The Greens are still green. Progressives still advocate policies they believe represent progress. And Australia remains overwhelmingly a market economy. But something significant has nevertheless changed in Australian political life.

Words that once described relatively distinct political philosophies have become much harder to define.

“Green” once immediately suggested conservation.

“Progressive” implied social advancement.

“Socialist” described an economic system involving substantially greater collective or state ownership and control.

Today the boundaries are considerably less clear.

The Australian Greens campaign on climate and conservation, but also on housing, taxation, wealth inequality, corporate power, workplace relations and a broad range of social questions.

“Progressive” has meanwhile become an umbrella description encompassing positions on race, gender, economics, climate, inequality and institutional reform.

And policies that involve greater government intervention, redistribution or public ownership are rarely marketed to voters as socialism.

Instead, the contemporary vocabulary is fairness, equity, inclusion and justice.

So is socialism quietly spreading through Australian institutions?

The answer depends first on what we mean by socialism.

Australia is not becoming a socialist state

This distinction matters.

Australia retains private property.

People establish companies.

Businesses employ workers.

Investors own shares.

Banks lend money.

Entrepreneurs accumulate wealth.

Prices across most of the economy continue to be determined through markets.

By any conventional economic definition, Australia remains a predominantly capitalist mixed economy.

Governments have, however, become significantly involved in areas of economic and social life.

That itself isn't new.

Medicare, government schools, pensions, public housing, regulation, compulsory superannuation and the welfare system all involve collective provision or government intervention within a market economy.

Australians have lived with that mixture for generations.

The contemporary argument is really about where the boundary should sit.

The Greens provide a useful illustration

The Australian Greens emerged from environmental political movements and conservation remains central to the party.

It would therefore be inaccurate to say the Greens have “nothing to do with conservation.”

They plainly do.

But it would be equally inaccurate to regard today's Greens simply as an environmental organisation.

Their federal policy program extends deeply into economic policy.

The party advocates greater taxation of wealth and corporations, changes to housing and investment policy, expanded public services and policies explicitly designed to reduce wealth inequality.

Its economic-justice policy includes proposals for fairer taxation and an assessment of government policies according to whether they increase or reduce wealth inequality.

The party's own national messaging speaks of taking on large corporations while addressing housing, cost-of-living pressures and climate change.

That is much broader than protecting forests and rivers.

The current federal Greens leader is Queensland Senator Larissa Waters, who took over the parliamentary leadership in May 2025. The party also holds an influential position in the Senate.

What happened to the word “progressive”?

“Progressive” presents a different problem.

Progress is inherently subjective.

One person may regard stronger regulation of business as progress.

Another may regard reducing regulation as progress.

One may believe higher taxation creates a fairer society.

Another may believe lower taxation encourages investment, entrepreneurship and employment.

Both can plausibly argue that they are advocating progress.

The word has nevertheless acquired a specific political meaning.

In contemporary politics, “progressive” usually identifies a cluster of broadly left-of-centre positions concerning economic inequality, climate policy, minority rights, gender, race and social reform.

It has become an ideological identifier rather than a literal guarantee that the policies concerned will produce progress.

That distinction deserves more attention.

Calling something progressive does not prove that it will work.

Nor does calling something conservative prove that it resists useful change.

Policies should ultimately be judged by their consequences.

Why are these ideas becoming more prominent?

There is no single explanation.

One factor is generational.

A 2024 YouGov survey found 53 per cent of Australians aged 18 to 24 placed themselves on the “more socialist” side of a socialism-versus-capitalism scale, compared with 22 per cent leaning towards capitalism.

That survey should not be interpreted as meaning most young Australians want government ownership of the economy. The meaning respondents attach to “socialism” can vary enormously.

But it does demonstrate something politically important.

The word itself does not carry the same negative associations among many younger Australians that it did for earlier generations.

Why?

Housing is probably part of the explanation.

A generation watching home ownership move further beyond reach can understandably question an economic system that appears to have rewarded people who happened to purchase property decades earlier.

Job insecurity matters.

The cost of education matters.

The concentration of corporate power matters.

So does social media, through which political ideas now travel extraordinarily quickly.

When younger people conclude that the existing system isn't working particularly well for them, they become more receptive to alternatives.

That is not mysterious.

It is politics.

The language of inequality has become powerful

There has also been a profound change in the way success is discussed.

Australia has historically had a complicated relationship with wealth.

We celebrate successful sportspeople, performers and sometimes entrepreneurs.

But substantial personal wealth can attract suspicion.

Contemporary political language can intensify that tendency.

“Millionaire.”

“Billionaire.”

“Property investor.”

“Big business.”

“Corporate profits.”

Each can be used not merely as a description but almost as an accusation.

The Greens, for example, recently attacked tax concessions benefiting property investors and described extremely large property owners in highly critical terms.

Their argument is straightforward: when housing is unaffordable and wealth is concentrated, government policy should not provide disproportionate benefits to people who already possess substantial assets.

