Discussion over the Labor leadership, and the government in general, is now academic, in the pejorative sense of the term. Barring a shock on a larger scale than that of 2001, Abbott is going to win the election, whenever it is held, and win it easily. Nothing Labor does or doesn’t do can make any real difference now.
At this point, the only issue to be considered is whether he can be stopped from gaining control of the Senate. Labor and the Greens have 21 seats from 2010, and Labor can be assured of 1 each in the territories (there’s a perennial hope that a Green or independent will win the second ACT seat, but I’m not counting on it. That means they need to win a combined 3 seats in every state for a majority, and can block legislation if they win 3 in at least five states.
Appalling as Labor’s situation is, they should still muster enough support for two senators in each state, but have (AFAICT) no realistic chance of getting three anywhere. So, what’s needed is to elect a Green in every state.
What can be done to achieve this? The first requirement is that the geniuses who run Labor’s preference strategies should not pull the stunts they have in the past, cutting deals with rightwing independents in the futile hope of adding one to their numbers. If anyone reading this has any influence in this respect, they should exercise it now.
The second is to make a positive case for the Greens that will appeal to people who don’t like Abbott, but can no longer justify a vote for Labor. In my view, the Greens are now the real inheritors of the best traditions of Labor, as opposed to the kind of hardhat/HiVizVest posturing that passes for “Labor values” in the ALP. But that case needs to be spelt out for voters who are understandably turned off by the entire political scene.
Suggestions welcome
John Quiggin 
This gets to the heart of it I think.
The lower house is gone, but the Senate has to be the battle ground. The Greens need support to do it however, big time.
An acknowledgement by the ALP that people voting Green are fellow Australians with substantive policy concerns would be a nice start, not abused as a group of unAustralian weirdos because they don’t accept the divine right of the ALP to rule and as the source of all policy wisdom.
‘ …academic, in the pejorative sense of the term …’
Once the conservatives get in, that will be the only widely accepted sense of the term.
see http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/03/could-western-australia-deliver-the-coalition-control-of-the-senate.html for a great post showing that the WA Nats could win the 4th senate seat in WA. Libs should get 3 quotas, and Labor 2.
In 2010, the greens and Christian democrats fought it out for the last seat!! the Christian democrats are separate from family first.
what labour does is of little importance because their vote is so low that there will be little surplus over 2 quotas for them to direct many preferences
These parties and Nick No Pokies will end up with the balance of power because they appeal to social conservatives and economic nationalists across the spectrum.
Three libs senators elected in each state will put them at 36 after 2013. DLP and Nick No Pokies is a tie already.
all hinges on a WA Nat getting the 4th seat in WA or katter’s mob taking the loast seat in Qld from the greens.
the cross-benches controlling the senate is real chance and a 38:38 tie is almost assured.
@Ken_L
Droll, Ken_L, very droll. Also true.
here in the west, talking to people who attended public debates,
the story emerges that the liberal and national candidates were conspicuous by their absence.
the libnat policy was ‘no public utterances whatsoever”.
the broadcasters take on election issues were the stadium for packer and transport.
ad nauseum repetition.
the possibility of public concern having visibility and discussion in many,many areas was quite simply,
stifled.
at the booths, labor,green and independents were manned by volunteers and the libnats had,according to unsubstantiated word,paid agents coming from as far away as the eastern states.
did they really have to pay people to do what everybody else did gratis?
if so,how many?
how much?
the booths were plastered with posters in red,gold and black picturing devastation overlain with the words,
labor is a mess.
as far as the greens go,elevating the mideast mess and minority kinship contracts to the top of the policy priority list is not what people who vote green are looking for.
the ready availability of fresh,local unpoisoned food from people who can actually make a living supplying it.
lets face it,when the oranges from usa and the asparagus from peru have competed the locals into non existance,where is our freedom of choice then?
labelling food so at least we can see if there is any patented genetically modified componant.
being a guinea pig is something people generally volunteer for.
being an unknowing guinea pig in the name of “commercial in confidence” and (so called)free market ideology is like something out of a totalitarian nightmare.
the protection and maintainance of clean water systems.
ensuring the existence of flora and fauna under the predatorcorp pump.
farmland integrity–a huge area from salinisation to soil remediation to—–
etc.
An increased Greens vote seems unlikely given the trend in state elections and the departure of Bob Brown. My inclination would be to vote for pragmatic independents. However if this kind of vote is spread too thin it might gift Senate seats to the acolytes from the major parties. I suspect a great many people don’t want Abbott getting control and will consider all voting options.
