I’ll have more to say tomorrow, but a few points and a few links for today.
The Greens shouldn’t get too ecstatic about the strength of their vote. Labor strategists I spoke to last night agreed with my proposition that the Green vote was in large part a protest vote against the Coalition as well as Labor. This is borne out by the results from seats like Sandgate where Family First ran as well. The Opposition were so dreadful that many swinging and conservative voters tired of Beattie voted Green in despair.
What wasn’t noticed last night too much was that the Nats almost lost two regional seats to Labor - Burdekin and Lockyer. Out of the seats lost to One Nation in 1998, Labor has subsequently won back 5 of the 6 it lost, but the Nats only have taken 1 back of their 5. The former One Nation vote was swinging to Labor in these two seats, and the Nats vote went backward in a lot of seats they held - intriguingly in Cunningham and Toowoomba South. The other story was the big swings to Labor in the north - particularly in and around Cairns and Townsville. The Nats shouldn’t take too much comfort from the Libs’ disaster - their performance was disastrous as well - and they could easily have gone backwards. Their electoral position in seats they must win is now worse going into the next poll.
Demographic changes are the big untold story in the result - I’ll have more to say about this later in the week - but the Gold Coast now looks really nice for Labor (a big contrast to the position only a decade and a half ago where the best the ALP could do was switch the odd Nats seat into the Libs column with preferences). Absent the local factors working against the ALP on the Sunshine Coast, the demographics are moving in Labor’s direction there as well, and a recovery should be possible next time.
The Poll Bludger has a regional breakdown.
Graham also has a few spiffy posts up from last night - two on the campaign generally and one on each of the leaders’ speeches.
On the rush by the Tories to claim that WorkChoices wasn’t an issue, don’t believe a word of it.
Cross posted at Currumbin2Cook.
Update: More from John Quiggin on the Nats’ woes.
Further update: Andrew Bartlett looks at the campaign’s implications for the Democrats’ chances in Queensland federally, and Tim Dunlop makes an observation about The Borg I hadn’t seen made before now. From a Labor perspective, Stuart Fenech posts an election retrospective with a focus on the marginal seats. Over at Polemica, Guy looks at the implications of Team Beattie’s win for other Labor governments.
Last Update: I’m putting up the longer version of this post (minus the links) which appeared in today’s Crikey over the fold.
Well, the Queensland election is all over bar the shouting. And in fact there wasn’t a lot of shouting on Saturday night in a strangely subdued tally room. The mood of Labor strategists could best be described as sombre joy, while the Libs all went elsewhere very early, leaving Bruce Flegg only a few claps from the press table at the end of his (non) concession speech. The Nats were drinking into the night, but there was no joint party for the Coalition – symbolic of the great divide between the two parties. The recriminations began on election night, and will gather momentum over the coming days.Crikey readers can get a sense of the atmosphere from the live blogging Graham Young from Online Opinion and I did from the Convention Centre on Saturday Night at Currumbin2Cook.
So to the big picture from the Queensland poll. The result is basically status quo from the 2004 election. As I predicted on Friday, very few seats changed hands and the final tally of seats looks like being just about identical to 2004, with just one Coalition gain. There was some swapping of seats, and Labor retained all its by-election losses, but the only real surprises were the strength of the Green vote in Brisbane particularly, and the weakness of the National vote. It was little noticed that the Nats almost lost two regional seats to Labor – Burdekin and Lockyer – and Labor tightened its grip on many seats outside the south-east.
The Greens shouldn’t get too ecstatic about their vote. Labor strategists I spoke to on Saturday night agreed with my proposition that the Green vote was in large part a protest vote against the Coalition as well as Labor. This is borne out by the results from seats like Sandgate where Family First ran as well. The Opposition were so dreadful that many swinging and conservative voters tired of Beattie voted Green in despair.
There are three simple messages from the Queensland outcome.
The first is for incumbent governments. Beattie was spot on to say that the electorate had given him one last chance. If he simply repeats the two step “I’m sorry, I’ll get on to itâ€? dance which he’s mastered, but doesn’t deliver, the electorate will turn on him, and as with Keating in ‘94, never come back to the fold. But Beattie did demonstrate the power of incumbency, and particularly the power of what even Liberals are now calling a “superbâ€? campaign.
The second message is for oppositions. You can’t wait for government to fall into your laps. The electoral ask for the Coalition was enormous, but they should have made gains. Instead they basically went nowhere. Policy laziness, internal division and weak leadership and campaigning get their own deserved reward.