That argument deserves to be heard.

But there is another side.

When does inequality become a hostility to success?

A society needs incentives.

People take risks to establish businesses.

They work long hours.

They invest.

They employ people.

They invent products.

They save money rather than consume it.

Some fail.

Some succeed.

A tax system can legitimately ask successful people to contribute more without regarding their success as morally suspect.

The distinction is important.

If political rhetoric moves from “successful people should contribute fairly” to “wealth itself is evidence that something unfair occurred,” the economic consequences can become significant.

Entrepreneurial societies depend partly upon people believing that effort, risk and success will be rewarded.

Destroy that expectation and investment behaviour eventually changes.

But capitalism also has to earn public support

Defenders of markets should not become complacent.

Capitalism will not retain public legitimacy merely because economists describe it as efficient.

People judge an economic system by their own experience.

If a 25-year-old works full time but cannot afford housing while watching asset owners accumulate increasingly valuable portfolios, telling that person that capitalism has produced enormous aggregate prosperity may not be particularly persuasive.

Market economies need competition.

They need social mobility.

They need access to opportunity.

They need affordable essentials.

And they need citizens to believe that working and saving can realistically improve their circumstances.

When those conditions weaken, demands for redistribution become stronger.

That is not necessarily the result of indoctrination.

Sometimes it is a reaction to genuine economic failure.

What about Australia's institutions?

This is where the argument becomes considerably more contentious.

Critics increasingly claim that universities, sections of the public service, cultural organisations, corporations and professional bodies have adopted progressive assumptions concerning diversity, equity, climate, gender and social policy.

There is unquestionably evidence that concepts such as diversity, equity and inclusion have become embedded in many professional and organisational frameworks.

But that is not the same thing as demonstrating that Australian institutions have been captured by socialism.

Those are very different propositions.

Some institutional policies are introduced because organisations believe they improve fairness, representation or workplace performance.

Critics argue that the same frameworks can sometimes produce ideological conformity, bureaucratic expansion or reluctance to challenge fashionable ideas.

Both concerns can exist simultaneously.

The important democratic principle is that institutional policies should remain open to evidence, scrutiny and disagreement.

The danger is not necessarily socialism

Perhaps “socialism” is not even the most useful description of what is happening.

The deeper change may be the expansion of managerial government.

More rules.

More reporting.

More standards.

More regulators.

More government programs.

More assessments of how organisations and individuals behave.

That can occur under governments of either political persuasion.

It can even coexist comfortably with capitalism.

Large corporations frequently adapt more easily to complicated regulatory regimes than small businesses because they have lawyers, compliance departments and human-resources teams.

The family business often does not.

Ironically, policies intended to restrain corporate power can sometimes strengthen the biggest corporations by increasing the cost of competing with them.

Do Australians know this is happening?

Australians certainly know that politics is changing.

Whether they think of the change using terms such as socialism, progressivism or institutional ideology is another matter.

Most voters don't spend their evenings reading political manifestos.

They experience politics through outcomes.

The tax bill.

The electricity bill.

The rent.

The mortgage.

The waiting list.

The regulation affecting their business.

What their children encounter at school or university.

Whether they feel comfortable expressing an unpopular opinion at work.

Whether they believe government is helping them or supervising them.

Eventually those experiences become political attitudes.

Recent polling illustrates considerable dissatisfaction with Australia's established parties rather than a straightforward national march towards the political left. Both Labor and the Coalition are experiencing unusually weak primary support, while minor parties and independents are attracting significant numbers of voters.

That looks less like ideological conversion than political discontent.

Beware the labels

There is a final irony.

The political left can use “progressive” as though the argument has already been won.

The political right can use “socialist” in exactly the same way.

Neither helps much.

A government-owned hospital is not proof of communist revolution.

Nor is a privately owned business proof of an unjust economic system.

The serious questions are harder.

Does the policy work?

What does it cost?

Who pays?

Who benefits?

Does it create unintended consequences?

Does it increase freedom or restrict it?

Does it reward productive behaviour?

And can somebody openly disagree with it?

Those questions are much more revealing than the label attached to the policy.

The Evening Times View

Something is changing in Australian politics and institutions.

The language of equality, equity, corporate power and redistribution occupies a much larger place in public discussion than it once did. The Greens themselves demonstrate how a movement rooted in environmental politics has expanded into a comprehensive economic and social political project.

But describing every such development as socialism makes serious analysis harder, not easier.

There is a more important issue.

Australia needs to decide how much economic inequality it is prepared to tolerate, how much intervention it expects from government and how much reward it believes should accompany enterprise, investment and risk.

Success should not confer immunity from taxation or criticism.

Neither should success become evidence of wrongdoing.

And “progressive” policies should receive no exemption from the test applied to every other policy:

Did they actually produce progress?

That is a debate Australia should be able to have without demonising either side.