Gillard’s labor have spend months bagging the greens as ‘worse than hitler’ and you think they will promote them now?
Well may God save the Queen, because nothing will save this country now.
@may
Yeah, who is making our food now? Weyland-Yutani, Stark Corp or Cyberdyne?
John I hope you’re advice filters to Labor’s powerbrokers, but I’m not convinced a lot of them share your concern.
I think there’s still a healthy component within Labor’s senior ranks who’d rather see an Abbott government have the Senate than have to co-ordinate a resistance to it with the Greens. Partly ideological preference*, but also from tactical considerations. Spare Labor the internal fight over voting to end the ETS and maybe even get an early Coalition overreach to campaign against in 2016 (Workchoices II?).
* – Today a founding member of the Lavoisier group was made resources minister, so it goes
If we agree with the thread starter, what can we say or do?
A huge turn off is politics and the cabinet reshuffle didn’t help.
It’s true my visa for Finland isnt ready yet, so had better make sure am up to speed re Prozac scrip in the meantime
The Lib/Nats currently have 34 seats. In both SA and Tas, they only have 2 incumbents coming up for re-election, so if they win 3 out of 6 iin both these states (and retain 3 in the rest) they willl be up to 36, 2 short of a tie which can block but not pass measures. The DLP guy is not up for election this time, while Senator Xenophon is.
I think the Libs are highly to get 3 seats in Tassie this time around. Xenophon was the reso they only won 2 out of 6 seats in 2007, and it’s possible that that may be repeated if Xenophon gets a similar vote as last time, as he clearly takes votes from both Labor & Libs.
If the Katter Party win a seat in Qld, which is a real possibility, then the Libs could have enough to get control of the Senate in conjunction with DLP and Katter Party. Despite Bob Katter’s reputation as a maverick, his record shows a very consistent rightward lean.
So in the context of the Senate numbers, the real challenge in stopping the Lib/Nats having effective control of the Senate, needing only to occasionally appease a couple of arch-conservatives is to ensure Katter doesn’t win a Senate spot in Qld and the Libs don’t win 4 out of 6 in WA or 3 out of 6 in SA.
Whilst their supporter bases have very little overlap, in a real sense the Greens are competing directly against Katter in Qld for Senate balance of power – a bit like the Democrats were competing directly against Pauline Hanson in the Senate in 1998.
Speaking of which, there have been reports that Hanson is planning to have another tilt at the Senate in Qld. Whilst presumably the Libs – along with ALP & Greens – will still put her close to last, it is quite lausible that the Katter Party will treat her favourably with regards to preferences. She could well get around 4 or 5%. If she can get preferences of some of the minor right wing parties like Shooters & Fishers she might be able stay in the count long enough to get ahead of the Katter Party and surf in on their preferences.
Having said all that, I think Katter Party is the real risk in Qld when it comes to right-wing control of the Senate. I’d be surprised if the Katter Party does very well in any other states.
“Discussion over the Labor leadership, and the government in general, is now academic, in the pejorative sense of the term. Barring a shock on a larger scale than that of 2001, Abbott is going to win the election, whenever it is held, and win it easily. Nothing Labor does or doesn’t do can make any real difference now.”
Any evidence for this view from historical data, so far out from the election? I have hearsay evidence that some who won previous elections were in a similar situation.
And, if a founding member of the Lavoisier group (is this true? I can’t find the evidence) is now resources minister what’s left? Only the Greens! Is labor really so far gone? Or will the leopard (Gary Gray) change spots?
The good news is that rooftop solar is a genie that isn’t about to go back in the bottle. The bad news is any further delay in reducing fossil fuel use will cost lives. Most of those lives will lost in poor countries, but I think human life is worth preserving even if the lives being preserved are of those of people who don’t make very much money. I guess that makes me some sort of communist or something? (I’m not really up to date on the terminology.) Anyway, if at the very least the Senate could be controlled by people who understand that there are significant externalities to the use of fossil fuels instead of peple who try to make the existence of externalities disapear via a triumph of the will, that would be nice.
Greens are copping a lot of flak from all quarters but if it wasn’t for the Greens sticking to the guns there woud be no ETS.
I like this idea of a minority govt and I would be happy if Abbott was made to deal with the indies and minorities to form govt.
I should have mentioned that there is an outside chance the Greens could win a seat off the Libs in the ACT. In effect, this contest comes down to whether or not the Libs can get a quota (approx 33.3%). They have always managed this, although on a couple of occasions only just.