The third message is the Federal implications. It was significant that Federal pollies rushed to deny that WorkChoices was a factor. That’s totally untrue. As our polling for The National Forum showed, it was a factor working for Labor even before it was mentioned in the campaign. And it was no coincidence that a flood of WorkChoices and interest rate negative ads were run by Labor in the last week. The parties were picking up this factor as a vote changer in their polls as well.
Both the Federal Government and Opposition can take some comfort from the result. But if the message for Beattie is that hubris and complacency will be punished if his fourth term plays out like his third, John Howard should take note as well. Because Queensland demonstrated beyond doubt that IR is going to be a big factor in 2007.
Admittedly I’m in rural Queensland & not Brisbane, but we get a fair bit of Brisbane TV - and I can’t see where you’re getting this IR line from, Mark. I mean, I haven’t seen ANY reference to IR/WorkChoices at all. I just asked my wife, my reliable person-in-the-street barometer (thanks, darling), and she said, water, health & crappy oppositions.
Where was it an issue?
I’m surprised that Bundaberg is so close. With Dr Death hanging over the heads of the ALP, I would have thought that the proverbial drover’s dog would have romped it home for the Nats.
What’s your take on Bundy Mark. Too close to call?
I’m on the Gold Coast and it was a pretty big issue among people I spoke to, although admittedly that amounts to about three souls.
There’s a sense of betrayal over IR and even though it was a state election, people said that they just can’t vote Liberal any more. If the coalition got in here they’d do to Queensland what they’re doing to the rest of Australia, that kind of thing.
There’s also a bit of a stir over privatisation. Did that come through in the focus groups Mark?
Tony, there were tons of ads last week on Brisbane tv.
Alex, the Labor strategists I was talking to last night weren’t absolutely prepared to concede Bundaberg, but neither were they putting it in their win column. It seems Matheson - the dissident ALP member - did them in, plus the intensity of the Coalition attack on Cleary personally. But I was tipping Bundaberg to stay with Labor, and it’s still a possibility.
The Nats didn’t help their cause with Messenger’s idiotic antics, the stupid promise to build a new hospital, and his attempted stitchup of the Patel victims group which backfired on the Nats badly.
Bundaberg could easily go back to Labor next time if the Nats snatch it this time.
Telstra scored a few mentions, and I expect it was a big factor working against the Nats in some of the seats where they went backwards.
We did ask a couple of questions about electricity privatisation - to test a hypothesis of mine about the reasons why Libs don’t dare mention these sorts of policies after the SA defeat in 02 - and the results were as anticipated.
Interestingly, if health and water were the Big Issues - neither seems to have hurt Beattie. The water issue seems to have come down to affected seat NIMBYism with most Queenslanders seemingly having no dam problem.
On health, the voters don’t seem to be holding specific “government policy” responsible for perceived systemic deficiency - which is quite astute of them.
Beattie is the consummate Great Centrist leaving his lacklustre opponents marooned on the margins.
Morris Iemma - surely Beattie Very Lite - was swift to echo the Master’ss sentiments.
A final week whack at Germaine Greer followed by a sturdy defence of parental chastisement rights this morning exemplifies this approach. Who but Pete would have been dealing to politically correct nanny-staters on the morning after the election
I guess we should also factor in boom times and appalling opposition but a politically pragmatic incumbent with a nose for the issues and an ear to the centre of the street is a dead cert winner.
Whether IR was a factor or not (I doubt that it was hugely significant) it’s prominence in wash-up scenarios sets the scene for the the federal stoush and I too see a bit of Howard tinkering ahead.
Thanks for the coverage, Mark, both here and on Crikey.
Pleasure, Geoff - it was a bit of a challenge to generate a new take every day but I enjoyed it thoroughly! The tally room last night really was quite a buzz and also a fascinating scene to watch for a sociologist!
“On the rush by the Tories to claim that WorkChoices wasn’t an issue, don’t believe a word of it”
By the same token I wouldn’t believe the ALP if they claimed WorkChoices was significant. The “Opposition”, is/was very, very poor.
(A federal by-election would be a far more interesting way of testing the current IR policy)
It was a factor - it shouldn’t be downplayed out of existence, but it shouldn’t be overstated either.
The Nat (not so) faithful know that Howard has overreached on IR. Beattie has a line that he sticks up for us while the Nats simply roll over. My Nat contacts do think the Qld Nats roll over routinely and they are totally sick of it. Hence Barnaby.
