Ahead of a federal election that may well see Queensland elect a second Greens senator,the co-parent of the party is worried.

And Greens co-founder Drew Hutton has identified an unlikely political figure the party needs to emulate if it is ever to become a mainstream party:firebrand independent Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie.

“I have been concerned for a long time that the Greens have locked themselves into a middle class,inner-city,tertiary educated,identity politics-driven ghetto that gives them a maximum 12 per cent vote across the country,a couple of lower house seats and no real hold on political power,” he wrote in a recent Facebook post.

“They also don’t seem to know how to break out of this.

“Maybe they could start by electing a bunch of spokespersons who look and sound like Jacqui Lambie.”

It was a suggestion Lambie “had a laugh” about,a spokeswoman for the Tasmanian senator says,but she chose not to comment.

Further commentary was sought from Hutton,who toldBrisbane Times:“I’m afraid I have retired from all political activity except the occasional Facebook post,so I’m not available for comment.”

But Hutton’s social media post exposes soul-searching within Greens politics in Queensland,even if Lambie is not the type of figure with whom most would feel political kinship.

Brisbane councillor Jonathan Sri,the first Green to be elected to a representative chamber in Queensland,acknowledges the party struggles to attract working-class candidates.

After all,he says,it is harder to give up work for a six-month campaign without a cashed-up party machine to help pay the bills.

“There are lots of barriers in life to running as a candidate and engaging actively in electoral politics,” Sri says.

“So unless you have a lot of support,and resorting to offer candidates from more marginalised backgrounds,it’s very hard for them to commit the time to run.

“... It’s a hard thing to have to give up your job for a couple of months to go on the campaign trail when there’s no guarantee of success.”

And while Lambie plays the part of the outsider — the non-politician everywoman — very well,Sri says she had a leg-up to political life that other would-be outsiders,including Greens,would lack.

“The blunt reality is that she wouldn’t have won her seat in the first place without the financial backing of a coal billionaire like[Clive] Palmer,” he says.

“The nature of the political system is such that it’s very,very hard for outside political outsiders to pop through into the mainstream political system without some kind of institutional backing.”

John Mickel served as a minister in the Beattie Labor government,including a stint as Parliamentary Speaker,between 2009 and 2012.

After observing Queensland politics for three years from the Speaker’s chair,he now does the same thing in his capacity as an adjunct professor in politics at the Queensland University of Technology.

Mickel suggests Hutton’s wish for a Lambie-like figure will find little traction within Greens ranks.

“Jacqui Lambie,it seems to me,has an appeal to people who are over politics and maybe feel left behind and that’s not where the Greens are,” he says.

“The Greens are a hectoring,lecturing mob — ‘This is what we believe and we don’t tolerate anybody who doesn’t believe this’ — à la the Bob Brown convoy.”

But Hutton’s comments ring true for Griffith University political scientist Paul Williams,one of Queensland’s most respected political scholars.

At least in part.

“What he’s really saying is ‘we need to strike a populist chord’ and that’s not wrong,” Williams says.

That is easier said than done. In fact,Williams says,it defies political logic.

“By their very nature,the well-educated — a double-degree,triple-degree — inner-city,high-income urban voter rejects populism for its anti-democratic message,” he said.

“And the populist will reject environmentalism because it’s a post-material value. Populists are driven largely by material values,improving the economic stake of the underclass.”

Aside from Sri,finding Greens to speak publicly about the party’s direction proves a difficult task.

“I am not the right one to talk,” Greens state director Kitty Carra says.

Former Greens senator Andrew Bartlett also declined the opportunity to comment,but responded in a comment thread on Hutton’s post.

“The Greens are easily the most successful ‘third’ party in Australian history,in a political system and culture which is basically rigged to entrench only two parties. So,in that sense,they have a lot to be proud of,” he wrote.

“But,given the urgency of current environmental and social issues,their inability to move forward in any major way since the Adam Bandt breakthrough in 2010 is a concern and it’s reasonable for people to raise questions about why that might be.

“The Greens have been good at entrenching themselves as the major minor party. Not always so good at self-reflection or dealing with good faith critique.”

Brisbane Times reached out to all sitting Greens representatives in Queensland.

