Further proof that Gillard really is dead in the water. The only support she has now comes from the AWU/Ludwig/Howes. Shows how much they really care about workers when they seem happy for Abbott to be PM if it means propping up their little puppet Gillard for a few more months.
Amazing what lows Gillard has taken the ALP too since she became leader. Lost 30 odd seats in the last election and looks like losing another 30 in the next one.

Michelle,

Can I suggest you have a read of Sunanda Creagh's rather excellent piece in The Conversation about what Milne and the Greens actually have said. Far from "serving divorce papers" ... continued support on budget bills and confidence motions ... I wonder what has actually changed other than a more robust argument on key issues that will see some daylight emerge between Labor and the Greens.

Totally outclassed mate. By facts rather than gallery gossip and speculation.

Take a year off ... read, get a tan and put some daylight between yourself and the gallery hacks

"Labor doesn’t pander to special interests on our left or on our right,” Wayne Swan said.

What a joke. I never liked Rudd and I understand that we elected Labor, not him, but I still found his demise disgusting and unnecessary. No surprise that it seems to have backfired spectacularly and we are in line for at least one term of Abbott, Bishop, Robb, Andrews, Truss, Brandis, Mirabella and god knows who else.

Great speech by Milne.

Grattan has linked to it but here it is again.
http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/christine-milne-addresses-national-press-club

Grattan flunked the "mysogny speech" and she has flunked this one as well. Give it up Michelle - you have a tin ear.

In my opinion Ms Gratton is confirming that there is an inverse relationship between frequency of publication and quality of analysis.

What i take from this is the Greens keep to their word and dont spit the dummey and take their bat and ball home (or run away from press gatherings, or roll over for a lovely tummy tickle by resources companies).

Perhaps we do need a term of Coalition Government so that the general public (who tends to have short memories anyway) can see that both the major parties are just as bad as each other and despite protestations really have no intention about acting in the National Interest when it conflicts with their own political interests.

Meanwhile the most unlikely people are forming associations with the Greens, e.g. farmers (who woulda thunk it?) So it seems the Greens may attract votes away from Labor who have swung too far to the right, votes from the Nationals, who have abandoned their constituencies re CSG and votes from the Liberals who are being run by the Gina set.

cue the rabbid wailing and gnashing of teeth about those insidious loopie fringers.

What is it about Michelle Grattan? She really wears her partisanship on her sleeve. Gillard can do no right and Abbott only does alright and if she is forced by glaring evidence to call attention to his lies she instead gently seeks to correct his manifest defects with a wet slap to his wrist.

As has been pointed out by other people here the Greens are distancing themselves but they are still committed to voting with the government on supply, confidence, etc That is not a 'dumping' no matter how you spin it. What Grattan didn't say about Milne's speech that she links to above is Milne is scathing about Abbott and his intentions. Yet Grattan has a supposed quote from Milne declaring that Australia will support an Abbott government. This supposed quote doesn't appear in Milne's speech so where does it come from? I googled it and it appears lots of times on various news outlets but in all those instances their source is the above piece by Grattan which is just a classic example of how the canberra press gallery is just an echo chamber and is not providing infopmation and analysis for Australians on what is happening in Parliament. So did Milne actually say this or has Grattan made it up? I need the source of this quote before I will believe Milne said it.

I guess we will never see any writing from Grattan about Ashbygate and from that how Mal Brough should be charged for handling stolen material or how Abbott is in bed with Gina Rinehart and the miners or how Abbott said that the Carbon Tax is a good thing until he sniffed out that opposing it might be his ticket into the lodge and then switched to decrying it.

“the Australian community is saying they will support an Abbott government.”

The customary response to this realisation would be a gracious acknowledgement of defeat. If this deranged woman and her loopy followers aren't comfortable with democracy what exactly do they want instead?

Milne is looking at the long game: This years elections, in the full knowledge voters are truly fed up with both of the major parties, insofar as each of these tribes are largely populated by mental pygmies. Indeed they are tired old instruments for running the country in this rapidly changing world, so we might just see a shift to protest voting - That is, vote for any party, other than the ALP or the LIB. Indeed, folks are thinking a bunch of drovers dogs couldn't be any worse than either of this rabble

As plain dumb as they are at times, at least many see the Greens as consistent - added to this, they are pro Australian, whereas, clearly the majors are not. Rather, during their short terms of office they just focus on things do with growing an economy(or so they say) - all the while forgetting that Australians just want a better "Society". Consequently we now suffer mightily from border-less business dictating our way of life. ie: We don't own much of Australia these days, sold off to the highest bidder to raise some cash, as if somehow we have to play this game to stay alive.(Indeed, it's a mantra with them)

If only Milne recognised it, there's a bunch of independents out there, along with a small group of National candidates(who are not all that pro Liberal) who could form an alliance to run the show, leaving the so called majors with no public mandate to govern. Given that voters are rapidly zeroing on the worth of individuals in politics, then why not make that leap, and change the landscape

Both the ALP and the LIB are so last century in the way they conduct their affairs - failing to recognise this century is being driven by a vastly different paradigm. That is, quality of life issues - not the financial ability to buy an even bigger Plasma TV. To wit, the folks in Beijing are a lot richer these days, big TV's and all - but the air they breath and the water they drink is killing them. Meanwhile Gillard and Abbott are happy to keep killing them with ship loads of coal from QLD - sort of like running the train system to destinations heading for Bergen Belson, or Dachau during WW2. A good little earner for the railway operators at the time

A harsh critique ... maybe, but there are parallels.