When it was announced that we were importing processed bananas from Vietnam Beattie immediately used the line I mentioned above. Springborg said nothing that I heard.
On the Greens, I voted Green in Mt Coot-tha partly as a protest against the Libs by then preferencing Labor, and also as a protest against Labor, but also so that I could go to young Andrew and say, change your approach to the Mary River or you are going to get more of this. Not that young Andrew would cut much ice in the halls of power. But the Greens vote fell slightly in his electorate so there’s no leverage in my vote.
I’d agree that this would have been a factor favouring a stronger Green vote. So too would have been the perception that Labor was home and hosed, which would have encouraged a tactical or protest Green vote by Labor-identifying voters. On the other hand there were factors which would have militated against a stronger Green vote. One was the calling of the election early, which is always likely to disadvantage smaller parties. The other was the lack of salience of environmental issues in this election compared to most recent Queensland State elections.
I’m now off to the ECQ site to study the figures, but my feeling at this stage is that the Greens vote is reassuring, albeit not a cause for ecstasy.
I have a daughter working in rural Queensland who is being forced to work long hours of unpaid overtime to keep her job. Thanks to Howard’s “workchoices” she is not covered by unfair dismissal legislation so her avenues of protest in the workplace are limited. We have found the Queensland Govt’s “Wageline” and “Working Women” organisations immensely helpful. Human beings answer the phone. Advice is clear, sympathetic, accurate and helpful. I don’t know how many other people have experiences like mine, but from my point of view, the structures set up by the Beattie Government to counteract the evil worker-despising “workchoices” legislation have ensured him my support. Unfortunately, however, I was unable to express this on Saturday since I am not a resident of Queensland.
Mark;
“The former One Nation vote was swinging to Labor in these two seats”
Is this a more general trend ie labor is re-capturing the blue collar conservative rather than them moving to the liberals?
At state level in Queensland at any rate.
Having checked at the ECQ site and elsewhere, the Greens vote was up considerably in places which one would not normally regard as oases of Greenery (e.g. around 12-15 per cent in outer suburban “mall belt” booths like Browns Plains and Morayfield). Also the Greens preference mix was significantly less pro-Labor than in other recent elections. This tends to support the contention of a conservative protest vote component in the increased Green vote.
Without disagreeing with Mark’s broad point, I’ll just throw in my own 2cents.
Sandgate was a targeted seat in 2004 with a candidate who took leave from work to campaign and received a lot of campaign resources. That wasn’t the case this time and we went backwards by 6%. A similar situation applies in Townsville and we likewise went backwards by 6%.
Looking at other seats we contested with FF, the results are more encouraging.
d
More encouraging in most of the seats we contested with FF in fact.
The other interesting point about the FF vote is that it was down to quite risible proportions (less than 3 per cent) in Tablelands, a seat which has a fairly similar demographic to those rural and regional seats where FF polled well. The obvious explanation is that in Tablelands the sitting One Nation MP (Rosa Lee Long) has cornered the market on the extreme conservative vote which was in play for Family First in other rural/regional seats.
It was a never a fair fight in the media. Where was the overview of Beattie’s time in power? Protecting parliamentary paedophiles’ pensions, branch stacking/electoral fraud, record tree clearing, out of control development without infrastructure and so on.
Springborg won Friday night’s debate fair and square.
By the way, has anybody else looked into “The Queensland Media Club” and its backers? or Beattie’s top ten political donors?
http://www.queenslandmediaclub.com.au/qmc/
Further update: Andrew Bartlett looks at the campaign’s implications for the Democrats’ chances in Queensland federally, and Tim Dunlop makes an observation about The Borg I hadn’t seen made before now.
Hmmm….so the One Nation voters came home to Labor eh? That’s not the conventional line we’re constantly fed about Pauline voters. Is that the secret of State Labor govts? They’re better conservatives than the conservatives?
It’s been evident to any informed observer of Queensland politics since the 2001 state election, obs. And, yes, probably. But Beattie doesn’t always let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. His tactic is reform around the edges while maintaining a populist/conservative public face.
>>The Greens shouldn’t get too ecstatic about the strength of their vote. Labor strategists I spoke to last night agreed with my proposition that the Green vote was in large part a protest vote against the Coalition as well as Labor. This is borne out by the results from seats like Sandgate where Family First ran as well. The Opposition were so dreadful that many swinging and conservative voters tired of Beattie voted Green in despair.