I would normally think it would be unlikely, but if the Libs go ahead with replacing incumbent Gary Humphries with the much more rght-wing Zed Seselja, its a bit more likely that enough Libs will defect to someone else (it doesn’t matter much who they defect to, as it still has the effect of dropping their primary vote lower than a quota).
“Any evidence for this view from historical data, so far out from the election?”
Sure – look at other governments that have been this far behind in the polls, consistently for two or more years, and see how they did. Qld and NSW provide recent examples. Six months out (if the government lasts that long) polls aren’t usually as far off as they would need to be in this case.
And that leaves out the catastrophic state of the government. Can you recall a government that’s had a mass sacking of ministers in an election year and won?
@Andrew Bartlett
Even with Katter in Qld and 4/6 in WA, 3/6 in SA and Tas, they would not be able to pass (or repeal) legislation. I guess they will be held to 3/6 in Victoria, as well as SA & Tas, so NSW becomes critical, as does the outside chance you mention in the ACT
I agree with may #6.
Assylum seeker policy is banging head against the brick wall of bigotry. We fought a good fight alongside the best QC’s, psychologists, social workers, documentary makers etc and nothing could shift the major parties execrable policies and we suffered for it.
Gay marriage is inevitable and the majors look silly in their stance against it. We have more important fights.
Fair trade as opposed to ‘free’ trade is our policy and underpins everything may said about locally produced, safe, nutritious, sustainable, food, creating local jobs and local wealth.
Our environmental achievements and goals need to be front and centre again.
Labour is good at hypocrisy and so I’m sure they could cheerfully support the Greens at such endeavours if they could see a few votes in it for themselves but I can’t see them doing it for the good of the nation.
John and Andrew B are right about the importance of trying to ensure 3 combined Labor/Green in as many states as possible, and that this amounts in practice to trying to get Greens Senators elected.
It also needs to be remembered that the Senate vacancies up for election this year are those that were elected in 2007, so the benchmark for assessing the Greens’ prospect is not 2010 (which the Greens are slightly down on in the polls) but 2007 (which the Greens are well up on, especially in Victoria).
Michael @11, I think it is true that there are no shortage of people within the ALP with tinpot plans to restore Labor’s place as TEH ONLY ALTERNATIVE to the Coalition, and that some such plans envisage the choreographing of a Great Polarisation of absolute right-wing dominance to which people will “inevitably” respond by running back under the Labor umbrella. If signs of such an exercise emerge, I think it will be necessary for us to have historically and psephologically informed arguments to put to decent Labor people as to why such plans will fail in their own terms, and will bring much woe and affliction besides.
@Andrew Bartlett
This is right except the primary vote is not critical. Liberals can get a quota later in the count by a combination of receiving a flow of surplus (at proportionate values) and preferences from other excluded Tory candidates (at full value).
So if the Liberals get 25% primary vote but a Katter-candidate gets 10%, then it is possible that Liberals retain their seat, if their 25% is greater than ALP’s remaining candidate. In September the ALP candidates are Kate Lundy (Left) and Chris Sant (Right).
I expect that Sant will be excluded quickly or half way through the count even after receiving Lundy’s surplus.
It would be worthwhile for the Liberals to pay Bob Katter to run a candidate in the ACT to protect their candidate and thereby shut the Greens out.
PrQ:
“In my view, the Greens are now the real inheritors of the best traditions of Labor, as opposed to the kind of hardhat/HiVizVest posturing that passes for “Labor values” in the ALP.”
Do you mean the anti-GMO policy? I think I’d prefer the hardhats over tinkerbell. You’ve argued yourself against this anti-GMO nonsense. Are you now backtracking?
I agree with 90% of Greens policy but no one should vote for them while they have anti-science policies and run anti-science candidates. As I noted on another thread, they are still even running anti-fluoride candidates at the state level for God’s sake. They have it right on AGW, but one out of three is not good enough (1).
(1) The anti-fluoride activism doesn’t extend to the federal sphere AFAIK but since fluoridation is a state issue it does not matter.
@ Mel
“(The Greens) are still even running anti-fluoride candidates at the state level for God’s sake.”
Can you back that up? I’m in Western Australia and am familiar with just about every individual Green member who ran in the recent State Election and not one of them was anti-fluoridation.
@Mel
So are you in the business of selling fluoride products to children?
@Paul Norton
That would be the reshuffle, an example of never a bad deed unrewarded.
