CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A Greenslopes man who has a fucken stressful job moving pallets of shit around a warehouse in the blazing Queensland heat, has admittedly joined the thousands of South Brisbane voters who are no longer voting for the Greens.
He’s gone back to Labor, and that’s where he’ll likely stay for the foreseeable future.
This comes as the analysis of Saturday’s 2024 state election points to a major shift amongst Queensland voters. It seems two Greens seats in Brisbane could flip to Labor and the LNP respectively as counting continues, which could spell trouble for three federal seats held by the party in overlapping city electorates. It follows similar trends in local council elections across the country.
While the LNP went on to narrowly win the Queensland election, it was not the landslide victory that the media had expected. This is partly due to the swathes of Greens votes bleeding back to Labor.
After spending several decades as a fringe political party that only really thrived in Melbourne’s most inner-city suburbs, and towns like Byron and Eumundi, the Greens had made real in-roads with Middle Australia at the last Federal election. This momentum appears to have been stunted in recent months.
Coopers Plains warehouse floor manager, Fetu Maivia (38) was seduced by the Greens in the 2022 Federal Election, after the local MP Max Chandler-Mather knocked on his front door and gave it to him straight.
“Free mental and free dental. That’s what he reckons.” says Fetu.
“He told me the environment is still number one priority, which I can get around. But they had plans to help my family with housing and medical bills. Nobody else was offering that. I don’t even care if these rednecks at work call me a poofter for voting for them. My teeth are fucked and my brothers are all in jail because they’re fucked in the head. Free mental and free dental is what I voted for. Anyone who has a problem with that can meet in the fucken car park”
However, in the years since jumping ship, Fetu is starting to think the Greens might be carrying on a bit.
It’s not their refusal to help the Prime Minister pass a lacklustre housing bill, he knows as well as anyone that Australians deserve the right to ask for far more than the scraps the government is willing to give when it comes to tackling this bullshit property bubble.
If anything, Fetu respects his local MP for sticking it to the Prime Minister. But this noise coming out of Melbourne is doing his head in.
“Bro, all I see on the news is these four-eyed fucken lefties defending protestors for smashing up rival politicians offices and lighting fires. How the fuck is that going to pay for my root canal?”
When asked if he had ever considered that having an issue with the vandalism of electoral offices actually makes him a supporter of genocidal American Imperialism, Fetu says he doesn’t even know what those words mean. But Labor were offering to pay for his kids lunches, and they were in a position to be able to actually do that.
