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.