As I said last time, I’ll be advocating a vote for the Greens. Unlike some commenters here, I plan to give my second preference to Labor[1]. To justify my second preference first, I regard the Liberals under Abbott as utterly unfit for government. Abbott has behaved as an unprincipled opportunist throughout his period as opposition leader, denouncing “great big new taxes”, then proposing taxes of his own with no regard for consistency or good public policy. In office, I expect he would discover that he had a mandate for the hardline rightwing policies he has always favored.
Coming to the choice between Labor and the Greens, this isn’t the first time I have given a first preference to the Greens, but it’s the first in some years. The main substantive issues that concern me are economic management and climate change, but these issues (and particularly climate change) can’t be separate from questions about process and principle. The government has done a good job on economic management, while the opposition has been consistent only in error. On the other hand, the government has made a terrible mess of climate change policy, almost entirely because of its reluctance to deal with the Greens and to confront the opposition and the lobby groups that back them. In the long run, the only way they will be able to govern effectively is through co-operation with the Greens, and the sooner they are forced to realise this the better.
It’s obvious at this point that the CPRS proposed last year is dead, and that a new ETS will have to be developed, hopefully when we have seen some more progress in other countries. For that reason, I think a carbon tax, with few exemptions and a tight cap on compensation to emitters is the best way to go. The Greens idea of a two-year interim carbon tax would be a good starting point for discussion and there is still time for Labor to announce in-principle support for a deal of this kind.
On other issues such as asylum seekers, the government’s position is carefully ambiguous, while the opposition is as close to overt racism[2] as it has ever been. A big vote for the Greens would force the government back towards a decent position.
Then there is the machine politics that led, first to Rudd being forced to dump the CPRS, and then being sacked when this decision had such disastrous consequences. Without excusing Rudd for some earlier failures on the issue, this alone would be enough to deprive Labor of my first preference in the presence of any decent alternative.
It seems reasonable to hope that the Greens will get enough votes to hold the balance of power in the Senate from July 2011. It seems unlikely, except by a fluke that they could do the same in the House of Representatives. But the loss of even two or three inner-city seats would put Labor on notice that its core support can’t be taken for granted.
I’m even marginally hopeful as regards the seat of Ryan, where I live. The incumbent Liberal, Michael Johnson, has been disendorsed over corruption allegations, but claims to be the victim of factional smears and is running hard against the official LNP candidate. The Greens have done well in the past, and might benefit from a flow of preferences.
fn1. This assumes that there is no preference deal made that would lead me to think otherwise. For example, if Labor were to preference Steve Fielding or the like again, I would consider exhausting my Senate ballot in a way that gave a preference to neither major party (to see how, read here.
fn2. The one genuine example of “political correctness” in Australian politics is the one that prevents us from using the word “racist” to describe racism, but there’s no doubt that’s what it is.
John Quiggin 
I don’t know why you’d advocate a vote for the Greens because of climate change when the Greens are completely opposed to nuclear power, which is part of the solution to climate change.
I am no fan of the Greens but out of the 5 Greens Senators I can see some strong talent even if I personally do not see eye to eye with their views. Scott Ludlam from WA is very intelligent, at least from what I have heard. Another WA Senator, Rachael Siewert I do not know much about. I hold Bob Brown in high regard due to his principled stances over so many years and his experience. Senator Hansen-Young from SA seems to be doing a great job, particularly on youth issues. Christine Milne seems to be a leader in waiting from the birthplace of the Greens down in Tasmania.
Now, that ends the praise from me. I am in NSW and Lee Rhiannon is on the top of the ticket. I hope for the future of the country and for the future of the Greens that Rhiannon fails to win in NSW so that Milne or someone else becomes the next Greens leader when Bob Brown likely resigns before his term expires in 6 years time.
But hey, if Rhiannon were to win I think it would yield replication of Democrat-like leadership issues and factionalism which could kill the party.
I pretty much agree with this: Greens first, Labor-before-Liberal, and for the reasons given.
