Via Public Polity, the Australian is full of speculation about a possible deal that would see the ALP preference Greens MP (and former Labor MP) Ronan Lee in the inner-Brisbane electorate of Indooroopilly.
The Greens’ public position has been that the ALP will not receive their preferences unless the ALP reverses its position on the Traveston Dam. The mainstream media seems to be running on the assumption that this is a negotiating point, although I have heard from Greens members that the party is ready to hang the ALP out to dry if a deal is not reached.
My experience is that a deal which involves extracting policy concessions from the ALP in exchange for Greens preferences tend to be useless. The ALP will not usually move very far, and anything they promise will almost always be broken. This has led to a tendency for Greens to work on an assumption that anything the ALP says cannot be trusted, and that they lie almost out of habit. In contrast, the Greens have generally had better luck where deals operate on a “like-for-like” basis.
If the polls remain where they are currently sitting, and the chances of the ALP losing government remain high, the Greens should be able to extract a high price for their preferences. It would also benefit the Greens, who want to be able to exercise power on the ALP, but may be hurt with their base if they are seen as responsible for bringing down a Labor government and electing Lawrence Springborg. It would normally be not much of a big deal for the ALP to preference the Greens in a race against a Liberal, but the ALP has a tendency to throw a tantrum whenever a politician has the nerve to leave the party. Maybe the upside of a close election would be that it would help the ALP get over itself.
It’s interesting that the possibility of a Greens candidate winning a single-member electorate has arisen again. We’ve already seen Greens come close to winning in Mayo and Fremantle last year, and the federal election next year, along with the next Victorian and New South Wales state elections, could see the real possibility of Greens being elected in the Melbourne federal electorate as well as three inner-city Victorian state electorates and Balmain and Marrickville in Sydney.
Anyone who knows anything about the proposed Traveston Crossing dam can see it would be a complete environmental disaster if built – likely extinctions of species that occur either no where else or have very limited distributions, impacts on International significant wetlands, destruction of riparian rainforest. It sounds exagerated but it isn’t. Given their dogged pursuit of this proposal and the highly questionable tactics used on the communities impacts as well as to manipulate public opinion, the ALP is no where near as green as we might think (and that’s just one of any examples). Personally, I can cope with an LNP win, because they have said they will not build Traveston and because then at least we know what we are dealing with – rather than this government that pretends to be green but is really a very dark, coal tainted brown, with a glossy veneer of spin.
In a way, Annie Boccabella can be said to have gone close to winning the Brisbane Central by-election brought about by Beattie suddenly feeling the need to piss off: it meant the Libs were left in the lurch and didn’t stand a candidate, so it was like a reverse Mayo.
The preference flow from all candidates strongly favored the Green, she ended up with a 8,449 (42.15%): 11,594 (57.85%). But a full one third of the roll, 11,150, didn’t bother to vote, presumably mostly tories in a snit. So there was a latent pool of 33% of voters to get the 15% margin out of.
If the Tory voters had of done their duty, voted, and favored the Green, ( a small business proprietor, a type much loved by Lib propaganda), over the Laborite (their tory nemesis type, an uber union-official from labormates central casting, parachuted in even against the local labor branch faithful wishes,), 63/35 or better then Beattie’s seat would have been taken, a major win, a propaganda and morale booster for non-labor.
But could the tories and greens see the prize and get their s–t together and go for it? Could tory voters hold their nose even a little bit, and vote a small business type, just of a different colour, into parliament? Do they have any guts or brains?
Apparently not, otherwise they’d re-run the scenario this time and do it properly. But no, the vainglorious losers, the LNP, won’t admit they can’t win, (simply because all those watermelon greens won’t preference tories, regardless of how the Greens HTV card reads) and throw their lot in with the (same) Greens candidate, who can win. I suppose they might pull the ‘candidate withdrawal’ rabbit out of the hat late in the piece, to maximum effect, but I’m not holding my breath.
If the Liberals didn’t stand in Cunningham at the 2004 federal election, Michael Organ would not have won. But it isn’t a tradition in Australia for parties to stand aside for each other, apart from within the Coalition.
It’s true, the number of seats within grasp of the Greens is growing, and you can probably add Brisbane Central and Mount Coot-tha to Melbourne, Brunswick, Richmond, Balmain, Marrickville, and Fremantle, as well as Sydney, Melbourne, Grayndler, Batman, Denison and Cunningham.
Although I’m not predicting that a lot of these seats are gonna fall in the near future, but the 2010/11 round of big elections will be an important one for Greens winning lower house seats.
The “tradition in Australia for parties to stand aside for each other…within the Coalition”…
Now if the LNP could just bring themselves to the realisation, or have it explained to them, that being in a minority government with greens holding the balance of power would be a sort of coalition, and way better than being in opposition again (or nowhere at all, which is where Lawrie will be if he loses), and worth doing what it takes.
Especially when there is nothing to lose for them, not in these seats, where there is no way the tories will get up. Where greens have built a critical mass, the watermelon green contingent will never preference a tory, regardless of the green htv, and that will keep the tories out. They may as well suck it up, back the greens against labor, and get on with achieving government. It’s a no brainer, just takes some guts.
“If the Liberals didn’t stand in Cunningham at the 2004 federal election, Michael Organ would not have won.”
What happened there? Who would have? Organ was still preferenced over the labor candidate by all the other candidates’ voters (except Wilcox’s .5% of the electorate), even the Christian Democrat broke his way, so it’s reasonable that in that hypothetical situation, most of the the 28.8% of the electorate who first pref’d the lib would have leaned toward the green over labor, but by what margin?. I think the math says it would have been possible.
Clearly the lib had reason the think they had a chance, why wouldn’t they stand? It provides a benchmark for how close the greens have to be to #2 to be within range. It also illustrates my watermelon green point: greens chronic and pronounced anti-preference of tory over labor. Labor’s Bird got in on the back of 80% of the green’s preferences. The Lib really had no chance. Like in these Qld inner metro electorates.
Results like that with a 24:34:42 split in the last round, (which will be becoming quite typical), the status quo of greens massively prefing labor, tories keeping greens out of #2, just guarantees labor getting over the line. Either greens have to learn to preference tory, or greens get to 2nd and then we get to see what tory preferences are made of. Shortcut: tory doesn’t stand.
In the Queensland of today, where Labor really has no claim on green prefs, which I take Ronan Lee’s defection to mean, surely there’s a reason for greens and tories to get serious and talk like adults, potential coalition partners, united by the desire to rid the land of the tyrrany of LaborMatesInc. For democracy’s sake.
Sorry, I meant that he would have won, not “would not have won”.
Any market for Indooroopilly?
@southbrisbane
Are you still talking about Indooroopilly here? It doesn’t seem to relate.
I think it’s broadened into a general discussion about marginal Greens seats, which in most cases (unlike Indooroopilly) are contests with the ALP, not the Liberals.