The office of state MP Michael Berkman declined to comment. Senator Larissa Waters was,serendipitously,in Lambie’s home state on a Tasmanian hiking trip and was not contactable.

South Brisbane MP Amy MacMahon initially agreed to be interviewed,before an intervention from party HQ resulted in that interview being cancelled.

MacMahon’s and Berkman’s offices,along with Carra,directed queries to the as-yet unelected lead Senate candidate Penny Allman-Payne.

Political observers,such as Williams,expect Allman-Payne will not remain unelected for long.

“It’s very hard to see how the Greens won’t[win a second Queensland Senate seat],” he says.

A teacher and unionist based in Gladstone,Allman-Payne says she is anything but the inner-city Green that Hutton laments.

But is she a Lambie?

“I don’t think so,” she laughs.

“Jacqui Lambie is very much Jacqui Lambie,I don’t think there’s anyone else who’s like her.

“I guess what I would say is I’m not the stereotypical Greens candidate,because I don’t come from the inner city.”

A big hindrance to the Greens,Allman-Payne says,is structural. In particular,the lack of proportional representation in Australian politics outside the Senate.

In the unicameral Queensland Parliament,that is especially relevant.

“It’s no surprise that Queensland was one of the last states to have Greens MPs in the Parliament,but once we broke through and we got one,we’ve got a second one and the first one we got has increased their margin,because people like what they see when they get a Greens MP into the Parliament,” she says.

“If you can’t be what you can’t see,you can’t vote for what you’ve never experienced before,either.”

Allman-Payne says the Greens are disadvantaged by the geographical spread of their voters.

“It’s one thing to say we have a ceiling of 12½ per cent,or 12¼ or whatever it is,but you could say the same thing about the Nationals,for example,” she says.

“In fact,the Nationals vote is even lower,to some extent,but because it’s concentrated in particular areas,they have a higher number of seats.

“So this idea that we just focus on a national percentage,I think,is a little bit distracting.”

The Nationals attracted 4.51 per cent of the House of Representatives vote in 2019,although that excluded MPs elected under the Queensland LNP banner who sat in the Nationals’ party room. The Greens attracted 10.4 per cent,but had just 0.66 per cent of seats — their lone lower house MP,Adam Bandt,representing Melbourne.

Still,Allman-Payne is confident that will change. All that is needed is time.

“I think there will become a point where we’ll have an exponential growth,because we’ll have enough people in front of the voters that they can see what Greens representation looks like,” she says.

Allman-Payne has already committed to basing herself out of central Queensland should she be successful in her Senate tilt,which would be the Greens’ first electorate office outside the south-east corner of the state.

Less optimistic of the party’s long-term prospects is Mickel,who says he cannot see a road ahead for the Greens to become a mainstream party,a party,that is,of government.

“They operate in that narrow arc that never really lifts,” he says.

“I do think they’ve got a ceiling and in Queensland it’s not as high as 12 per cent across the board.”

Later,Mickel adds:“Their vote sort of evaporates once you start to move out into the suburbs,so if you looked at the area I represented[working-class Logan,south of Brisbane],they didn’t do particularly well at all,by comparison with inner-city Brisbane seats.”

That sort of characterisation does not sit well with Sri.

“Even in our suburban and regional electorates where we don’t have the resources and we don’t have much money to put into campaign,we’re still getting a solid primary vote on the back of a policy platform,” he says.

That,Sri says,and a general dissatisfaction with the two-party stranglehold on Australian politics.

“I think it is a mistake to generalise across a state,or across the nation,about what a political party needs to do to win votes because,fundamentally,what the Greens need to do to pick up votes in a capital city like Brisbane is very different to the path to victory in other parts of the state,” he says.

“But the common thread is that people are really fed up with the political establishment,and they’re sick of politicians not listening to them and only listening to big business interests.

“... That’s a message that I think appeals whether you’re in regional Queensland or whether you’re in inner-city Melbourne.”

On that,Williams is not so sure.

“You hear political parties all the time,including the Greens,say that Australian politics are wrecked,or broken,” he says.

“Well,they’re not. They’re under pressure with populism,they’re not wrecked.

“The fact that we can transfer power peacefully in this country without a bullet being fired,unlike the United States,means our politics are not wrecked.”