs a leader who has a bit more charisma without bordering on being a sociopath (You know who I mean).

Thus with these two items already, the Greens have lost traction. The important issues have been diluted by other items as well. No Power, lousy Performance follow — in a world when one has to push harder and harder to be heard, seen and even reported in the Aussie media, one needs boots... I know, the Aussie media is more a smelly mierda pit than a news provider. And this is not due to most journalists. The media has been infiltrated by loud mouths and thuggish spruikers who don't know much (if anything), but sing and repeat the same refrain like drunker sailors: "Labor is shit, the Libs are tops and the Greens are gone"... Repeat after meeeeee....

According to Gus' moon calendar of the druids in session and that of the equinox, It's time to have a change of Green leadership. Bloodless. Rotational event. The Greens need to rattle themselves a bit. Shake the cobwebs... Milne should voluntarily pass the stick. Place another woman at the head by all means — a woman with a voice prepared to shake the apple tree and MAKE NO DEAL with the Libs... Silly! Or a man with a voice... Who knows, he may have no qualms at kicking Tony in the political gonads.