Adam Bandt undermined by terrible misjudgments across the Greens

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The phrase “lack of judgment” seems to crop up frequently around Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe. She lacked it when she shouted a disgusting insult at Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes in the Senate. She lacked it when she abused an Aboriginal elder during a meeting, appalling her chief of staff. And she lacks it when she freelances on Greens’ support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

So the revelation by the ABC that Thorpe had a brief relationship with former bikie boss Dean Martin while she was serving on Parliament’s joint standing committee on law enforcement fits a pattern. She decided, despite her own staff strongly warning her, that it wasn’t an issue worth disclosing. She now admits that was poor judgment.

What’s more serious is that Thorpe’s staff told Adam Bandt’s chief of staff, Damien Lawson, about the matter and Lawson didn’t tell Bandt. Lawson has been “counselled” over that lack of judgment, Bandt said yesterday.

There’s been plenty of criticism of Bandt over his failure to exercise leadership in relation to Thorpe — especially his failure to even acknowledge complaints about Thorpe’s abuse from Bangerang/Wiradjuri woman Aunty Geraldine Atkinson in 2021. But it’s difficult to exercise leadership if no one tells you about a problem that needs fixing.

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All successful political leaders rely on good staff. They can’t know everything; they need people with good judgment acting as filters to make sure what needs attention gets attention. If your staff, especially your chief of staff, lack judgment, bad things happen. Like finding out from the media that one of your team had a serious undisclosed conflict of interest. And that your own staff knew and chose not to tell you. WA Senator Dorinda Cox also knew of the relationship.

This is twice now that Bandt’s office has stuffed up on a sensitive issue involving Thorpe. The Atkinson matter was embarrassing for a party that likes to take the high ground on parliamentary behaviour. The non-disclosure regarding Thorpe is worse. The Greens have complained for years that they’re not permitted to join the joint standing committee on intelligence and security. This has handed the major parties an excuse to never even consider adding a Green. Greens party members and other MPs and senators must be pulling their hair out about the way the party has stumbled from one stuff-up to the next since a hugely successful election.

Over the past 15 years, the Greens have achieved the unusual feat of moving from bit-player status in the Senate to the third party of Australian politics. Every other party that has tried that feat has dissolved into acrimony and division along the way — the Democrats, Pauline Hanson, Clive Palmer’s outfits, Nick Xenophon, etc. The Greens have morphed into the key crossbench party in the Senate with several lower house seats while displaying unity, discipline and ego control of a kind no other minor party has been able to match.

That record is now starting to look a little frayed. And it will look a lot worse if people don’t start displaying good judgment.

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