Mel, if you don’t want to support parties with anti-science policies that would rule out voting for the coalition parties and Labor since neither seem prepared to back the science of climate change with any degree of sincerity. Half the coalition are firmly opposed and Labor pays only lip service – if you believe the science you wouldn’t be allowing a single new coal mine….so how far does your commitment to science go. Besides since when did science (GMOs) involve releasing untested substances into the environment? You only have to look at all the instances to contamination, let alone things such as increasing pesticide resistance to understand why people oppose GMOs. And what do we need it for? To feed the world. Hardly most starvation is caused by (a) wars (b) developed world greed (c) inadequate infrastructure such as in India.
This is indeed the task the Greens face in the coming election. It’s as fustrating as ever to see people in the comments list who generally like our policies and say they would vote Greens but pick out a hand full our policies as justification for not doing so. Do they place such demands for universal policy perfection on the old parties? What are we supposed to do when even our potential supporters show such irrational thinking?
Campdig:
Christine Milne is rabidly opposed to GMO, seemingly much more so than Bob Brown. This is a serious black stain on the Greens. It is simply unforgiveable to oppose a technology that may (or may not, we can’t tell yet) yield benefits approximating the Green Revolution.
I’ll be putting the ALP first on my ticket at the ballot box after 10 years of flirting with the Greens. I’ll put the Libs last, as I have done all my life.
You’re missing the point, Mel.
As with so many things the major parties have not only avoided science but at times actively worked to stifle scientific information when it conflicts with Greed.
Secondly, people are aware that Dow and Monsanto work actively to promote gen mod to the point where a monopoly is established, establishing a capacity to dictate price and product to fit with their profitability, if necessary against the well being of those billions of souls you claim they apparently work so selflessly for.
Newspoll now has the labor primary at 30%. The accepted rule of thumb is that it takes a couple of weeks for an event to reflect fully in the polls, so this does not fully reflect the latest Gillard frolic.
The 2PP is 58/42. If that figure repeated in September it would be a massacre with Labor struggling to hold 37 seats in the house. It’s worth noting that in NSW and QLD the polling actually understated the extent of the swing to the Coalition.
But there’s no need to worry because Kevin Rudd is a flawed man.
PW:
“Secondly, people are aware that Dow and Monsanto work actively to promote gen mod to the point where a monopoly is established, establishing a capacity to dictate price and product to fit with their profitability, if necessary against the well being of those billions of souls you claim they apparently work so selflessly for.”
At the moment poor farmers don’t buy seed. The evil Monsanto can’t make them do so, all they can do is offer a product. Stop reading silly Greenpeace propaganda.
@Mel I agree with you on these issues and will post again when I get a bit of time, but they simply aren’t important enough in the context of Oz national politics, to influence my vote. GM crops are already a fact on the ground, as are labelling requirements, which I support. Green senators aren’t going to change this, and I think the same would be true even for a hypothetical Green government. Also, I think the tide of opinion will resolve this problem soon enough, as witness the overwhelmingly hostile reaction to the Greenpeace vandalism stunts here and in the UK (BTW, I just discovered Greenpeace had to pay a $280k fine imposed on the CSIRO vandals, and apparently lost of a lot donations as well – that’s good news).
As you say, fluoride is a state issue – the Queensland LNP is a much bigger problem here than the Greens.
On the big questions of climate change, social justice, economic policy, the Greens are more deserving of a vote than Gillard Labor.
Further discussion of these issues to sandpit/message board please
John, the libs will get 3 quotas per state so that is 36 plus the DLP. Katter will get near a quota in qld so he will get in on liberal preferences. That makes a 38 to 38 tie.
Nick no pokies will get a quota so that makes 39 to 37.
A wa nat winning the 4th seat makes 40.
@Jim Rose
That is possible, but Australians tend to vote differently in the Senate than in other elections.
For some reason you have ignored the ACT.
@Doug
I don’t know why you think it would help the Greens to have the ALP saying nice things about them.
@Chris Warren
Split votes are an Australian habit, but they declined considerably in the O’Farrell landslide, which is what you’d expect when so many Labor voters were voting 1 Coalition for the first time in their lives. In the NSW legislative council, the Coalition now holds 19 seats out of 42 and only needs 2 votes from the crossbench to pass legislation.
Because QLD is unicameral we don’t have any similar data from there.
