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I guess because the Greens exist to criticise and have never actually been in government, they don't understand the complexities of taking responsibility. When you believe you're pure, it's easy to take simplistic positions and refuse to accept that complexity means compromise.
For instance, about emergency tower lockdown, it's entirely possible to hold two thoughts in your head at once: tower communities didn't want police there but that didn't mean police shouldn't have been there. That the response wasn't perfect, but that no emergency response is.
It's so easy to stand on the outside and just point and say 'you're not doing this right', but what is lacking is the acceptance that if they were in the same situation as Andrews, they would have to be making difficult decisions in the public interest. Not so easy!
The thing that I find so disappointing is that by undermining government's lockdown of the towers - by suggesting police shouldn't have been there etc - what the Greens are actually doing is undermining public sector expertise and criticising front line workers doing their best.
The anti-government and anti-expertise narratives coming from Greens and their supporters on my feed smell much like another anti-expert narrative - climate change denial. When you believe in your heart government is acting in bad faith, you propel a narrative that supports that.
How is climate change denial like the Greens anti-lockdown narrative? Firstly, it suggests they know better than the people who do this stuff for a living. Better than the experts. Secondly, it suggests the world is simply black and white and there is no room for grey compromise.
Thirdly, this narrative suggests government should not have the authority to act in the public's interest even if that public don't think it is necessary to do that. Andrews would much prefer not to have to lockdown the towers, but he had no choice.
And lastly and most importantly, Greens narrative completely fails to give any credit to Andrews for taking difficult decisions in public interest. We know there were 160+ cases in a single tower. Andrews didn't know that until he tested everyone. Imagine if he had done nothing?
Greens exist to criticise, to be pure, to show they won't compromise, but don't also forget that they exist to take votes away from Labor in inner cities, particularly Melbourne. If you don't think this effort on their behalf is about that, you're extremely naive. Dirty politics.
