The mud has started to fly. Battling to maintain his NSW seat of Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, shadow minister for transport and infrastructure, has accused the Australian Greens of a “secret deal” with the Liberal Party for the upcoming federal election.    

The deal, according to Albanese, would have the Liberals direct preferences to the Greens in a number of key lower house seats, threatening Labor’s hold in places like Wills and Batman in Victoria, and potentially Grayndler and Sydney in NSW.

To repay the favour, the Greens would run an open ticket in a number of places, expressing neutrality over where their supporters direct their preferences.

Breaking the “news” to the press, Albanese labelled this potential deal “the ultimate example of cynical politics and putting tactics before principle”.

Labor are also up in arms over the Greens’ backing for the Liberals’ Senate voting reform, which ices out micro-parties and some independents to the benefit of the established parties. According to some modelling, the changes might deliver the Liberals a majority in the Senate.

The Greens have stridently denied the reports of a deal. Greens co-convener Giz Watson said: “This is nothing more than a cynical attempt to throw mud at the Greens and hope some of it sticks”. And in a post on their website, the Greens pointed out that Labor are no strangers to collaboration with the Liberals, having voted with the Coalition six times more than the Greens in the current parliament.

The reason the mud can stick is because both sides are right.

A Greens dirty preferences deal with the Liberals would not be a surprise. In the current parliament, the Greens have supported the Liberal government’s cuts to pensions and negotiated weak amendments over tax transparency, allowing hundreds of the country’s largest companies to avoid revenue disclosure. This is what being a “responsible party of government” looks like.

In a recent interview in men’s magazine GQ, Greens leader Richard Di Natalie refused to rule out the possibility of forming a coalition government with the Liberals in future parliaments: “‘Never say never’ is the quote I’d use about everything in politics”.

And there are precedents for this. From 1996 to 1998, the Tasmanian Greens propped up a minority state Liberal government, supporting major cuts in public spending.

They were at it again in Tasmania between 2011 and 2013, but this time in alliance with Labor. It was during this period that the Greens held two ministerial portfolios, education and housing, and transport. In the state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate, the Greens supported measures that slashed health funding, forcing job losses and surgery ward closures. So much for being the “natural home of progressive voters”.

When in an alliance with the Gillard government, the Greens put no demands on Labor to abandon their neoliberal program in exchange for their support. 

While Gillard was busy setting up offshore internment camps for asylum seekers, stripping single parents of their parenting payment and proposing slashing $2.3 billion in federal funding to universities, rather than threaten to bring down the government, the Greens publicly celebrated the “fruits” of their alliance.

Their achievements for propping up one of the most right-wing Labor governments in Australian history? A carbon tax that slugged working class people while doing nothing to stop climate change, and parliamentary committees on transparency. How inspiring!

This all reminds us that the Greens’ drift to the right didn’t begin with Di Natale taking over as Greens leader. He has merely accelerated it.

But principled, sincere and progressive aren’t exactly words I’d use to describe the ALP either. Their record in office shows they are just as prepared to rule for the rich and to do over their working class supporters.

Figures like Anthony Albanese are equally responsible for Labor’s failure. For the Labor left, maintaining unity within the party and rallying around the party leader in order to win government have always trumped the defence of working class living standards and opposition to oppression. Just think of the disgraceful support key sections of the Labor left gave to Shorten’s embrace of the refugee boat turn-back policy at last year’s ALP national conference.

Dirty deals, jettisoning principle and opportunism are the modus operandi for all parties that aspire to be managers of Australian capitalism – a system geared around the interests of the 1 percent, not the needs of the vast majority. The Labor Party and the Greens are no different.