History shows that political parties can make decisions in haste that are fatal to their future. One only needs to look at democracies around the world right now to see the consequences of such decisions.

From Bob Brown to Christine Milne to Richard Di Natale to Adam Bandt, the Greens party room has, over the last 15 years, successfully passed on the baton of leadership. That is why members of the Australian Greens need to take next week’s vote on how the party selects its leader very seriously.

From next week, members of the Australian Greens will be asked to choose from three options, in a party-wide plebiscite: sticking with the current arrangements for selecting their parliamentary leader through a vote of MPs in the party room; providing members and MPs a 50:50 say over the leader; or providing only for a members’ vote and excluding the party room from having a say.

Many in the Greens make the strong argument that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Others believe members should have a role in electing the leader. As the three former leaders of the Australian Greens, we all agree on one thing: excluding MPs from having a say on who is elected to lead their team is a recipe for dysfunction. That is why we do not support the one member one vote (OMOV) model being proposed as an option in next week’s plebiscite.

Our MPs work with each other on a daily basis and know intimately the strengths and weaknesses of their colleagues. They are best placed to know who has the leadership qualities the team needs. Often these attributes, like collaboration and teamwork and the ability to develop strong and trusting relationships, are not obvious to the public. In a party room that makes decisions by consensus this is all the more important, as is the MPs’ support for their leader in parliament, in the media and in public.

Removing the say of MPs is a bad idea: we have seen it in action with disastrous consequences. In the last decade of the Australian Democrats, with the ability of members to dismiss and appoint leaders, they cycled through six leaders. The membership and parliamentarians were often in conflict over who should lead the party – a significant factor in the demise of the Democrats.

We can’t go down that path. We need to keep a strong and united team of Greens MPs working together with the members and supporters of the party on the big issues facing Australia, whether it’s the current pandemic, the economic recession or the climate and extinction crises.

The loudest advocates for removing the role of MPs in electing our leader come from states where there is no parliamentary leader, let alone a model for electing one. Those advocates should get their own houses in order and determine the process for electing leaders in their home states before changing the federal party’s rules which have worked so well.

People who can’t vote for the status quo because they believe that members should have a role in the election of parliamentary leader can support the 50:50 option. Importantly, neither the status quo nor the 50:50 option disenfranchises the members, who preselected our MPs, or the voters who voted for them.

Greens MPs are able to advance the agenda of our party and its members by working together and trusting each other. Denying our MPs a genuine say in who becomes their leader will undermine their ability to work as a team and risks creating division. That division would be a significant setback to the Greens’ proven ability to progress the social and environmental policies where the big parties fail.

As Greens we have a responsibility to ensure our fantastic parliamentary team, led by Adam Bandt, is in the strongest position to fight for the future of our country and the planet. In the coming weeks Greens members have the opportunity to vote to keep that team strong, rather than undermining it by removing the party room’s say in choosing its leader.