The most important thing for me in this election is that Abbott and his party are kept out of government. They’ve already done a huge amount of harm merely by being in opposition. Bad oppositions make for bad governments, and their obdurate denialism is now giving us the insane spectacle of an election in which the government which can use its belief that climate change is real as a major plank of its campaign platform.
Having just read (skimmed actually) the entire “Policies” section of the Greens website, I say “Wow”, as there is actually One policy that is ahead of the other parties. Unfortunately this good work is undone by there being at least Three policies where the author of that policy had no idea (whatsoever)of what they were talking about, and a string of policies that are “God Help Australia” should we have the misfortune for them ever to be implemented.
That aside, the case above for voting Green is coherent (though in my belief very misguided) the case for voting Labor is at best kind to the ALP, and the case for not voting Liberal is put quite poorly. It is in fact more a listing of the author’s political prejudices, and is not a rational nor objective view of the political parties and policies mentioned.
JQ, I don’t know why you want to promote the fallacy of Labor’s ‘reluctance’ to deal with the Greens. Labor could have dealt with the Greens up to and including accepting all of the Green’s requirements for the ETS and it still would not have got through parliament. You remember, surely: the ‘sceptical’ Nick Xenophon and the outright ‘denier’, Steve Fielding – it was they, NOT the Greens, who held the Senate balance of power on this issue.
Labor had only one option, the one which they took – to deal with Malcolm Turnbull and the Coallition. And they came within one vote (the one that dumped Malcolm) of getting an ETS through and into law.
The great failing of Rudd was to listen too much to the Gillards, Swanns and Arbibs of this world, and not to go for a double dissolution, which he very likely – like Gough W before him – would have won.
@Grim
What you say is true, except that trying to capture opposition support required an already feeble bill to be gutted and then ended up destroying Turnbull and any hope of that support. The strategy was pretty poor in both concept and execution. Almost as brain-dead as replacing Rudd with Gillard and then adopting the policies which destroyed Rudd’s popularity.
I will give the Greens my first preference. Whether my second preference goes Labor or exhausts depends entirely on good behaviour and Labor has shown precious little sign of that lately.
I posted this at LP but their site is down. It’s a poster based on the old Andy Warhol Nixon/McGovern poster
http://tinyurl.com/38ym3r2
Nice point about “political correctness” in footnote 2.
@Rationalist
the critical advantage the Greens have is that their ideas are post-Science, or at least within-Science. This places them (in terms of world view) maybe two or three hundred years in front of the liblabs
JQ, re fn1
I take it you are assuming that the ALP and Coallition will field no more than 6 candidates each, and that there will be at least 120 candidates in total.
@Grim
You make a good point that the Greens never had the balance of power in the senate. This was very under-reported.
Anthony Green’s blog has an excellent analysis of how a double dissolution would not have given Labor a majority in a joint sitting.
The first reason is winning half the 6 seats at a half–election requires 42.5% of the vote. Winning half of 12 seats requires 46% of the vote.
Green estimated that Labor would lose a senate seat overall. A 12 seat election also increases the chances of fringe parties. To muddy the waters further, Labor could not afford to lose any seats in the house to keep the joint sitting majority.
That is why Rudd did not go to a double dissolution. It created more problems in the Senate and solved none elsewhere.
The more interesting long-term political dynamic is the balance of power in the senate may be held by a party to the left of Labour rather than in the middle. This changes the identity of the Senate median voter – the swinging voter. Labor must decide whether to go left or right at future elections and in-between.
Fear of putting off the centre too often will induce Labour to go regularly cap in hand to the Liberals in the Senate because the Greens and 80% of their voters have nowhere else to go.
You only have the balance of power if people ask for your vote. Fred Nile, MLC knew how to deal with being ignored like this. Vote for me on what I want or I will vote against you on everything for the rest of time. One day, my revenge vote will hurt too much.
I think this is a good argument for why representative democracy has run its course. It has failed to produce an effective response to the most important issues of our time, and it continually fails to offer an option to even remotely address these issues in an adequate manner, moving forward.
It is a sad state of affairs when the more interesting deliberative democratic processes (such as the Zeguo experiment) are being produced by essentially non-democratic countries.
