The Greens have announced a preference deal with the Labor Party. The Greens will receive preferences in Indooroopilly for former Labor MP Ronan Lee, while the ALP will receive Greens preferences in fourteen seats: Ashgrove, Aspley, Barron River, Broadwater, Cleveland, Everton, Gaven, Greenslopes, Mansfield, Pumicestone, Redcliffe, Redlands, Southport and Whitsunday. Most of these seats are in Labor’s marginal range, although they go as high as Greenslopes on over 11%. (via Pineapple Party Time)
Some may criticise the Greens for this, as they had previously demanded a deal on Traveston Dam, and considered asking for proportional representation in local councils, but these would have been a waste of time for a few main reasons:
- While some Greens voters may criticise them for not standing firm on the dam, even more Greens voters in Brisbane would likely blame the party if, ala 1995, helped bring down the ALP government by exhausting statewide.
- The ALP wasn’t going to buckle on Traveston Dam, and a deal on proportional representation on councils would have been unlikely, and would be unlikely to include Brisbane City Council, which is really where the Greens most need proportional representation. Even if they had done a deal, the ALP has demonstrated in the past that policy promises are completely worthless.
- While there may be higher priorities than electing Ronan Lee in Indooroopilly, absent a genuine for a more long-serving Greens member in another seat or any form of proportional representation, I can’t see any other option for them.
Also in Queensland, here’s Ronan Lee speaking at the Greens campaign launch this week:
NSW Greens and Labor will be watching extremely closely how this pans out. It will be interesting to compare how Greens voters preference in seats where they have been directed to preference Labor and how they do it in seats with no preference deal.
I’m sure everyone will pay attention, but I doubt there is much parallels, beyond the voting system. The ALP is still much more popular in Queensland than NSW and the Greens are currently polling about double in NSW as in Queensland.
That’s true, but The Greens in NSW will face the question of whether or not to preference Labor and if so, where.
After this election there will be a fair amount of empirical evidence demonstrating how voters react when given different preference direction, some to a government that many Green voters abhor, albeit in QLD over Traveston and in NSW over everything.
I think the key difference is a lot of progressive voters may not like the Queensland ALP, but don’t want an LNP government, whereas in NSW Greens voters are likely to want to see the ALP abandoned to the wolves, even if that means a Liberal government.
“While some Greens voters may criticise them for not standing firm on the dam, even more Greens voters in Brisbane would likely blame the party if, ala 1995, helped bring down the ALP government by exhausting statewide.”
I thought in 1995 The Qld Greens actually preferenced the Coalition in key seats.
I have no problems with exhaustion leading to a downfall of government. Its the voters will. Alp needs to work harder. If Ronan wanted preferences and the Greens are worried about the ALP losing government, he should have traded preferences with Sarah Warner in Indooroopilly.
It appears Ronan’s strategy for Indooroopilly is him or the LNP.