They could do, but the Greens could then be gazumped at any moment by the Coalition making a more acceptable offer to Labor. On balance, I’m sure Labor would rather have such an agreement with the Coalition than the Greens; Labor and the Coalition respect each other as legitimate parties of government, both entitled to take turns in power, and both take the opposite view of the Greens. And even if the Greens did secure that sort of agreement, Labor could shaft them exactly Gillard did to Andrew Wilkie. Nobody should expect Labor to keep its word.

Good luck convincing enough of the mug punters to ensure their relevance against the ALP/LNP duopoly, which will become explicit when the Greens try to use the balance of power, which is a mirage.

The Greens could do what they did to Gillard: make their support in a minority parliament contingent on Labor adopting certain policies. I hope they’re getting ready for that.

That’d be my guess too, and it would be too inviting for the Coalition not to take advantage and wedge Labor on something leaving it out of office and with little support.

If any such questions came from the West Australian, they’ll be squashed into the ashtray before any chance of being reported in that once-august journal.

The Labor voters who would be bothered by such conduct have mostly left already, just look at the collapse of Labor’s first preference vote. That’s part of the reason Labor keeps moving right. Those still voting Labor appear to be entirely immune to whatever the Greens offer, or more accurately, what they have been told the Greens offer. It’s not like the MSM is much interested in giving the Greens a fair go or in objective reporting in this area.

It’s an open question whether it would be a formalised arrangement. Anything would do, from a full formal coalition, through a simple guarantee of confidence and supply or just letting one party govern in a minority but obliging it with a helping hand whenever the Greens try anything beyond a symbolic gesture.

It might seem hard to picture two parties that are typically described as opponents making such an arrangement, but in Ireland after its last general election the two major parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, based on opposing sides in the Civil War of the 1920s, supposedly implacable enemies, were quick to circle their wagons together when their cosy duopoly was threatened by Sinn Féin getting its best result since the beginnings of the Free State.

Or just one endless smirk desperately searching for a face.

Whoa, spoke too soon.

The good thing about that would be the fake veil of antipathy between Labor and the coalition would be lifted for all to see.

• windfall tax on excessive profits
• royalties and increase in PRRT to get the foreign owned gas companies to pay more than a nurse in taxes for once
• dental included in Medicare
• a public owned property developer to address public housing

It wasn’t surprising, but extremely disappointing, to see:

• that it wasn’t particularly well attended by the ‘press’ (presumably the mainstream press)
• that the msm asked gotcha questions, either aimed at smearing by association on the CFMEU; or distorting windfall tax; which part of ‘excessive profits’ doesn’t David Crow understand?

Add to that the reporter from ‘our ABC’ pushing the gas companies’ we’ll-leave-if-you-try-tax-us line. Which part of Qatar raises $50billion in taxes compared to our $2billion whilst exporting less gas than we do yet can still get gas companies willing to be a part of it doesn’t this economics reporter understand? It was shameful.

It took AAP, Bloomberg and all organizations The West Australian (or The West, something like that) before any explorative questions were raised.