Interestingly, there was lots of negative comment over at Catallaxy threads on Sunday about the performance of Abbott on an interview with Andrew Bolt. (Didn’t see it myself.) While there are strong grounds to be pessimistic about Labor’s electoral prospects, there is also strong reason to expect some significant swing back towards Labor when Coalition policies finally start to be properly announced, analysed, and Abbott has to start promoting and defending them.
It’s not as if the Coalition is full of media star performers either.
The problem with these discussions is that it is hard to see who is voting Greens who is not either switching a vote from Labor, or who will always vote for one or other left-of-centre party. That shuffles around existing 2PP, but does not cut back the LNP’s 2PP margin.
During 2011, the ALP went from 39 per cent in March to 28 per cent in September. That was roughly the loss of about one million votes. Of those, perhaps 50,000 (one per cent) went to the Greens. The rest went to Tony Abbott. While Labor periodically claws back some of those voters – with the Sept-Dec 2012 performance particularly strong in that respect – they are always at risk of losing them again.
Given that the “big switch” of 2011 occurred at the time that the carbon tax was introduced, i think it unlikely that much of that constituency would move from the Libs to the Greens.
@Mel From what I can gather the Greens pos on fluoride and other issues is to let voters decide and not be rolled by party machine.
On this topic NSW govt has just passed a bill removing one’s right to silence, which sits oddly with LNP bleating over freedom of speech wrt media laws.
@Totaram
Apparently Gray was at Lavoisier’s “inaugural” meeting and agreed with them but now he’s suddenly discovered that human industrial activity increases carbon pollution.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/grays-journey-from-climate-sceptic-to-believer-20130326-2gqy9.html
If the Queensland Greens ran a genuine grassroots campaign they could win another senate seat – even in the face of suffocating derision from the elites and/or a media blackout.
Yesterday, Bob Katter MP popped up at Southport SLSC with KAP Queensland senate candidate Keith Douglas. Crashing the Mayor’s Beach Strategy event, they made it clear KAP oppose a cruise ship terminal on the Gold Coast Spit or in the Broadwater. This kind of action may not get any mainstream media coverage but it has an effect.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rjdk3e
Where were the Greens?
What’s happening with the Rainbow Warrior visit? Gladstone/Prof Callum Roberts’ talk at UQ last night? A comment re yesterday’s Bowen to Gladstone CSG pipeline announcement by the Queensland government? The train derailment and zinc spill near Townsville?
While handing out how to vote cards for the greens at the last state election (I am not a member), many voters said they wanted to join/get involved but when they tried to do so it was too hard.
I was also told that the booths where the greens maintained a physical presence had an elevated greens vote.
How is the Katter Party more “right-wing” than either of the major parties in Australia?
Why is it that the convenor of the Queensland Greens can appear on 612 ABC Brisbane [20/3] to discuss music, but having Queensland Greens senate candidate Adam Stone http://qld.greens.org.au/content/lnp-looks-breach-rights-child on to discuss policy is impossible?
[Former Senator has done something for the first time in 20 years!: Howson]
http://www.abc.net.au/local/programs/brisbane/programs_m35/612_breakfast.rss
Queensland’s media establishment are laughing at anyone who cares about the environment and social justice.
Mind you, they’re only doing that because wilful detachment from reality is rendering them increasingly irrelevant. Tony Windsor MP doesn’t even speak to the Murdoch Press anymore.
If the Greens don’t even bother running a flag up the flagpole in Queensland how can they hope to get any senate votes? Maybe they’re not serious?
In any case, there are 5 months until the election. Perhaps people ought to consider what damage Gillard/Abbott are going to get away with until the election farce?
More happy, happy, joy, joy, the tide will turn at any moment news. Nielsen has the primary vote in NSW at 23%. It’s a poll of state voting intention and I don’t have access to a state-by-state breakup of the Newspoll federal voting intention, but this makes it seriously hard to see Labor winning 3 seats in NSW when the quota will be 14.3.
And now we have Gillard doing a photo-op with Kyle Sandilands. Words fail me
@rog
That’s also pretty much the LNP position here in Qld – local option on fluoride. Unsurprisingly, a string of LNP-aligned councils are taking it out
@rog
Forget Mel vs fluoride. It appears Mel has an undeclared conflict of interest.
@Chris Warren
What gives that appearance?
I’ll do my bit by voting for the Liberal Democrats (LDP) and promoting them as hard as possible.
It’s a bit amazing that this hasn’t got any substantial attention. The NSW ALP opposition actually criticised the reform on the basis that it didn’t go far enough.
@Chris Warren
Anything more like that, and you’ll be banned. That includes backchat on this warning.