But look to what an Abbott Government would mean.

Ruling class warfare against the 99% has been liberated from its post-war closet. Together, the moneybags and the media they own have brazenly reversed the truth, blaming a Great Recession deliberately caused by their own greed onto the victims - the masses, now suddenly deemed to have a "Culture of Expectation". Naturally the solution is for the masses to be relieved of this moral hazard by, surprise, surprise, transferring their earnings to the already filthy rich.

An ideological consensus shared by the reactionary ruling classes that typically control governments, from US Republicans (Obama is a '90s Republican) through to Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and Cameron's Tories propagandises that the state is the source of economic bad - threatens enterprise, overtaxes, and feeds inflation - so must "live within its means".

Those kleptocrats omit mention of how they have exploited their power over the state to socialise their vast private losses, or how their aim now is to preserve the plunder pillaged by their class from three decades of a debt-driven asset price bubble; depredations on a scale that exceeds the booty from the Spanish conquest of the Americas.

As for us, Joe Hockey expressed great enthusiasm for slashing the whole range of Australian welfare payments. "All government-funded pensions and other such payments must be means-tested so that people who do not need them do not get them," he said in a speech to policymakers in London. Classic exploitation/privatisation of the labour of working people, and abandonment/socialisation of their costs when too young, too old, too unfit, or too unwanted.

Hockey merely stated the obvious ruling class agenda that the wealth of society is not for those in it but for the rich that control it.

For us non-rich, such as Abbott and Hockey are a problem.

In past elections, I have always voted Greens number 1. But no more.- they have become too politicised on non environmental issues like immigration, drug policy and especially Israel/Palestine. And now Milne is taking up the old cry of the Democrats "keep the bastards honest" - which was always a very dishonest concept. The Greens should stick to environmental issues and let the major parties fight out the social and economic issues.

Are there still two electorates available where Rudd and Turnbull could stand as Green candidates? Or perhaps they would be better as independents If Torbay can be as and career-minded (perhaps sleezy) as to join the Nationals to stand against Windsor, I think anti-party stands by prominent politicians is on.

I love how no matter what happens - for Michelle it all comes back to Rudd, every single time

Greens stand strong on their principals - lets see what rudd says

Bob Brown's comment about concentrating on the Greens balance of power in the Senate supports Michelle's analysis ,but the overexcited language - "dumps" '"events running out of her control" is pretty unnecessary. Just reinforcement to the poll-driven anti- Gillard commentary .

In fact the Greens by no means dictated the terms of the " agreement" - big concessions have been made - especially re the carbon-pricing package , where the Greens decided that half or three quarters of a loaf was better than none.People like Rudd who now say they govt should never have made an agreement with the Greens wilfully ignore that point.They also ignore the need for Gillard to be able to clearly prove that she had the support of the majority on the floor of the House of Reps in order to form a government .

Furthermore since Milne has said she will support the govt on matters of confidence and the Budget one wonders on what proposed legislation their support will not be given. Will the first moves on Gonski and the disability insurance scheme be part of the budget - one would have thought so. To vote for the budget measures and then refuse to support ancillary legislation would not be a good look . Milne wants to seem to be "in charge" by inviting the PM to talk but what about?

It's pretty obvious that concentration on the Senate has to be the Greens priority,whatever the latest polls say , especially since the Vic LIbs at least won't direct to the Greens in the House of Reps next time round.

Article was a waste of time. Comments interesting.

The real tragedy is that we will be faced with a choice among three unpalatable alternatives. All three parties are committed to the idea of endless growth - the very idea that this may be the end of growth simply is not on the political agenda of any of the three parties. Whilst that is understandable in the case of the ALP and Coalition, it is unpardonable in the case of the Greens - the so called environmental protectors are every bit as dangerous for the environment as their bigger brothers. Of course the problem for all of them is that for far too long growth has been spruiked as the answer to all of our problems so that now anyone who dares to suggest that the good times are behind us, that it is time to cut up our credit cards and start reducing our ecological footprint will probably find it difficult to convince voters but is there any point in perpetuatng the myth of unlimited growth in a finite world?

Grattan's articles are part of the media's outrageously overdone bullying campaign against Julia Gillard and her government, in an effort to ensure the installation of Abbott as our next PM. Why on earth would the Conversation expect donations from people like me, who feel under constant psychological assault by Grattan's incessant Liberal cheer-leading.

The confusing thing for me in this statement by Christine Milne and the Greens is that as far as I can see nothing has changed in their agreement with labor. In the original Labor/Greens agreement if my memory is correct the only guarantee the Greens gave Labor was the guarantee of supply. And as far as I understand from Milne's statement that guarantee of supply is still the same.

So please, other than the rhetoric from Milne and the Greens, what has changed. After all Labor is still in government and as far as I can see Labor and the Greens will still vote on issues according to their own determination as they have always done. And as Milne herself said unless something dramatic/unknown happens, Labor will remain in government until the next election in September. All I can see are two parties positioning themselves as would be expected for their own political advantage for the upcoming election.

All I see is a lot of media and political rhetoric/spin beating this up into something it is not. As you could say a lot of navel gazing to create a mountain out of a molehill. Obviously this seems better than us all having a debate about what policy we need for the future of this country. That’s a debate I personally think is worth having, but see very little hope of it actually happening.