The ability of representative democracies to innovate a better form of governance is almost nil.
Grim at 10
Wouldn’t it be possible to go 1, 2, 2, 4 , 5, 6 … 120 and exhaust after 1 and still be valid ?
John, not unsurprisingly I take a slightly different tack. I think no matter who wins, and even if the Greens hold the balance of power in the Reps, we will need to fight industrially and through mass movements for progressive reforms. I call Gillard and Abbott the Bobbsey twins of conservatism. http://enpassant.com.au/?p=7735
As a Greens member it’s good to see you advocating a Greens vote again John. But I think there’s even an advantage for conservatives who want better outcomes in our parliament if the Greens hold the balance of power.
Abbott and his predecessors have ruthlessly used their effective Senate control for short-term political ends. They will be forced (as would the Greens and Labor too) to be more moderate and constructive if they are to retain any political relevance.
I would expect that Greens Senators will find themselves on the opposite side of the chamber from both “major” parties more often than not, but they have showed they are able to negotiate for better outcomes on legislation, and will give both sides a hearing on issues.
It’s a while since the Senate worked like that, don’t you think?
Jim @ #11
Your Senate position may be correct (that the ALP would lose a seat). But perhaps not, and Fielding would certainly have gone too. Yes, I’m aware of the numbers: minimum vote count for a senate seat = Total No. of votes / (number of seats + 1) +1 and that is a smaller percentage of the total vote for a full-senate election (approx 7.7% per seat) than a half-senate election (approx 14.3% per seat).
However, at the time, Rudd was still at the peak of his almost-equal-to-Hawke popularity and it’s really not altogether inconceivable that the ALP would have picked up a seat or three in the Reps, thus easily giving it the combined sitting numbers.
Much indeed as Gough Whitlam achieved the combined sitting numbers in May 1974, after just 18 months in government, and with a polling approval rating somewhat less than Rudd’s was back in the times of Turnbull.
@Grim
Thanks
Your counter-points are well made.
Rudd could have gambled on a double dissolution but it was so early in his term that he gave up too much time in office. He never considered the next election to be in doubt so he invested in developing other policies and in winning turnbull to his side on carbon trading.
Rudd became so unpopular so quickly that the double dissolution option just disappeared.
The sudden end of the DLP, and an evenly divided Senate gave Whitlam his double dissolution joint sitting majority.
Gohn25 @ #13
Not the way I read the AEC’s interpretation of the electoral act, viz (via JQ’s link):
“• that where there are twenty candidates, a ballot paper would be informal if it did not have on it either the numbers 1 to 18 (90% of 20) without repetitions or omissions, or numbers which, if up to three of them were changed, would be the numbers 1 to 18 without repetitions or omissions.”
In short, since both the ALP and the Coallition would indeed field 6 candidates, then, even after your crafty numbering, the electoral officer would simply change your repeated numbers (up to 3 anyway) andould still end up passing a preference on to one or the other of the Great Weevil parties.
It’s that bit about “no repetitions or omissions” that gets ya every time.
Jim @ #17,
Granted re Whitlam’s more or less evenly divided senate, but that was after the election, not before (see the Vince Gair Affair to confirm that the DLP were still ative and holding Senate seats until then). My main point being that it was after only 18 months in office that Gough moved the D-D.
Rudd didn’t lose his popularity – at least not precipitately – until after he failed to reintroduce the ETS legislation (apparently at the urging of the likes of Gillard, Swann, Abib et al) thus depriving himself of a legitimate D-D trigger. However, yes, after that the D-D option was dead in the water.
@Peter Wood Totally concur with this comment – it has been a rarely acknowledged truth for many years.
(I concur with the main arguments John Q put in his post too, but that’s hardly a surprise)
@iain
Hayek had a similar view to you in the road to serfdom.
Democracies are capable of only producing a certain level of agreement – usually limited to general rules within which disagreement will be tolerated, and once the list gets beyond this or too long, democratic control fades. The limit arises from constraints on the ability of voters to gather and process information and to then express their view on multiple subjects, with opinions having different intensities between people, into a single vote.
