The hard-left manifesto of the NSW Greens, by John Ferguson.

The NSW Greens are pushing a hard-left policy manifesto that … supports starving private schools of public cash, cutting the standard working week, abolishing higher education debts and making university and public transport free.

The policy document, released by Greens NSW MP David Shoebridge, threatens to further undermine national leader Richard Di Natale and expose the party to ridicule in the lead-up to the next federal and NSW elections.

Mr Shoebridge has outlined dozens of detailed policy positions, headlined by a billionaires’ tax of up to 10 per cent that the party says could raise as much as $11 billion.

Dismissing the drug ecstasy as “relatively safe’’, the document also suggests renters should be able to stay as long as they like if they continue to meet their financial and contract obligations.

It argues that there should be no “handouts’’ to churches and backs renationalising the power grid.

Although Mr Shoebridge backs Senator Di Natale’s push for a $250bn-plus universal basic ­income, he is critical of the party’s failure to capitalise on a ­reduced Liberal and Labor vote at the 2016 federal election.

The ancient Greeks had a lot of experience with democracies over several hundred years in their city states. They concluded that a democracy lasts until the citizens learn to vote themselves the contents of the treasury, at which point it breaks down and a strong man takes over. That eventually fails and a virtuous democracy replaces it. Repeat.