Greens members to get say on leader, but MPs may have their vote first

ADELAIDE — Greens members' proposed right to pick their leaders could be watered down by a requirement for the candidates to be nominated by their colleagues first, under a plan being discussed to overhaul the party's voting system.

The idea is one of a number of models being mulled at the Greens conference in Adelaide, as a means to fulfil party members' wish for more of a say in how their federal leaders are elected, but to avert imposing a candidate unpopular with the rest of the partyroom.

This weekend's conference was held just five weeks after Senator David Shoebridge defeated Senator Mehreen Faruqi in a fractious leadership ballot, which prompted Faruqi to demand a one member, one vote system.

"Without a member vote, we cannot call ourselves a grassroots party," she said soon after the vote.

Under the status quo, leaders are elected by the federal partyroom, currently ten Greens senators and one lower house MP. Shoebridge has long been an advocate of including the membership base in the selection.

Models under consideration include the one member, one vote system championed by Faruqi and former Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, which would allow members to directly elect their federal leader. Under that proposal, a parliamentarian's vote would be weighed equally with a general member's.

While its proponents argue it would make good on the Greens' claim to be a grassroots party, there are some internal concerns over potential dysfunction if the members elected a leader not supported by the party room.

To offset that risk, some members are suggesting a one member, one vote model, but requiring candidates to be nominated by a certain number of their parliamentary colleagues to be eligible to run.

A third model discussed by Greens delegates over the weekend is a 50-50 split between the membership and parliamentary party. Labor has had that system in place since 2013 but has used it only once, when Bill Shorten defeated Anthony Albanese for the leadership in 2013.

The 50-50 model has previously been supported by former Greens leaders Richard Di Natale, Bob Brown and Christine Milne, though multiple Greens sources told POLITICO it had the least internal support of the three.

In an interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the conference, Deputy Leader Steph Hodgins-May declined to reveal her own preferred model, insisting "it's certainly not something we want to be imposing from the top down."

But Hodgins-May said that the new leadership team was eager for the system to be in place by the next federal election, when Greens leadership positions are automatically vacated.

"It is a process that will be driven by the party, but we'll certainly be providing as much support as we can to ensure that it happens in a timely way and that members are having a say about who represents them following the next federal election," she said.

Party delegates will meet on Monday to establish a working group, which will drive the process through to a vote by the end of next year.

Any change would need to be approved by two-thirds of the membership, a threshold that previously proved too steep.

That year, members were given three choices, with 62% voting for a 50-50 model over the status quo, 62% voting for "one member, one vote" over the status quo and 51% preferring a 50-50 model over a "one member, one vote" model.

The issue has bubbled away internally since 2018, when parts of the membership revolted against Di Natale, who they viewed as abandoning the party's core principles. Di Natale had been elected three years earlier in an uncontested transition from Milne.

Di Natale stepped down months before the 2020 plebiscite.