Hayek’s solution was a strong upper house elected by a different method of election to the lower house, a division of power, and vibrant federalism.
The more times that you get to vote, and get to vote on different packages of issues, the more chances you get to influence what is happening to you.
Sadly, Australian federalism is greatly diminished after the Howard years courtesy of the dependency of the states on the GST for revenue, rather than their own tax bases, and the constitutional expansion of federal power when the High Court upheld work choices.
@Jim Rose
There was no need for a double dissolution election to be immediate. The cutoff date for a double dissolution is 6 months before the end of the term which is 3 years after the first meeting of the house, not election day. You cannot call a thing the greatest moral choice of our time and then postpone it for 3 years because it’s all too hard.
Jim @ #21 and iain @ #12
Doesn’t anybody remember ‘The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer’ ?
@Grim
yep – I have a copy, it is now available
@Grim
If there were 12 Lib-Lab-Nats out of 102, the 90% could work. The problem would be what to do with AAFI, CDP, shooters etc.
@ShowsOn
FYI
No mention of that other technology is on topic here. There has been a blog prohibition on it for the next five years. Everyone here (and you from Crikey) knows my position on the issue, but I respect the right of the blog host to do this.
@ShowsOn
That said, The Greens are supportable on other grounds. Failure to support that particular technology is not a matter of principle, nor could they obstruct it if the ALP changed its mind.
To be clear on nuclear power, we covered the issue exhaustively here. As stated in that post, anyone with anything new to say on the topic is welcome to email me, and I will post it. So far, no one has taken up the invitation. But I am absolutely not interested in taling points like that of @Showson
I agree. If such could be negotiated we might see a switch to CCGT from the dirtiest coal and a switch of plans to build new coal capacity in the mainland eastern seaboard states (it’s estimated that quite significant new capacity will come online between now and 2020) to new gas capacity. Given the political and temporal realities, this would be a significant step forward in emissions abatement in the near term.
I agree with John Q and his reasons – Green 1, Labor 2. Labor have done well on the economy (the debt paranioa is absurd) but putting off climate change action till 2013 is an unacceptable delay. Without the Greens at least holding the balance of power in the Senate Labor will continue to drag its feet on CC action. If the Greens increase their vote it will send Labor a message.
I would go further on the opposition. They have been incredibly negative in the Senate despite very little mandate to do so. Their opposition to the paid parental leave scheme for example, although hardly a headline issue, was completely disingenuous. Not following through on the ETS deal negotiated by McFarlane was the height of bad faith politics.
I have issues with the Greens. What puts me off them a bit is their ‘holier than thou’ attitude, especially towards Labor.
The fact is that unfortunately major parties have to pander to opinions that may not match other parts of their constituency. So when I saw the ALP ads with ‘stronger border protection’ I knew what that implied and I grimaced, but the ALP as the Liberal/Nationals coalition want the majority of voters to vote for them. So if it is ‘stronger border protection’ on one side or ditching Workchoices on the other so be it.
The Greens know that they will not form a government, so as Gough said ‘only the impotent can afford to be pure’. However I am seriously thinking about giving my first preference to the Greens….why?
Because in my opinion the influence of Howard is still too strong and Labor is still pandering to his ideas. The total political spectrum in Australia has shifted too much on the right and the Greens offer an opportunity to drag it back. The left in the ALP has failed to do this.
The commentariat talks about ‘Western Sydney’ and the fact that the major parties have to pander to the anti-refugee sentiment in that part of the world. Would be nice to have major parties that have to pander to an electorate that has to be wooed for its progressive stance for a change.
Labor’s ‘economic management’ = billions wasted on school halls and pink batts with a $70 billion reversal in the budget bottom line. No wonder Quiggan is a Greens voter – i.e. the party of the terminally economically illiterate. Cf the ETS.
Any moron can yell ‘racism’ – the fact this moron will draw a professors superannuation for the rest of his life makes this doubly frustrating.