As a fairly consistent Greens voter, 2nd pref. Labor (tho I have a soft spot for Anna Bligh of State Labor, Andrew Bartlett et al in the Dems, Lindsay Tanner, Julia Gillard & a few others in Fed Labor)I find it hard to believe that hordes of Conservatives voted Green. I’ve got plenty of staunchly Green mates & certainly some of them have pseudo-conservative ideas & certainly the Greens benefitted from the anti-dam campaigns & Bob Brown’s appropriate comments on Super increases etc….but i have to question, is it so hard to believe that areas such as Browns Plains could contain Green Progressives?…as a case in point, my brother-in-law lives out that way…around his property he’s strict about only planting indigineous species, deeply cares for animals & is Left-thinking…i’m positive he would’ve voted Green then Labor.
Isn’t this a case of painting people from certain communities w/ the same brush.
Imho, this state Green vote bides well for them in the Fed election, particularly the Senate. As the evidence of Global Warming builds, the more people will turn to those who have offered remedies/answers for many years on a consistent basis.
nasking, there’s an ever present danger of over-stating these things. I pointed out in response to the discussion of IR that I was stating that it was a factor. Neither the assertion that it was what the election was all about or that it was irrelevant is remotely valid. The truth - as disclosed in our research - is that it was one factor a significant number of voters were concerned about and tended to hold some in the Labor camp who would otherwise not have stayed with Beattie, and attracted some swinging voters to Labor. The ALP wouldn’t have bothered making ads about it if they weren’t getting the same from their research - and the Coalition wouldn’t have been promising to maintain state awards for public sector employees if they hadn’t also picked it up in their research.
Similarly, with the Greens, I said part of their vote was accounted for by protest votes by conservative and swinging voters. Doing a bit of polling also makes you much more aware of how unsafe making assumptions about how people you know or you come across will vote.
I don’t ascribe much of the Green vote to this factor, but then it didn’t rise by much. I don’t know why - as in the discussion before and after the Federal election by Bob Brown and others as much as the media - why Greens are seemingly so concerned about talking up their % of the vote.
>>I don’t know why - as in the discussion before and after the Federal election by Bob Brown and others as much as the media - why Greens are seemingly so concerned about talking up their % of the vote.
Probably for similar reasons to those in Labor…:)
As I’ve stated on other sites, I’m sure that quite a few voters were equally thinking about job security & fear of IR reform…& consequently motivated to stay w/ Labor…so we agree there. That bides well for Fed Labor, particularly in the Reps.
A perfect storm of ‘talking points’ for Labor & Greens is building up…tho i’m sure Labor is doin’ the Clinton-like triangulation bit to gain moderates from the Right side of politics, but in doing so it must be careful not to alienate the Progs/Greens so they decide to stay home w/ the sense that they’re gonna get the Coalition by another name. Just a thought.
Sounds about right to me!
IR was a minor issue in the background, that I suspect influences some seats more than others. I recommend taking a close look at Fitzroy…
My reflections on the state election.
When I vote for the Greens (which I didn’t in this election, because I don’t live in Queensland, but I’m making a general point) I don’t do so in protest about anything. I am voting for the Greens. Just as when I used to vote for the Labor party it was not a protest against the Liberals, it was a vote for the Labor party. I do not cast my vote ‘in despair’.
Liz Cunningham in Gladstone is attributing WorkChoices as the reason for the strong Labor vote which has taken her down to the wire.
ThirdCat, thanks for that. Once again, I am not saying that people don’t vote for the Greens out of conviction. Just that one component of their vote is a protest vote. That’s not meant to be a partisan observation or any reflection on the Greens for whom I have respect. It’s a psephological or sociological fact.
There’s a comment at The Poll Bludger on exhausted Greens votes vs. Greens votes preferencing to Labor based on scrutineering of votes in booths in more conservative and ALP areas which agrees with what I was hearing from people who’d been either scrutineering themselves or talking to scrutineers and booth captains on the night:
http://www.pollbludger.com/395#comment-2991
I know. I just get a bit touchy about it. And the lingering debates from the family BBQ at the weekend don’t help.
Fair enough ThirdCat!
Stuart, I’ve added your post to the links - interesting comments on individual seats.
Over at Polemica, Guy looks at the implications of Team Beattie’s win for other Labor governments.
