Really, when you think about it, there's not a correctly named major party in Australia: The Liberals are no longer liberal, the Nationals only represent a fraction of the nation (though in some states they're still known as the "National Country Party", which is more accurate, so long as you equate "country" with "bush"), the Greens are no longer just about being Green, and the Democrats certainly haven't been helping democracy for quite some time.

At least with the "Pauline Party" you got exactly what was on the label!

The "Greens" name is perhaps a challenge, and I'm sure there's heated debate about that in their policy rooms. But then, "Labor" is a reasonably charged name too, and one that in a sense allows the conservatives to bring up the spectre of union control all the time. I'm sure that most Greens would be happy to accept environmentalism as central to the Greens platform, and I'm not sure the name in itself is a liability.

Loony left tree-huggers as the primary image of Greens supporters I can see being a bad thing, sure. That said, I'm pretty sure that *the* major reason that the Greens didn't pick up as many of the Democrat cotes this time is that a lot of people just felt that "it was time" for Labor. And unfortunately a lot of people don't understand that they can vote for Labor by voting Green.

As the Democrats have imploded over the last 5 years or so their old voters have obviously been split between Labor and the Greens. I'd hazard a guess that it's stuff like the above which sent most of the Labor-defectors in that direction.

there's an interesting idea in here, if not particularly well put:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/28/1196036982629.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1