Not Green, But Deep Red, By Brian Simpson

The Australian Greens, rooted in radical Leftist ideology emphasising social justice, equity, human rights, and anti-discrimination, have consistently prioritised humanitarian concerns and compassion for migrants and refugees. over the environment. This ideological foundation leads them to advocate for significantly more open and expansive immigration policies — particularly on humanitarian and refugee intakes — than even theAustralian Labor Party (ALP). However, this stance creates a notable tension with core environmental principles, as mass immigration drives rapid population growth, which exacerbates pressures on Australia's fragile ecosystems, water resources, biodiversity, housing, infrastructure, and carbon emissions.

Australia's population has grown dramatically in recent decades, largely fuelled by net overseas migration rather than natural increase. High immigration levels contribute to urban sprawl, increased demand for land clearance, higher resource consumption (energy, water, food), greater waste generation, and intensified environmental degradation in a country already facing severe challenges like drought, bushfires, coral bleaching, and species extinction. Environmental groups have long argued that sustainable population management is essential for genuine ecological protection — yet the Greens largely sidestep or downplay this link when it comes to immigration.

Official Greens policies explicitly celebrate immigration's benefits to society, economy, and culture while committing to expand humanitarian pathways. Key elements include:

Increasing Australia's humanitarian refugee intake to 50,000 places per year (more than double the typical recent levels under Labor, which has hovered around 20,000 or less in many years).

Creating additional uncapped places through private sponsorship programs.

Prioritising family reunion, providing pathways to permanency for temporary visa holders, and clearing backlogs for refugees in limbo.

Opposing supposed cruel detention practices and pushing for humane, non-discriminatory systems.

These positions frame immigration primarily through a human rights lens, viewing restrictions as discriminatory or xenophobic. The Greens frequently criticise Labor for adopting "cruel" or "far-Right" migration policies in competition with the Coalition, including expanded detention powers and anti-migrant laws.

This Greens emphasis on expansionist humanitarian migration ignores or minimises the environmental trade-offs. Rapid population growth from high net migration accelerates habitat loss, strains water supplies in arid regions, boosts transport emissions, and increases overall energy demand. Historically, some early Greens documents acknowledged population-environment links and called for stabilisation or precautionary approaches, but the modern party has shifted away from this, focusing instead on social equity, climate refugees (ironically advocating resettlement for those displaced by environmental crises elsewhere), and rejecting any notion of caps that might limit supposed vulnerable people's access.

The irony is sharp: a party founded on environmental activism now promotes policies that fuel one of the key drivers of environmental pressure in Australia. Critics, including from sustainable population advocates, point out that true environmentalism requires addressing domestic population dynamics holistically — not just emissions targets or conservation reserves, but also how many people the land can sustainably support. By prioritising ideological commitments to global equity and anti-racism over ecological carrying capacity, the Greensmake environmental protection secondary to social justice goals.

In essence, the Greens' Leftist framework leads them not only to overlook the environmental downsides of mass immigration but to demand even higher levels than Labor, particularly in refugee and family streams, despite Australia's unique vulnerabilities as a large, dry continent with limited arable land and biodiversity hotspots under threat. This disconnect highlights a broader tension within progressive politics: balancing human compassion with planetary limits. For those concerned about genuine sustainability, it underscores why environmental advocacy sometimes finds more resonance outside the Greens' current platform. The Greens, in short, are not truly "green," but "red." Like prickly pear (cactus fruit).

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2026/02/adam-bandt-returns-to-make-acf-even-less-relevant/