Last Update: I’m putting up the longer version of this post (minus the links) which appeared in today’s Crikey over the fold.
>>Last Update: I’m putting up the longer version of this post (minus the links) which appeared in today’s Crikey over the fold.
Thanx for the link Mark. It’s possible that Family First didn’t run against the Greens in some areas because the polls &/or demographics told them it was pointless. Certainly some Greens’ votes were ‘protest votes’…but you have to remember that many Greens were annoyed w/ the Beattie Government’s problematic decisions regarding Daisy Hill & Koalas & a certain situation involving dams & another relating to Woolworths (if my memory serves me right)& Beattie’s stand on Coal-driven power plants & lack of interest in ‘emmissions trading’, justification of using ’sniffer dogs’…to name few problems.
Before I really thought it thru, did some research & got feedback from family & friends, I was quite annoyed w/ the State Government (and told them so in an email at one point) over certain environmental issues as stated above & was considering ‘exhausting’ my vote…but I eventually weighed the negatives up against some of Labor’s environmental positives (ban on tree clearing, not perfect but a start) combined w/ strides in education policy & the stand on IR reforms/Corporations Law…& my belief that an element of the hospital problem was orchestrated by the Howard Govt via restricted quotas of Doctor trainees etc…BUT at times it was a line ball thing.
Tho I might add that the sense the Nation is halting its move Right, the pendulum gradually swinging back to the Center left me w/ the sense the Beattie Government would be most likely to swing w/ it…whilst the Nats & Libs would cut severely into the education budget & assist Howard on IR reforms.
FF I think were caught with their pants down by the early election. And it was totally insane of the Coalition to refuse to talk preferences with them. And for the Nats to run a “just vote One” strategy for that matter.
I’ve no doubt, FWIW, that a lot of the Labor votes from last time that went to the Greens this time were precisely protests on the sorts of issues that you point to on dams, coal, water, etc - all matters on which I agree more with the Greens’ position and share that disgust - despite the fact that I went off and voted Labor. But that’s where it gets tricky to sort these things out - if a Labor voter votes Green because they’re annoyed at Labor’s record on the environment, does that make it a Labor protest vote or a “genuine” Green vote?
I’ve also no doubt that the swinging or conservative voter voting “just one Green” as a protest against the incompetence of the Opposition and Beattie alike (but driven more by the first factor) was a real phenomenon - though not a huge one.
I also think the tide of the right is receding.
It wasn’t much remarked on but the crazy reversal of the Libs’ stance on tree-clearing to agreeing with the Nats during the campaign might have also sent some Liberal voters into the Green fold.
>>if a Labor voter votes Green because they’re annoyed at Labor’s record on the environment, does that make it a Labor protest vote or a “genuine� Green vote?
indeed, it demonstrates the complexities behind voting & why Political Parties can put themselves into ‘death spins’ on occasion…as was I believe, the case w/ Beazley led Labor & the ‘Tampa’ situation in 2001. Independant Peter Andren
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=667
demonstrated that if you take a principled & visionary approach, you can take the people w/ you. I’m worried that strategies such as ‘triangulation’ can lead to that descent into the maelstrom for a Party, ensuring they feel the need to compromise themselves into a position that they can’t extricate themselves from, & consequently taking a road that leads to climate disaster & so on.
When Beazley first decided to support an expansion of uranium mining I decided to take a pragmatic, so called ‘common-sense’ view of it & let it be known that it was appropriate when one looked at the needs of China & India (if we didn’t help them create nuclear energy considering their size, then no way could they bring down CO2 levels…& perhaps the ‘awakened Dragon’ would feel the need to come & get it)…but I regret that decision. Ian Lowe, Anthony Albanese & others have shifted my POV…the watchdogs are too weak, the possibility for uranium being used for terrorism & missiles is too great. Not to mention the use of CO2 during the construction, life & decommissioning process of a nuclear plant.
Regarding Family First. I certainly think the Greens, Dems & Fed Labor can learn a bit about door knocking & getting down & dirty w/ the people. My State Labor member has learnt that lesson. Last Federal election tho there were religious organisations swarming thru our neighbourhood…but nary a Green or Laborite candidate to be seen. I emailed the local Fed Labor candidate but didn’t receive a reply. Over the phone the Greens were fairly blase about it. It was almost as if they didn’t expect to win…no passion whatsoever…that becomes quite evident to voters. Not sure if that was the case elsewhere.
