A fortnight after becoming leader of the Australian Greens, David Shoebridge is facing a reckoning over his handling of allegations that Senator Jordon Steele-John has for years behaved inappropriately towards women in the party.
For the first time in memory, and particularly since Senator Shoebridge made the switch to Federal Parliament in 2022 following a decade in New South Wales politics, the former barrister is finding himself now subjected to tough questions and scrutiny.
In a bombshell statement on Sunday, Senator Steele-John hit back hard, accusing an internal faction within the Greens of playing “nasty political games” and his new leader of pressuring him to take leave after the complaints emerged.
“It is no coincidence that the letter arrived at the leader’s office the day after we agreed on the timeline for the next pre-selection,” the accused West Australian declared in a lengthy online social media post.
“It is my opinion that this is an attempt to influence forthcoming party pre-selections by deliberately leaking out of context or misleading information to smear potential candidates and myself.”
As Senator Steele-John lashes out at his own colleagues over the scandal, senior Labor and Coalition figures are rightly demanding the Greens answer questions over the entire affair and claims of a sophisticated cover-up.
At the same time another matter is causing harm for the Greens across significant sections of the community; the party’s stance on whether it supports Australian military aid to Ukraine as it fights against Russia’s illegal invasion.
Shortly after becoming leader late last month, Senator Shoebridge declared his party would still back humanitarian support but was not in favour of any weapons exports to the besieged nation, prompting rebukes from Ukraine’s ambassador and internal dissent.
Greens Senator and failed leadership candidate Sarah Hanson-Young spoke against her leader’s position and members of the Greens in Ukraine also strongly criticised the Australian party’s stance.
“Senator Shoebridge’s demand that arms supplies be authorised through the UN Security Council, where Russia holds the power of veto, is detached from reality,” the Ukrainian Greens party said in a terse weekend statement.
“It is equivalent to asking a criminal for permission to call the police.”
“We call on David Shoebridge to reconsider his position, listen to the voices of Ukrainian environmentalists and support the provision of defensive weapons to Ukraine”.
Inside the Greens the policy split is prompting memories of former party leader Bob Brown’s strong initial support for the deployment of an Australian led multinational force to East Timor following a violent backlash against its independence vote from Indonesia.
Years later in 2011, the Greens elder statesman also backed military intervention in the Middle East declaring “Muammar Gaddafi’s cruel dictatorship in Libya should be brought to an end and his political demise is long overdue”.
Party figures also highlight that at the last election Senator Shoebridge, who was then defence spokesperson, unveiled the Australian Greens’ first formally costed policy to fund new military programs for locally made “defensive” weapons.
Under the policy drawn up by Shoebridge in 2025, billions of dollars saved by scrapping US weapons purchases would be diverted to domestic production capabilities of uncrewed marine and aerial vehicles.
Internal critics of the new leader say they back his stance against militarism but advocating for Ukraine to not have military equipment to defend itself against a much larger aggressor is not a sustainable public policy position to maintain.
Labor, facing its own growing pressures over the cost-of-living crisis and controversial budget measures, has been quick to paint Senator Shoebridge as an extremist, with Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy labelling the new leader a “national shame”.
“The official position of the Greens is that they would stop Australia providing military assistance to the brave people of Ukraine in their valiant struggle to defend their nation against Vladimir Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of their homeland,” he says.
“This is nothing short of a cowardly act of betrayal on the part of David Shoebridge. He has betrayed Ukraine and he has betrayed Ukrainian Australians, and instead embraced Vladimir Putin’s position, which is to stop other nations from supporting Ukraine and its ability to defend itself.”
“We now have the Greens — the extreme left of Australian politics — on a unity ticket with Vladimir Putin against Ukraine,” the feisty left-faction Labor frontbencher tells The Nightly.
“The Albanese Government will not turn its back on Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion. Senator Shoebridge is a national shame for turning his back on Ukraine and he and the Greens should have a long hard look at themselves.”
While the controversy of Senator Steele-John will continue to play out publicly for months, many inside the Greens are wondering how long the damaging split on support for Ukraine must continue.