Christine Milne says her Greens leadership is not in doubt after six staff quit

Updated

Greens leader Christine Milne has denied her leadership is in doubt after revelations that six of her senior staff have quit.

Among the staff to resign is Senator Milne's chief of staff Ben Oquist, who released a statement saying he quit due to "fundamental differences of opinion on strategy".

The other staff are believed to include Senator Milne's climate change advisor, economics advisor and campaign coordinator.

The revelations come just days after Senator Milne and Deputy Greens leader Adam Bandt were reinstated unopposed during a mandatory leadership spill.

Senator Milne played down the statement from Mr Oquist, who had also worked with former Greens leader Bob Brown, telling Lateline they did have differing opinions but they were related to office matters rather than party strategy.

She also dodged a question about whether the resignations were a vote of no confidence in her leadership.

"I think the differences were more about how we ran the office," she said.

"I have a view about a fairly flat administrative structure.

"I think Ben had a view that it should be more hierarchical.

"That's a difference of perspective about leadership."

Staff lose jobs automatically after ballot

The leadership ballot took place on Monday under Greens party rules stipulating it must take place after a federal election.

Senator Milne said all of the staff automatically lose their jobs following the spill, at which point they are offered "generous redundancies".

She says some of her staff had flagged last year that they would leave after the federal election.

I can see people joining dots that I think just aren't there. Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt

"Everybody's making up their own mind. These are critical life choices for people, so there's no panic or nothing to be concerned about," she said.

"This is pretty normal for political officers and if you go and have a look in the Labor Party and the Coalition, you would be seeing people restructuring their offices all around."

Mr Bandt downplayed the departures, saying it is simply a case of staff having the option to move on at the start of a new political cycle.

"It's been a pretty big three years for us in the Greens, and a number of staff have elected to move on and that's ultimately what is happening here," he told ABC Local Radio in Melbourne.

"I can see people joining dots that I think just aren't there."

Tim Hollo, a former communications director for Senator Milne, says she was caught out the by Mr Oquist's statement.

"She would not have known about it, and I think that more than anything else demonstrates the fact that it was appropriate for Ben to move on at this point," he said.

"He had been incredibly close to Bob Brown and worked with Bob Brown for a very, very, very long time."

Milne denies "fundamental strategic error"

Senator Milne denied that the Greens need to readdress their strategy in light of the recent election, where they lost more than 500,000 voters.

She also denied it was a "fundamental strategic error" for the Greens to help Labor form a minority government in 2010.

"It wasn't a fundamental strategic error in making an alliance with Labor because it delivered the clean energy package, it delivered Denticare, it delivered the Parliamentary Budget Office - a whole range of things," she said.

"I think there are a number of reasons for [the 2013 election result].

"I said at the beginning of the election that my task was to hold the number of seats against a tide of conservatism coming in and I'm very pleased to say that we've done that.

"I think clearly we need to talk to people who didn't vote for us this time who have in the past, and that's clearly something we will be doing."

Mr Bandt says doomsayers predicting the party's downfall are speaking too soon.

"We've done something the Democrats never did, which is have representation in both houses of parliament and hold it in the face of Labor and Liberal working together with preference deals and so on in an attempt to get us out," he said.

"We're still waiting on the results in WA, but it looks like not only everyone of our sitting members got returned, but we are picking up an extra seat in the Senate in Victoria."

Topics: christine-milne, person, greens, political-parties, government-and-politics, australia

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