Thanks to Simon Copland in comments who has pointed out to us that former WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty has resigned as Member for Fremantle, triggering a by-election with the daylight savings referendum on May 16:
Mr McGinty’s decision, which follows months of speculation about his political future, allows a costly by-election to coincide with the May 16 referendum on daylight saving.
He said the timing of his resignation had been influenced by the referendum, though he acknowledged there could be criticism from within the party over his decision to leave at a time when the ALP needed his experience.
“It is really in everyone’s interest to get someone in who can benefit from the time in Opposition, rather than me simply staying there for the sake of it,” Mr McGinty said.
Fremantle is the best seat in WA state politics for the Greens, and the Greens have already endorsed Adele Carles, who ran in 2008 and was close to winning the seat, but failed to overtake the Liberals. I don’t expect the Liberals will run in the seat, making it easier for the Greens to win, while the ALP is likely to run Mayor of Fremantle Peter Tagliaferri.
There’s more over at Poll Bludger, who will also have a piece in Crikey’s daily email today.
From my experience in the Albert Park by-election (Victoria, September 2007) where the Liberals stood aside to make it an ALP vs Greens contest, I’m not convinced that the Greens benefit from going head-to-head with Labor.
I know that I’m comparing different states, different circumstances, etc., but I think it’s much easier to get Liberal voters to preference the Greens after having voted 1 Liberal as opposed to voting Green straight out.
For example, if you look at the preference flows to the Greens in the inner-city seats (Melbourne, Brunswick, Richmond) in the 2006 Victorian state elections, the inner-city Liberals followed the ticket about 75% of the time, while in Albert Park, without any clear direction from Liberal HQ, the votes scattered across the board to the DLP, Family First, Democrats and Independents – most of whom preferenced Labor.
Now, Albert Park is usually 40% Liberal so they would have outpolled the Greens if they had fielded a candidate, but my general point is that failing to provide a firm conservative option or direction means those voters will go everywhere.
Also, I wouldn’t underestimate the number of Liberal voters who would rather see Labor win than the Greens.
No, I’d wager that we (Greens!) actually WANT the Libs to stand in order to pull this challenge off.
The hurdle is beating the Libs — once that hurdle is jumped, the hurdle of beating Labor on preferences is actually a lesser challenge, I would have thought.
Greens Vs Labor has worked in the past. The Cunningham by election in 2002 was won by Michael Organ under those circumstances (albeit with help from some significant local development and corruption issues that made the ALP very stinky).
Greens vs One Major Party ™ only works when a strong independent(s) are involved. Cunningham, Mayo (sure, not quite successful, but close). Additionally, they need a strong candidate themselves. In this case, too many Libs would vote ALP if there was no Lib (and no strong independent) running.
It definitely will be interesting to watch this one and to see how strong the Greens have grown in this area. I agree however that having the Libs run could help, as conservatives are probably more likely to preference the Greens over voting for them directly.
Also, just a little plug; I have started a blog called polswatch. It’s more focused on the issues around the elections rather than elections themselves, but will hopefully be a good read for all. http://polswatch.wordpress.com
Hmmm… Arrow’s Theorem in action?
If the Libs run then people (in general) will not preference Labor. If they do not run then they will vote ALP first (or put them high on their preferences)?!?!
Just seems odd.
It is odd, but it happens. It’s because people just follow htv’s, even if they don’t like them.
In a perfect world every vote would represent a considered ordering of preferences, but in this one people take cues from agenda-setters. A Liberal candidate will provide Liberal voters with such cues, causing many to following the HTV as an expression of brand loyalty. In the absence of a Liberal candidate, these votes will splinter. Some will pick an independent/minor party and follow their HTV; some will decide what matters to them is their dislike of Labor and put them last; some will decide what matters to them is their dislike of the left and put the Greens last; others still will decide they don’t have a stake in the by-election and won’t bother showing up.
So basically, the reality is that people don’t engage brain?
I wonder what percentage is what in this by-election.
The Brisbane Central by-election was an interesting one. Huge numbers of people would rather pay $35 then turn up for a ALP vs GRN TPP poll. Only 2/3 of people on the roll turned up. It was noticeable on the day at the booth.
Also, the pigeon-hole principle showed that many traditional Lib voters would vote for a “union hack” than a local “business woman”. Another case of no brain in functioning, or brain unable to see through preconceptions.
If the Greens win this by-election they get parliamentary-party status so they could have a leader. If they had a leader they who would it be? Would they break Westminster convention and have an MLC as leader or would they have Adele Carles as leader dispite her being one of their newest office holders?
In WA you need 5 MLA’s, regardless of the number of MLC’s you have, for parliamentary status.
Unless there were recent changes?
I read somewhere that the change was made after the changeover to the Legislative Council elected in 2005 when the Greens went from 5 seats to 2. I believe that it was because the Nationals were likely to (and did) drop below the 5 MLA barrier after 1 vote one value. A similar thing happened in Victoria after the 2006 election and Legislative council reform where the the minimum number of MLCs was dropped from 4 to 2 because the number of National MLCs did the same.
It would be interesting to see how that would work then. I think the Greens are facing some interesting discussions about the role of parliamentary leaders in the party; including how they are picked and how much power they have. It’s occurred/occurring at a national level as well as in states that have been forced to pick leaders (Tasmania, NSW and ACT) and it will be interesting to see how WA deals with it.
At least in WA it’s fairly clear (like federally) who the first leader would be: Giz Watson, if for no other reasons than she would be the only continuing MP come the Leg. Council changeover this year (although two of the other new MLCs have served previously).