Truly, it’s a mystery why a small party would want to present themselves as getting an increasing share of the vote. Come on Mark, do you really have no idea why the Greens prefer the ‘half-full’ interpretation over the ‘half-empty’?
Do you think the Greens would perform better if they expected to win? And what do you think we should have done in response to God’s Army of Doorknockers?
Historically, there is a sense in which the very existence of the Greens is the result of annoyance with Labor’s record on the environment and other issues:
* The Tasmanian Labor Government’s flooding of Lake Pedder in the 1970s sparked the formation of the United Tasmania Group, the world’s first Green Party.
* The Tasmanian Labor Government’s decision to proceed with the Gordon-Below-Franklin Dam (rather than the much less destructive Gordon-Above-Olga Dam) sparked the national anti-dam mobilisation which first brought Bob Brown to national prominence and gave great impetus to pro-environmental electoral politics.
* The Hawke government’s support for uranium mining and for US military bases in Australia triggered the formation of the Nuclear Disarmament Party (a significant precursor of the Greens) and provoked a range of efforts by people in the broad left, and the environmental, peace and other social movements, to form new left-libertarian and green political parties.
* In the late 1980s the crystallisation of these efforts into a national Green party was temporarily delayed by the success of the Federal Labor government in maintaining a mutually beneficial alliance with the peak environmental organisations, which for a time were at the centre of environmental electoral politics in Australia. The breakdown of this relationship in the early 1990s occurred in parallel with the establishment and consolidation of the Australian Greens.
* The boost in the Green vote in the last two Federal elections and the associated growth in Greens membership owe much to Labor’s weak stance on asylum seekers and on various democratic and social justice issues at risk in the “war on terror”.
Bear in mind also that the main international exemplars of Green Politics are the German Greens, whose formation was in large measure in response to dissatisfaction with the policies of West German Social Democratic governments in the 1970s.
I was trying to be ironic, Darryl.
Well, that makes sense. Clearly I need to put the ironiometer in for recalibration!
d
Many people I know vote Greens in part because they believe they’re the only principled party. But I always like to use my mother as a yardstick of conservative thought. She, a lifetime Liberal supporter and onetime Liberal member, voted Greens at the last Qld election, because of her disgust with both major parties. A protest vote. She, like some, saw The Greens as the only real opposition.
On the Greens I have a philosophical leaning towards them but I have little patience with the way they often talk outside their expertise, like Ailsa Keto, a rainforest expert, telling the graduates at Gatton that farming in generally should cease and we should return the land to ‘nature’. My Green vote was a protest against both major parties and specifics like the Mary R dam.
nasking, if you want another issue, Beattie has said that restrictions on GM crops are “just silly”. Luckily we don’t grow canola in Qld.
Aila Keto is not and has not been a member of the Greens. She has a reputation for being far and away the most Labor-aligned figure in the Queensland environment movement.
Paul, maybe there’s a similar issue here in the sense that the Greens are closely associated with a social movement (in this case the environmental movement) just as Labor are closely associated with the labour movement (remembering that only a minority of unions are affiliated and some union leaders are not party members) - so statements by prominent people in the social movement are taken as representative of the party’s views.
>>Bear in mind also that the main international exemplars of Green Politics are the German Greens, whose formation was in large measure in response to dissatisfaction with the policies of West German Social Democratic governments in the 1970s.
It’s amazing what the Green movement in Germany achieved. Communities now w/ energy independence.
Speaking of German environmentalists…another reason I turned away from uranium mining were Hermann Scheer’s comments:
“Australia, more than any other nation, stands to reap huge profits from a global nuclear power boom, says a visiting German expert, Dr Hermann Scheer. He says Australia is under intense pressure to expand uranium mining, including within sensitive environments such as Kakadu National Park.”…continues on:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/its-a-waste/2006/03/10/1141701698694.html
Like Ian Lowe, this guy is no slouch:
http://www.hermann-scheer.de/cv.php
Ya know, I’m sure that the Fed Govt’s interest & desire to help over the tragic, despicable acts of pedophilia & domestic abuse & petrol sniffing epidemic that are reportedly occurring in the Northern Territory, is primarily out of goodwill. But i’ve also wondered if this could be part of a ploy to divest Indigenous owners of land ownership/control in order to grab land for mining purposes & to shift them into areas such as Casinos. It’s been done before overseas. Just a thought. Maybe I’m getting too cynical these days.
