[dmharrison]

I guess what I was trying to point out is that they're not the crazy greens social enviro anarchist party that you'd tend to think of if you heard of the 'greens' for the first time (generally). They're 'closer' but I agree I wouldn't consider them equivalent or overlapping on an absolute scale. The US center being quite different from the Aus center of course, but normalising across countries is bound to result in a loss of direction.

I do wonder if voting wasn't so constrained to party lines what we'd end up with though.

[nl]

I agree that they aren't a crazy greens social enviro anarchist party, but I think many people might be surprised just how left wing they are. Their economic policies include things like:

only allowing losses from an investment to be offset against income from the same investment;

introducing a tax on extreme wealth applied to the wealthiest 5% of people.

return the company tax rate to 33% and broaden the company tax base by reducing tax concessions.

etc etc

http://greens.org.au/policies/sustainable-economy/economics

Having said that, I'll probably be voting green (and have before). Not sure about my preferences, though.

I wish there was a socially progressive, economically centralist party in Australia. Pity the Australian Democrats collapsed.