I wouldn’t stress too much about it, I don’t think this will be a major setback for The Greens as a political movement. They are in a difficult stage of their evolution as a party where they are facing some issues balancing environmental and social issues, older and younger voters, hard left voters that will support them no matter what vs soft left voters who they’ve picked up from Labor over the past couple of decades, etc. Under the past couple of leaders they’ve had a strong desire to grow and become a real progressive force in Australian politics, but that is not necessarily a realistic goal while our system continues to favour the larger centre.

After jumping to 4 MPs in the 2022 election, I think they tried to go too hard, too soon which might have frustrated some of those softer left voters and pushed them back to Labor. Everyone is very focused on Trump’s impact on the right, but if this election was a rejection of culture wars then you have to question whether The Greens have also been caught up in that and were seen as too disruptive and divisive during the last term. I think they actually realised this prior to the election, which is why they tried to pivot to a “keep Dutton out” strategy and back off Labor, but the chaos in the US ultimately made it a difficult perception to dislodge from the minds of some of their softer voters.