@Guido
Pandering to opinions of the people is actually one of the great strengths of democracy.
The ability of minorities to protect themselves in democracies is built on them trading a block of support on other issues less important to them in return for securing parts of their own agenda. The Greens sometimes use this very approach.
Democracy equality means that everyone can lobby political parties to market policies that different voters and the groups to which they belong want. This everyone includes groups you may detest.
Any differences in opinion in a democracy are resolved by trying to persuade each other and elections.
The Greens can drag the political spectrum back from the Right by changing the identity of the swinging voter – the median voter. Labor must choose between either going right or going left to build a winning coalition in the House and Senate. The Liberals will have an eye on the 20% of green voters who second preference the Liberals
Methods for change the identity of the swinging voter usually include moderating policies to appeal to the centre and showing a willingness to compromise. These are traits the Greens may lack at the moment.
Something I’ve long believed.
“Pandering to opinions of the people is actually one of the great strengths of democracy.”
It’s also it’s a massive weak point. It all depends on the quality of the opinions that it is pandering to. There’s nothing in human biology that actually requires reality-tested opinions (though they obviously have their uses) and there are powerful biological forces that operate orthogonally to produce opinions, eg, sex and social alignment. Rats beat humans at some very simple reality testing tasks with a brain the size of a pea. Where is that glucose consumption going?
If reality tested opinions were enough, evolution would have made us autistic. It hasn’t.
@Rationalist
A criterion for selecting a new leader of the Greens could be whether they had a real job before politics.
Labour is overrun with people who never held a real job outside of politics, and spent their 20s and 30s living internal party factional politics. Such a pedigree means they do not meet ordinary people.
Modern careerist politicians spend all their time in the company of fellow political junkies within their own party faction who largely agree with them.
In an age of information overload, it is easy to fall back on our own prejudices and insulate ourselves with comforting opinions that reaffirm our core beliefs.
The challenge is respect for democracy can stem from the belief that so long as people do not cocoon themselves, a large number of voters is unlikely to be wrong. By cocoons, I mean being trapped in information cocoons, shielded from information at odds with our preconceptions.
We can use sophisticated tools such as the Internet to expose ourselves to only what views we feel more comfortable with. We can insulate ourselves from challenge.
More and more people are gravitating toward those newspapers, blogs, podcasts and other media that reinforce their own views. Citizens can filter out opposing or alternative viewpoints but voters in democracies must instead hear multiple voices.
The Greens is at risk of filling up with senators who spent their youth in campaigns various and working and socialising with people of similar persuasions to them. The Australian Democrats imploded because, in part, they with inbreed with young senate candidates coming from the staff of senators’ offices and their youth was spent lobbing inside their organisation for endorsement. They lost touch.
The Greens risk ending-up like Rudd. He never met a member of the public except at a photo opportunity. Little wonder he and the rest of Labour hang off every word of focus groups. Labour careerists had no personal connection to voters and were losing the working class vote to the liberals.
The Green vote is at the risk of long-term decline because the major parties will co-opt and water down their main policies. To stay relevant, the Greens must elect leaders who understand the ordinary people who might vote green rather than identifying with a hard core who would never vote for someone else.
The merits of the ALP-Greens coalition in Tasmania is hard to assess. Old growth logging continues which one would think is non-negotiable with the Greens. On the other hand some of their other ideas seem to gotten up by a circuitous process; example the no-go on Gunn’s pulp mill. Applying this to the Federal scene it seems possible the Greens could cave in on carbon pricing and onshore processing. Some sort of compromise that runs the full term of the next parliament.
I also believe the Greens are seriously misguided on that other matter Fran alluded to. Thus I’m inclined to vote for independent candidates.
Hermit brings us back to reality.
For it was in Tasmania that Labor and Liberal, on behalf of Gunns and presumably their own pockets, formed an unholy alliance that sealed the fate of the Tasmanian environment for the short term gain of a clique.
The reactionary side of Labor, in keeping with its irrational hate of the left, will fight desperately to avoid coalition with the Greens, because they would have to accomodate public and rational scientific interests and viewpoints, as well as the corporate gangsters and neoliberal ideological zealots to which it has remained infatuated with and becomebeholden to.