>>Do you think the Greens would perform better if they expected to win? And what do you think we should have done in response to God’s Army of Doorknockers?
Well, considering how crucial that election turned out to be, the Government winning the Senate & all, I expected more urgency. Still, it might have just been the people I spoke to. I was worried about the Libs ‘How to Vote Cards’ placed in mailboxes that looked similar to the Greens & were quoting BS about their drug policy…& warned them about the ‘horde of door knockers’ espousing anti-Green, good ole Christian values.
I think the Greens & Fed Labor need to do mail box drops, stand in malls & handout more info, put a few signs in home yards…in areas where Howard battlers are apt to live. My area is a classic case…a vast area that runs the gambit from extremely white aussie, upwardly mobile, tradespeople to culturally diverse neighbourhoods, primarily those from less than rich economic backgrounds but definitely rich in culture but also ‘family first & religiously inclined, w/ many working class & first home buyers & single Moms dependant on the Government to help partially support the family (Peter Costello has certainly hooked into this group) & then extends to rural pockets & a large town that primarily look to the National Party for answers…but the tide is shifting due to access to Brisbane & different pursuits & their kids are receiving alternative views in schools. If the Greens & Labor can get the ‘Global Warming’ & IR reforms messages out to many of these people - combined w/ exposing the fibs that Howard tells on interest rates, the War on Terrorism, job security & tax reform, I reckon many can be won over. Also demonstrate how religions are being pitted against each other & show the consequences as seen in the War etc…could also help grab back a few of those who went Family First.
>>Paul, maybe there’s a similar issue here in the sense that the Greens are closely associated with a social movement (in this case the environmental movement) just as Labor are closely associated with the labour movement…
Always a problem for Labor as demonstrated by Latham’s late ‘forest protection policy’ that upset Tasmanian forestry unions (way too close to Gunns) & gave Howard an opening. I wrote to Latham & others during that bad hurricane season in the US & said ‘go now’ w/ your enviro policy (but hey, i’m just a nobody/back seat driver emailing from home & he woulda got plenty of expert advice) whilst the issue is hot. This would’ve given time for compromises to be made, for the policy to sink in w/ a public awestruck by the constant barrage of hurricanes on TV etc. Sigh. Just a thought.
Thanks for that info on Aila Keto, Paul. What happened was that the U of Q for reasons best known to themselves bestowed on her an honorary doctorate which was presented at the degree ceremony for agriculture students at Gatton. In her acceptance speech she said that we had to think about giving up farming. She wasn’t particularising the marginal areas.
The son of a National Party MP was among the graduates. The MP had threatened to walk out if she said anything offensive and it is believed that he would have if his wife hadn’t kept his foot nailed to the floor. I’m told that if he’d gone there would have been a mass walkout.
A couple of years ago I was out where I’d grown up and I was told there that Keto metaphorically had an office next to the premier’s and effectively signed off on everything that affected the land.
To the bushies they are all coloured green and Beattie is seen as chasing Green votes. I chose her as the first that came to mind.
At various times I’ve had the opportunity of voting for Drew Hutton at various levels of government and have always declined because he was apt to make statements which he had not adequately researched.
Brian, how did Keto suggest people produce food?
That, Sacha, is not recorded.
An open letter to supporters of Aboriginal Australia
It is with great sadness that I write this message which in short is a call to boycott the Qld. Greens in the next federal election and support Andrew Bartlett.
In the recent state election, at a crucial time for Aboriginal Queensland, the Greens did not issue any media statements or campaign on Aboriginal issues. As a direct result of there being no political support for Aboriginal Australia (beyond the socialist alliance who got 2%) Beattie has correctly read the situation that Aboriginal Australia has no mainstream support and is therefore a non-priority.
Beattie has announced in his new cabinet the abolition of an indigenous portfolio and the mainstreaming of Aboriginal services. Beattie has managed to slip this major change in Aboriginal affairs through without even a whimper of opposition, unlike John Howard who has had to fight for exactly the same policies.
The Greens had a good policy for the state election ( http://qld.greens.org.au/policies/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people ). As the author of this policy, I tend to agree with it. But a policy is just meaningless text if it is not used in a campaign.
In the lead up to the federal election I urge voters to consider the Qld. Greens silence on Aboriginal affairs and compare it to Andrew Bartlett’s track record of consistently raising the issues including initiating the senate inquiry into stolen wages.
hoping for justice one day,
John Tracey
http://www.kalkadoon.org