Greens Leader Richard Di Natale has accused his own Senator, Lee Rhiannon, of "muckracking" after she said the party was at a crossroads, was not effectively communicating its policies and needed to emulate radical US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
The warfare at a federal levels comes amid murmurs in the NSW Greens about Senator Rhiannon's tenure as a senator, with some on the more conservative faction to her "eastern bloc" faction pushing for her to consider standing down - potentially to make way for Mehreen Faruqi, a member of the NSW the Legislative Council.
After telling Fairfax Media the party is "at a crossroads" and should consider channelling US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his focus on wealth inequality, she then said the Greens were not getting enough media coverage and were failing to communicate their messages.
"I think that our policies are excellent ... but how do you present those policies so people hear what our message is? I think in terms of the change, our media profile has dropped," she said, adding she still backed Senator Di Natale as leader.
Senator Di Natale's critics have also commissioned polling showing a decline in first preference support to justify their criticisms.
A spokesman for Senator Di Natale responded on Friday by effectively accusing the Senator of creating controversy. "We aren't going to respond to muckraking," the spokesman said.
The brawl follows Senator Di Natale attempts to shut down a new socialist 'Left Renewal' breakaway offshoot of the Greens, saying the party did not have factions and the members should consider finding another party.
Senator Rhiannon and NSW upper house MP David Shoebridge - whose have staffers inside the offshoot group - then defied Mr Di Natale and said the party must tolerate differing opinions.
Senior Greens sources say they were shocked by the escalation of tensions between Senator Rhiannon and the central leadership and are questioning what her motives are in publicly criticising the party.
One source said she was simply "blowing the place up" and it was unclear "when and where this will all end up".
Several sources acknowledged there is internal debate over whether the party needed to take on a more Bernie Sanders-approach to communicating their policies.
"It's hard to see [Senator Rhiannon and Di Natale] standing at a press conference together," they said. Supporters of Ms Faruqi say if Senator Rhiannon stood down, she could be seen as the "unity ticket" among the factions.
After talking up a big result in the campaign, the federal Greens had a fairly disappointing election result overall, losing a Senate spot in South Australia. NSW was one of the worst performing states, especially compared to Victoria, but has tighter donations rules.
