By Jefferson Dufflecoat

All they had to do was hold the line.

All they had to do was maintain the attacks on the Nationals and the right side of politics.

All they had to do was keep up the facade of unity for at most another 4 weeks, 5 if you combined together and ran the right kind of targeted election campaign.

As we saw Monday night though, the left and centre couldn't even achieve that, as the member for Nicholls UnknownTrainor and the senator for Tasmania LaterSlater1407 appeared in Canberra to announce the formation of the Australian Green Left party. Promising to build around enviromental sustainability, social justice and to work towards building for all Australians, the press announcement by the two co-leaders, where they also answered questions from social media will undoubtedly hit the right note with many Australians looking for an alternative on the left side of politics to the juggernaut SDP.

However those same people would be well advised to not be fooled by the honeyed words. to not be fooled by the press announcement full of buzzwords and cliche and certainly they should not be fooled by the shiny new manifesto that was released by the party on Monday night.

For the simple fact is the Australian Green Left party is not a party of policy, it is a party of petulance and once again it is the voters of Australia who are made to suffer the effects of a party membership that would put aside principles for power, promises for priorities and the ideology of their own electorates for their own ideal image.

How the members of this party must have cackled amongst themselves as the heat of the spotlight of the past week turned upon Griffo and the Nationals after they once again petulantly created their own party with blackjack and hookers, while simultaneously plotting to use the exact same playbook.

How the member for Nicholls and the senator for Tasmania must have must have sat back, enjoying the attacks on Griffo and the Nationals as they ripped into their former Liberal colleagues whilst at the same time they strategized and schemed to leave the SDP without so much as even a phone call to the Prime Minister and leader of the party.

How the speaker of the house and former leader of the Australian Democrats Jayden_Williamson must have enjoyed the many probing and attacking moments from the Good Morning Goat focused on the man that replaced him as the leader of the party he helped create and the attacks on Griffo, knowing all the while that his attempts to solidify himself as the Left's Griffo wannabe were finally approaching completion.

The Green Left will continue in the run up to the election to put out all the right noises, they will say that they are for all Australians, that they are a party of idealism and integrity, whilst their very formation proves otherwise, they waited in the wings till the Prime Minister was most vulnerable, still suffering the effects of the Quarantine Crisis, feigning support and defence until they were ready to move, then they struck like thieves in the night, taking 2 MPs and 2 Senators away with them in an act of political bastardry and cowardice.

Say what you want about Griffo and the Nationals, say they have no real ideas of their own, their manifesto is a carbon copy of the Liberal Party manifesto, that the only reason anyone actually cares about them is the cult of personality Griffo has created for himself and you'd be correct on pretty much all those counts.

At the same time however don't pretend you're any different to Griffo and the Nationals, for you're reading from the same songsheet.

Spare a thought for the people of Australia, already reeling from the right side of politics slow descent into chaos and anarchy that now have to see that the left is no better.

Spare a thought for the people of Robertson, who having heard so often from their member how Griffo was a petulant child who took his ball and went home when he couldn't get his way, discover today that their member is the exact same thing

Spare a thought for the people of Nicholls, who ever since the standing down for health reasons of popular independent showstealer1829 have seen the candidates they've voted on either turn their back on the party that they stood for, turned their back on their own ideals or plain went off the deep end whilst fighting for their own idealism rather than the needs of the electorate.

Spare a thought for the people of Australia, who in less than five weeks have to go to the polls and make a choice in the voting box whether to support a party that may have lost their power and are mortally wounded or a party formed out of petulance that has no guarantees that won't sell each other out if the problems arise again.

Spare a thought for politics in this country, Because if the past two weeks is the example of it. It's that pettyness equals power,