With the death of the coalition, the electorate has only Labor on life support left, nursed by the Greens- getting Labor to budge in its defence of corporate interests on behalf of common sense will be like drawing eye-teeth, but we must be pulled into the twenty first century, even if a decade of it is already wasted.
I can’t work out how your link – exhausting my Senate ballot in a way that gave a preference to neither major party (to see how, read here) – tells me what is claimed. Other than explaining normal formal voting that generally ends up giving my vote to a major party, it seems only to explain what’s informal. I’d appreciate better understanding your point.
Perhaps a campaign of civil disobedience if actioned on a large enough scale would “send a message” that we voters have had a gutfull of the major parties.
@ShowsOn “the Greens are completely opposed to nuclear power, which is part of the solution to climate change”
¿Que? Part of “a” solution to climate change, yes, but (unless you mean the truly remote prospects for “fusion”), but in principle and practice about as irrevocably and iredeemably un-green as imaginable.
Sadly it appears that most western and many “other” nations appear to be swallowing the same techno-babble and trying to plug a present and pressing need with a technological “solution” much promoted by the apparently omnipotent alliance between the defense industry and the nuclear power and waste “management” industries that will at best be deliverable at unknown future costs in decades time. Ever quantified the lead time for building a nuclear power generating facility? Now do the same work on any of the leading non-nuclear, non-carbon generating technologies (even at present levels). Hmmmm . . . and we haven’t even started to discuss half-lives yet . . .
Congratulations on being first poster, though. Is there anything more “concrete” than vanity behind your alacrity? My declaration of conflicting interests: None, just the future health of my eight-year-old . . .
@Jim Rose
Your comments seem to confirm your own theory about people self-selecting (and then regurgitating) media that reflect their own opinions. Failing to analyse the career-paths of non-Labour and non-Green politicians simply cripples your perspective. In my, and John Quiggin’s, federal seat of Ryan’s case for example, we have the prospect of electing (do I mean “promoting”?) a machine-ready long-term current local Liberal councillor, a scattergun oddity ex-Lib square wheel, an invisible Labour party alleged-apparatchik or a, wait for it, retired GP standing for the Greens. Now, she’ll never have met any real people, will she? Meanwhile our state MP is a long-term Liberal backroomer and marketing specialist and our suburb squarely in the Liberal Council’s density sights. Meanwhile, you reckon Rudd never met a real person in his life as a local MP, public servant and regular churchman? Pah!
@macadamia man
You make some good points but also confirm the elitist background of the Greens.
Greens votes in 2007 were defined by what they studied: arts, culture, architecture and education. Green voters tended to be consultants, or work in government, media, health or education. Look at the backgrounds of the Green senators.
Greens tend to be well-paid inner-urban types who use of public transport more. They tend not to have children until their 30s, if at all, which makes them even richer and gives them more spare time for political activities.
In all phases of life, Greens are distinct from the typical Labor, Liberal or Nationals voter demographic. The Greens are not of, nor are they the new voice of the working class.
Turnbull went after the green vote because he thought they could help him become PM. The Greens who voted for Howard after preferences tended to be of the lower income, more mainstream variety. That was because they had more children.
The Greens take more votes from Labor than they gave back in preferences.
The Greens are a way of turning conservative Labour voters with green dispositions but also more traditional family structures into second preferences for the Liberals. They vote Green to ally their consciences and then vote their other interests on preferences. Without a green option, they would have to stay with Labour to honour their green scruples. The greens reduce the net votes for the Left.
@Jim Rose
“confirm the elitist background of the Greens”
unsupported verging on the bigotted Jim Rose – a strange view of the world that sees soemone who studied arts etc at university ‘elitist’
Note that the minority ALP government with Green support is continuing to deliver stable government in the ACT with occasional hissy fits from Cabinet members when the Greens use leverage with the Liberals to raise specific local issues where the government is perceived to be dragging its heels.
Some better accountability than was the case when we had a majority ALP government.
