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The upcoming federal elections are meant to be an uphill journey for the Australian Greens as the two major parties had announced to prefer other parties over the Greens.
On Wednesday, the opposition coalition leader Tony Abbott released a statement, saying that he has told his party to put the Greens last on all 150 lower house how-to-vote cards for the September 7 federal election.
"Minority government is an experiment that has comprehensively failed," the statement said, "the Labor-Green minority government has delivered record debt, rising job losses and over 40 new taxes, including the carbon tax."
"Under no circumstances will I allow the coalition to enter into a minority government arrangement," Abbott said.
Three years ago, the Greens added six senators to their existing three and Melbourne's Adam Bandt was propelled into the lower house, where he helped form a minority government with Labor.
Abbott also called on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, leader of the Labor Party, to follow suit.
Later on Wednesday, Rudd made clear that Labor will not enter into any agreement to form minority government if the election is tied.
"My ambition... is that we are returned as a majority government," Rudd told reporters in Cairns on Wednesday, "That is the best thing for the nation."
"We will not be entering into any coalition agreements, we won' t be having any negotiated agreements, we won't have any deals with any independents or any minor party," he said.
Analysts said these moves will greatly endanger the Greens deputy leader Bandt's seat in the House of Representative, the only lower house seat held by the
party.
Bandt, federal Member for Melbourne, played down the decision by the Liberals and the Labor, saying the Greens are on track to hold Melbourne.
"We have always said we intended to hold the seat in our own right and with a small swing we can do it," Bandt said.
"Labor and Tony Abbott need to come clean on what deals have been done for the Liberals to preference Labor," Bandt added.
"This preference deal reflects how alike the old parties have become and that the real choice at this election is between the Greens and the old parties, not between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, " Bandt said.
Abbott said he didn't regret preferring the Greens over Labor at the 2010 election.
"That was then, this is now," he said.
He said the last three years had been a "litany of betrayals, of broken promises, of disappointed hopes," and the Australian people couldn't afford any repeat of that.
That's why he'd decided to make this "captain's call".
Abbott said there is a "world of difference" between the Greens and virtually every other political party contesting the federal election.
He said his decision was about principle and "standing up for the things you believe in."
Published opinion polls showed that the Greens' national support is hovering around 9.5 percent. This is a 3.5 percentage point drop on its Senate result and two point fall on its house vote at the 2010 election.
Political analysts said Bandt will need to increase his 36 percent primary vote by at least four points if he wants to fend off Labor candidate Cath Bowtell.
