Yesterday, Essential followed Newspoll and Galaxy, with a poll showing the ALP with 55% of the two-party preferred vote. The ALP is steady on 41%, the Coalition up one to 39%, and the Greens steady on 13%. This puts them in a similar position to the latest Newspoll, give or take a point for each party on the primary vote.
The other big electoral news of the day was an announcement of a preference arrangement between the ALP and the Greens. The deal sees the ALP preference the Greens ahead of all other parties in all Senate races, in exchange for which Greens local groups in more than 50 seats agree to put the ALP ahead of the Coalition. Antony Green has an insightful blog post examining the implications of the agreement. Clearly this is a significant event, but due to my active involvement in the Greens campaign I’m going to steer clear of interpreting the consequences or the motivations.
That doesn’t stop you from doing so, dear reader…
See what I mean about taking an average? If that poll was reflected that would see a 2% swing to Labour (which would see Bowman, McEwen, La Trobe, Hughes, Paterson and Sturt fall) and increase the Labour majority to 36. My personal feelings are once the debate is over and the real campaiagning starts, that’s when to take note of the polls.
Reportedly in 44 of the 50 most marginal seats but not Gilmore, Lindsay, Blair, Dawson Herbert, or Sturt.
And in one of those seats the local candidate is reportedly considering prefeencing the Coalition.
It looks like a good deal for the Greens – they still have room to negotiate preference deals with other like-minded enough minor parties (although there doesn’t seem to be many of those amongst the currently registered political parties, which makes it harder) in the senate, while getting direct preferences from the ALP in the senate. I really don’t get why the media is making *such* a big deal about it – given it seems to be the exact same deal the Greens did with the ALP in 2007. In many ways, I think the Greens make life far too difficult for themselves when it comes to preferences – surely preferences need to be worked out as part of a party’s overall campaign tactics, with guidelines on how preference negotiations are conducted by the party as a whole, rather than held to the whim of local branches or even a particular candidate (who often fail to see the bigger picture)?
Should’ve added this to my first comment – but I personally think Senate group voting tickets are one of the worst things about our electoral system. They can be a gross distortion of voters’ intention, and place way too much power in the hands of party hacks.
As well as the same one Dems have made or tried to make over the years. I think the media is just grabbing on to it because there is so little difference or disagreement on any key policy area with the old parties. They need their scandal, after all!
Yeh, above the line is pretty crappy. It bugs how many people don’t know how to actually vote. Even the comments on Antony’s website indicate a heavy dose of electoral illiteracy and you’d think his readers would be at least slightly more aware than most! Get rid of above the line and HTV’s and you might find the electorate actually learns something about how the electoral system works instead of all these dopeys who think their vote will follow the HTV if they vote 1 for that party.
Its no surprise that Tasmania have a relatively high below the line Senate vote.
Hey, the default avatar looks the FSM :):)
@Polly, re:
“In many ways, I think the Greens make life far too difficult for themselves when it comes to preferences – surely preferences need to be worked out as part of a party’s overall campaign tactics, with guidelines on how preference negotiations are conducted by the party as a whole, rather than held to the whim of local branches or even a particular candidate (who often fail to see the bigger picture)?”
I’m not a member of the Greens, but I am sympathetic, and I think part of their party structure and philosophy seems to be about the prioritisation of local groups to make their own campaigning decisions. I suppose it does make it more difficult for them at election time, but to some extent it must prevent the side-lining of membership that we not only see constantly in the ALP, but which is endemic in their party structure. I don’t disagree that it’s less efficient, but it’s more democratic, and in the long run it probably stops the party being dragged to the right by more conservative hierarchies. It’s actually an important political issue because ideally, this sort of local group prioritisation checks and devolves power gluts in organisations – therefore, long term, it is probably worth the efficiency cost.
With regard to Greens local group structure, it does make it more complicated and time-consuming when it comes to decision-making, but I think the preference arrangement does indicate that the Greens have learnt how to still manage to make national decisions without over-riding the rights of local groups.
Having decisions made at a local level is also important though to take into account local cultural differences in terms of where Greens supporters come from, and also the local circumstances involving the major parties and local political dynamics. For instance, there may be areas where the local ALP is mired in corruption scandals, or where the local political dynamics, such as at local government level, are such that the ALP and the conservatives have a very cosy relationship and the actual political fault line is between the two of them on one side, and Greens and progressive independents on the other. Having local party members being able to make decisions relevant to their local circumstances has advantages, but it’s the whole system of Senate RGVTs which really needs changing.