The Greens will get my vote too. At heart, I am a democratic socialist (of some kind). I believe in supporting everyone in society; not just “user pays”. I lived in the UK under Thatcher and came back to live under Howard – truly one of the most depressing periods of my adult life. The Greens make more sense than Labor. I would as soon vote for Abbott as walk naked down Pitt Street. That man is a fake and a flake. In the end, the environment is more important than 90% of the political agenda and it’s time to get some normal people back in the decision making, imo.
@ Jim Rose
Still no “analysis” of the previous employment backgrounds of non-Labour or non-Green parties then? Hmmm . . . As I recall the gist of a recent academic study of the last two MP intakes at Federal level (sorry, I haven’t got the citation to hand, but it may have been via Crikey at some point last year – anyone?) there was bugger-all difference between ALP and Libs – a few more pol sci grads with careers in student or “Young Liberal” structures and “lobbyists”, bankers, consultants and “marketing” folks for the Libs, a few more union careerists for the ALP mob, and many, many lawyers of various sorts for both. Can’t recall the last time a plumber, industrialist or retailer got the nod and actually made the House, although lots of sons of the land still seem to think their heredity qualifies them to lead the nation. Oh, and lots of union reps, which makes a fair bit of sense however you look at it, drawn from both sides of the “divide” the professional and the manual trades. As for the Greens “not representing the new voice of the working class”, I must have missed that claim somehow.
Bring back Rotten Boroughs and the Rum Corps, I say. Then we can stop making fools of ourselves trying to be universally-representative, perhaps 😉
@Gohn25
you cant double number up on the senate ticket and be formal
@macadamia man
Thanks for the material.
If the study you mentioned is Whitlam’s Grandchildren, it says as follows:
“Only 4 of the 31 new (ALP) MPs had not had a professional political class experience along the way. Overall, 12 had been union officials, 9 had been political staffers, 8 had been local government councillors, 4 had previous parliamentary experience and 2 had been full?time party officials.”
If it is Occupational Profile of ALP, LP and National MHRs 1949-2007: From Divergence to Convergence, it says
“We find a narrowing in the range of occupations represented among House members for the three largest parties. The trend can be observed most strongly in the Labor Party. Adding MHRs with union official as their preparliamentary background to those with political staffing backgrounds give credence to the concerns of Cavalier and others that Labor in particular has a problem in the diversity of their candidates for office. The Liberal Party, too, has greatly increased the number of political staffers entering parliament through its ranks, though not to the same extent as the ALP.”
Bob Brown was previously a doctor, Christine Milne was a teacher, Rachel Siewert worked for the Conservation Council of Western Australia, Scott Ludlam ran a small graphic design business at one time, and Sarah Hanson-Young mostly worked for NGOs and student unions but also worked as a bank teller. All have degrees.
Greens are the richest group of voters in Australian politics. Green parties tend to be run by lower income people representing these rich people.
If green voters see green parties threatening their incomes, they will dump them.
Not surprisingly, electoral support for green policies fades in economic recessions. That is why Gillard and others pushed Rudd to dump emissions trading. Neither Rudd nor now Gillard want to risk going to an election pushing a new tax in a recession. This risks more of the green vote second preferencing the Liberals as 20% already do.
On the contrary Jim, the presence of The Greens allows people disaffected with the ALP from the left to keep voting and campaigning for the ALP with a clearer conscience. The ALP can pitch rightwing policies and still effectively keep leftwing preferences. Without the Greens, they could be wedged. With them, they can curse the “radical” Greens as irresponsible and pitch wholeheartedly at conservatives and even xenophobic bigots.
In any event it is idle to speculate on there being no Greens. There is a clear constituency for such policies. So the ALP just has to make the best of it. As it happens, this is in their interest in practice, especially given the compulsory preferential system we have. The main losers ar the Coalition who are forced to abandon the mainstream and are forced into a political niche that is harder to extend than that of the ALP.
@ShowsOn
Nuclear Power is hardly a solution to climate change, it merely creates a whole separate long term problem.