I must have had a dozen personal messages asking me why we don't seek to influence the Australian Greens the same way we have tried to influence the party in England and Wales, and indirectly in Scotland.

There is no doubt that MMT has had an impact on the England and Wales Greens, and it is certainly the case that Modern Money Lab has played a significant part in that.

This is not to deny that policy development in that party is a deeply democratic process and so involves looking for areas of agreement, rather than remaining theoretically pure. The enmity between some MMT-ists and James Meadway in the past is well-known, but does not mean that there is a great deal of scope for MMT-informed economists within the Greens to co-operate with James, and that is what I think is happening and hope will continue to happen.

So why have we not done likewise with the Australian Greens? We have! For example, there is the talk I did for the Mayo Greens in 2014, which had over 35,000 views on Youtube, and a few more through other channels.

Since then, we have done many other things, including talks in local branches, movie tours, met Greens politicians, helped the Tasmanian Greens to pass a job guarantee motion through their parliament, and much else. We also have Greens candidates taking our Masters degree right now.

We have not had the influence in Australia that we have had in England and Wales because nobody in the national Greens over here has really opened the door to us for years, unless this has happened with other professional advocates of an MMT frame

Ittakes a lot of courage to take on the dominant media organisations, as well as other political parties, and all the other 'people in suits' out there, and say things like the Government is not a household; we do not need billionaire's money to invest (although we will tax them anyway); we can afford universal public services and a proper job guarantee; we can have public services in public hands; etc.... You ARE risking your job, if you are an elected member.

Until our Greens think this is a risk worth taking to challenge neoliberal economics head on, and try to do a Polanski (so to speak), then there is not a lot more we can do.

When that happens, I will be fully on board, as will (I believe) pretty much the entire Australian MMT community.

We are waiting for the invitation and the opportunity.

Over to you, Greens.