Senate ticket voting reduces the informal vote and improves the representation of less educated and poor English speaking voters, although what the Labor Party does for their support can be questioned. Still if you dislike ticket voting encourage people to vote below the line.
I don’t see how it’s more democratic to have tiny branches, with a handful of local members making preference decisions that seem at odds with the overall principles and values of the Greens (which I would argue has sometimes happened in the past)- and potentially contrary to what the majority of Greens members would want. The Greens do seem to be managing this better now than they used to, though (and I know how tough it is to get these things right) and it’s certainly very easy for the Greens to justify preferencing the ALP in some reps seats over an Abbott-led Coalition in this election campaign, given the Coalition’s current approach to climate change and asylum seekers.
@Geoff – I think we should have optional preferential voting in the Reps and in the Senate. Sure, there will be exhausted votes, but if people prefer that, then that’s their choice. Surely that would lower the informal rate for both the Reps and the Senate? Having done a lot of scrutineering in seats like Holt, I can tell you that people really struggle with the whole preferential system of voting we have here in Australia. There are heaps of above the line votes for the senate where people put letters in their box rather than numbers – which shows a clear confusion over what is required, even for ATL voting. I think it’s better to educate people about how to vote in Australian elections, rather than push ATL voting as a solution to informality. The AEC does a good job with the information they make available about how to vote in elections, but it’s clearly not enough.
@Geoff – I think we should have optional preferential voting in the Reps and in the Senate
Optional preferential voting turns into first pas the post.
No one wants that. The current system allows minors a chance and without it the electoral system would become a joke. It’s easy to rig and does not have the safeguards of the 50% plus 1 that the current system has.
As for the Green/ALP preference deal or the Green Alliance as it has become known, the ALP have given up their chance of securing the Senate and have handed control to the Greens.
Having had talks with many of the parties it has forced most to place the greens last and the ALP second last on their lists.
Great for the Greens….. Lousy for the ALP. No doubt it will cost them Senate seats.
Because of this preference deal, I think that the Greens can kiss goodbye to Melbourne.
They can’t win the seat without Liberal preferences, and having virtually spurned the Liberals in terms of giving preferences, the Liberals should give them the cold shoulder in retaliation.
Why should the Liberals do the Greens a favour when they’ve never been given a fair go by the Greens? The Greens may well regret this, and rightly so.
Warren
I don”t see why, regardless of Labor-Greens preference arrangements, the Liberals wouldn’t preference the Greens in Melbourne. It’s in the Liberals’ interests to deprive their main rival, the ALP, of an extra seat, and that’s the calculation the Libs will make. Plus, at no cost to them, it forces the ALP to have to direct more resources into Melbourne which could otherwise have been used fighting them in other marginal seats.
Tony, with or without this agreement, there was no chance of either major party holding the bop in the senate. The greens on the other hand were always going have bop after this election and for the foreseeable future.
The questions are:
– Will the Greens become more pragmatic?
– Will the two parties become less partisian, more cooperative and centrist or will we see a record number of bills rejected in the senate?
– Will either of the majors consider a coalition government? The Libs in ACT were all for it? The Libs in Tasmania rejected it outright?
Interesting times ahead.
@Tony – I don’t agree with what you’ve said about optional preferential voting, and don’t see how it disadvantages minor parties. There’s a big difference between someone deliberately choosing to exhaust their preferences, and not being able to express preferences at all (which is what you have in a FPP system). However, I think the worst part of FPP is also the worst part of having single member electorates in our preferential system here, and that is that single member electorates mean you don’t get parliamentary representation that reflects the diversity of views in the community. I can’t see what’s wrong with having option preferential voting with multi-member electorates.
Of course the Libs will preference the Greens in Melbourne. It will tie up ALP resources that they would otherwise use fighting the Libs in, say, Deakin or La Trobe.
As for Labor losing out in Senate preferencing, I disagree. The other options are to preference the Libs or some right wing nutter party – and we all saw what happened in Victoria in 2004. Labor would rather have 3 Greens in parliament than another Fielding.
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