This is not the way our modern mass media society works. Grassroots political activism doesn’t work on a large scale and with a society which is disengaged from the political process.

Getting a green onto Sunrise every week to chat about pointless crap in a light and airy way with Mel and Kochie will do more for the greens overnight than every greens member with their “grassroots” activism does for the greens in a lifetime.

This is just a fact, unpleasant as it may be. And the greens must start to deal with the world as it is, not as how they wish it might be.

“Left-wing wankiness” is just a matter of perception. I’ve got a demotivator calendar and one of the maxims is: “The downside of being better than everyone else is that people tend to assume you’re pretentious.” It’s difficult being right because it really gets on peoples’ nerves. Rather than exclaiming how right we are, we’re better off just keeping our heads down and working for change, one voter at a time. Ignore ideologues’ claims that the Greens are ‘kooky’ and ‘weird’ – they really want to sell you something, so instead point out how shortsighted and self-serving their own message is.

Preselecting the right people is not the key to convince people that the Greens are normal. That’s up to the members of the Greens to do, by being responsible, solid citizens of the community themselves. “Grassroots” means convincing others from the roots, not from the leaves.

And that is the word I hear when I try and talk to people about politics and try to persuade them to vote greens. A few years back John Howard used the word “kooky” to describe the greens – quite rich coming from Uncle Fester himself you might say – but it resonated with normal voters because in their minds that is the image they have of the greens. Weird, kooky, living on another planet.

This is the greens brand for the 90% of the electorate which will not vote for us. Not because the greens chose it and not because it’s neccesarily accurate or fair, but because that’s how things have worked out. Even ordinarily decent and fair journalists can’t write about the greens without a titter or some reference to tofu or mung beans. You might say this is the journalists problem – and their fault – and this is true, but it doesn’t change anything for us. The media is what it is, and it is up to the greens to change their approach and change their image, otherwise, as I said before, they will get nowhere.

Preselecting the right people is key to this. What we need is people who are able to come across as being normal. Kerry Nettle and Lee Rhiannon do not come across as normal. Anyone who thinks they do needs to expand their social circle and start mixing with ordinary people. People like Kerry Nettle and Lee Rhiannon make ordinary voters roll their eyes. And in many respects I don’t blame them. I struggle not to roll my eyes myself when I see them on TV, and I always vote green.

As for the idea of having both a male and female leader, this is NOT a good idea. Because it plays into the negative stereotypes of the greens which they need to dispel. It makes the greens look (yes) weird and slaves to political correctness, affirmative action, and all the left-wing wankiness which is associated with those things.

Wankiness, this is another word associated with the greens. Kooky, weird and wanky. Too much “save the gay whales” and not enough focus on bread and butter issues that matter to normal voters – which incidentally, are issues on which the progressive left actually has a lot to say.

It’s hard to argue that any people who are willing to immerse themselves in the cauldron that is political life are “normal people”. I believe most people – normal people – don’t give two hoots about the people in politics. Names don’t matter as much as they used to in today’s soundbite age: rather, it’s brands. “Normal” in politics is more about image management than being someone one would have a beer with.

One can prognosticate about the formula for a party to gain power but I would not be happy to be part of – or vote for – a party who is willing to compromise their core principles to that end. That is the Green brand: integrity first. It’s a tough sell because the public trust of politicians is regrettably so low that “politics with integrity” seems almost paradoxical, but the Greens are directly fighting that.

I guess that’s why it’s so hard to represent the Greens: one has to show integrity, and it appears Paul Petit did not sufficiently demonstrate that to the Greens SA council.

Integrity and “image management” more often than not don’t go hand-in-hand, unfortunately. It doesn’t mean that a talented political support team can’t deliver on both fronts, however, and that’s what I believe the federal Greens are trying to build.

As for “leader” of the party – did some research on the NZ Greens after your mention of a Rasta MP and learned they have a female and a male co-leader. I like that idea. The retirement of Bob Brown may see something like that come to pass: Christine Milne and Scott Ludlam, perhaps.

I have nothing against her personally, but if she becomes leader on the retirement of Bob Brown, then the greens will be going nowhere. Outside of Tasmania 80% of the population have never even heard of Christine Milne. That number will only barely move if she becomes leader.

The problem with the greens is that they pop the champagne corks when they get seven percent of the vote at a federal election or ten percent in an opinion poll. These are not good results – particularly given the populist, centrist nature of labor and the lack of any other minor party competition.

With the move by Labor to the centre over the last twenty-five years, and with the collapse of the Democrats, there is a huge amount of political space for the Greens to occupy. They are failing to do this, and in my opinion it is because they are culturally unable to preselect the types of people who are able to effectively communicate in our modern mass-media society.

New South Wales is Australia’s largest state, and has by far the largest greens branch, yet they have just preselected Lee Rhiannon for the senate! As if Kerry Nettle wasn’t bad enough. They will never get anywhere unless they preselect better people – not just better people, but normal people.

And let’s not argue about what constitutes “normal” – people know normal when they see it, and it doesn’t happen often enough when they look at a greens candidate or member of parliament.

How long will it be until the greens in Australia decide to preselect a proud pot-smoking Rastafarian to a winnable position, like the Greens in New Zealand did? Madness, absolute madness.

Yes, I know he was actually a good MP who worked extremely hard for vulnerable and marginalised people. I know that. But I’m not a “normal” voter – the greens already have my vote, but there aren’t enough people like me to allow the greens to fulfill their potential.

On the first, I remain unconvinced by demands that the party needs a “leader” to tell them what to do. While most Greens have made the point that it is only a title, it is what it embodies is where the problem lies. So, in WA, Tas and federally the Greens have “Leaders”. The level to which they and their offices influence the workings and policies of the respective parties varies. The ACT has a “Parliamentary Convenor” who acts as the title suggests. As far as I’m aware the Vic Greens don’t have a formalised leader, even if they have a media figure (Greg Barber) and a person who sorts out the votes in parliament (Sue Pennicuik). Does that make them “Leaders” or media savvy? And WA did not have a formal “Leader” for most of its existence, but the media were perfectly capable of sorting out who they needed to talk to and who was the leading spokesperson for the party.

Yes the Greens do have something against egotistical people – but I would also suggest this is linked to a credibility and integrity question. It takes a certain amount of ego to want to be an MP in the first place, and loads of chutzpah to put your views out publicly. I would note that Bob has been doing this for almost 30 years, and his integrity and credibility are not questioned even if for most of that time he wasn’t a “Leader” of the party.

As to media performers – a lot of that CAN be learned, especially if building upon a healthy ego. Looking at those Green MPs who have done well in the media, I’d suggest most have worked damn hard to build both their profile and credibility – Giz Watson in WA being one that springs to mind. Christine Milne is another who has worked assiduously to build not just her profile but also the credibility of her arguments – and is now being vindicated for her work around climate change.

Lastly, I think we will see more people enter the party with an eye to being an MP as the opportunities grow for people to be elected. Whether this brings those with both egos and who are media savvy is an open question, but it will naturally enlarge the pool of talent. It will also depend on the kind of seat we’re talking about (local electorate MP, regional seat, ala Tas, Vic or WA, or state-wide seat) as to whether that local campaigning experience is valued.

Oh, and I keep hearing about attracting “mainstream” support – what is actually meant by this? 20% of the vote? 30%? And what does it mean in terms of policy (as most people do still vote with an eye to policy outcomes)?

Stewart I tend to judge candidates on their ability to “perform” in a media sense. Parties like the ALP with their dozens of ultra safe seats can afford to put quiet and thoughtful or entirely locally focussed candidates into parliaments. There will always be a core of good “performers” who can do the business with the media on everyone’s behalf and cover for the duds.

But for a party like the greens – where winnable seats are rarer than gold – it is vital that the party preselect people who will be able to attract (good) attention in the media. Every state in Australia needs to have at least one green parliamentarian who is a household name (whether before or after their election), otherwise the greens have no chance of ever making any serious progress.

I think many in the greens don’t understand exactly what a good candidate in this respect is. They tend to overestimate the ability of small-fish local people to translate their community work onto a larger scale.

The problem is that the people who make good media performers are often a bit egotistical and this freaks greens out. They don’t like dominant types of people. But the greens need them. It’s a bit like the Nationals with Barnaby Joyce. He upset a lot of his colleagues (particularly in his early days), but his egotistical grandstanding is political gold for all of them. The Greens need to understand this lesson.

In New Zealand they’re so short-sighted they actually have two leaders of the parliamentary party! One man and one woman. The greens need to drop this sort of crap as well as the ridiculous dislike of even calling someone a leader. Using wanky words like “convenor” instead of leader might fly in left-wing activism circles, but with the mainstream electorate it is just a bad joke.

Green members of parliament need to be big personalities who can compete for space in the mainstream media. Being well-regarded community activists isn’t enough. We need fewer Lyn Allisons, fewer Vicki Bournes and more Don Chipps.

Because who has ever heard of Vicki Bourne or Lyn Allison? Maybe fifteen percent of the population? They weren’t BAD or unqualified members of parliament, but in the business of getting attention and attracting mainstream support, they were essentially useless. Too many greens (I deliberately name no names – and have used former democrats as examples) are in this mould.

Perhaps, along with sorting through preselection rules, the Australian Greens might need to give some thought to candidate selection and training (including succession planning?), rather than leaving it all to chance? But then, all parties struggle with talent pool issues (just look at the NSW ALP!!).