The morning after polling day in the Victorian State election, Jason Koutsoukis in the Sunday Age offered this sage analysis of the Green’s performance in the election:
But there was one big loser in the federal arena last night and that was Greens leader Senator Bob Brown, whose overblown rhetoric about the Greens stealing a clutch of seats came to little. The Greens’ vote went backwards yesterday – a major embarrassment for Brown, who put his heart and soul into the Greens campaign.
The real question now is just how influential will the Greens be in next year’s federal election?
They were a flop in 2004, they were a flop yesterday and all indications are that the Greens will flop again at the 2006 (sic) federal election.
Now that counting has concluded, the full extent of the Greens’ flop in Victoria is clear.
The Greens’ primary vote in the Lower House “went backward” from 9.73% in 2002 to 10.04% in 2006. In the Upper House it may or may not have actually “went backward” from 10.87% in 2002, because the VEC site is not currently displaying aggregate votes for the Upper House, but the big story is that the Greens have now won 3 out of 40 seats after the recount in Western Metropolitan, and have the balance of power in the Upper House.
As the Greens’ flop in 2004 involved increasing their primary vote by 40% and doubling their Senate representation, and as their flop in Victoria in 2006 entailed winning the balance of power, many Greens will no doubt be earnestly hoping that Jason Koutsoukis is right about next year’s Federal election.
But seriously, it is now a well-established psephological fact that the Greens do very well out of polling day absent votes. Primarily for this reason, the Greens’ vote in Federal and State elections improves as the count progresses in the weeks after polling day. The flip side of this is that the Greens’ vote on election night will invariably understate their eventual vote. As I wrote at the Poll Bludger:
The problem for the Greens is that most media commentary on how well or badly a given party may have done is based on the election night figures – as indeed are many of the media and popular myths about who did well or badly in the election, and why. By the time the results are finalised (some weeks later) the media has largely lost interest, and only professional political wonks take an interest in the election studies (such as the Australian Election/Referendum Studies) which come out some months later.
Thus, we have seen a pattern of media commentary about Green “flops� in recent Federal and State elections, based on election night figures, which was not subsequently corrected when final results showed that the Greens had done reasonably well. For example:
* The claims on the Monday after the 2004 Federal election that the Greens had fallen 250,000 votes short of Bob Browns prediction of “one million votes�, which was not corrected when the Green vote subsequently rose to 920,000 in later counting.
* The claims about the Greens losing one and possibly two of their four seats in the most recent Tasmanian election based on election night figures, which provided the evidentiary basis for much gloating commentary in the Murdoch press which was not recanted when the Greens retained all four seats in the final count [...]
* One lazy hack in the Australian (I forget who) writing in an op-ed piece that the Greens had not increased their Senate representation in the 2004 election, when they had doubled it from 2 to 4.
How to overcome the effect of a depressed election night result on media myth-making about Green “flops” is a non-trivial issue for the Greens’ media maestro Ben Oquist and Greens spokespersons in general to think about.
One group of people who will be like a cat with the cream over the Upper House result (although they won’t be saying so publicly) are the ALP Left in Victoria. Not only did they hold all their inner-Melbourne seats which were under siege by the Greens, they now have an Upper House in which the numbers will enable them to get up more of their agenda than they would be able to if Labor either had a majority in its own right, or could secure a majority by negotiating with a religious right microparty. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union will no doubt be pleased to see its former officials Gayle Tierney (an old mate of mine) and Sue Pennicuik (subject of much flattering comment in my Ph.D. thesis over her work as the union’s Environment Officer) win seats for Labor and the Greens respectively.
The bottom line is that the will of the people has (eventually and fortuitously) prevailed. A majority of Victorians voted for parties of the democratic left (i.e. Labor and the Greens) in the Upper House, but a majority did not vote for any one party of the democratic left. The result (a combined democratic left majority of seats of Labor and Greens, but not a majority of seats for either one of these parties) is what the people wanted – as well as pleasing me greatly. Let’s now hope the rationalists in both the Labor Left and the Greens will be able to come to the fore and cooperate in bringing democratic reform, social justice, sustainability, women’s control of their bodies, equal rights for same-sex couples and lots of other good things to the people of Victoria.
I collected a few blisters doing letterboxing for Greg Barber, who has gained an upper house seat in North Metro for the Greens. Nice to see it was all worth it. This outcome is brilliant.
Paul is correct- the Labor Left should be pleased with the result, since by themselves they are as useless as a bull’s tit. We’ve seen almost nothing in the way of social reforms under the Bracks Government.
Tee hee, I’m sure there is a bull’s tit out there right now saying “don’t insult me by comparing me to the Labor Left”. Well, at least they know how to say, “comrade”, which gives them a warm fuzzy feeling if nothing else.
Is this final? Finally. Or can we expect a new upper house composition next week.
ALP 19
LIB 15
DLP 1
GRN 3
NAT 2
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ALP/Green 22
LIB/NAT/DLP 18
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Pro-Gambling 19
AntiGambling 21
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What’s the gambling issue, WBB? Haven’t really kept abreast of it. Are they agitating to cram it back in the casino.
Yays if so. Fucking depressing when your pub turns into a pension laundry.
Excellent excellent result with Colleen Hartland getting up in Western Metro upper house – The Greens are mainstream now in Victoria and the DLP Premier Bracks had best be reverentail in his work with greg, Sue and Colleen
I wondered how Koutsoukis came to the conclusion that the votes went down. I watched the thing on telly (Oh! Antony Green! WHERE is your accent from?), and the figures didn’t attest to Koutsoukis’s claims. As I understand it, the figures stayed exactly the same state-wide, but tended to decline in rural seats and increase in city seats…
Yes, I do hope the Greens keep flopping like this. Balance of power – what a bummer. Better luck next time!
Interesting psepho tidbits from Paul. Green voters absent on polling day – any theories?
Too stoned? Undermining family unit thru nomadism? On hols in latteland? Hugging old growth trees in regions? In Toorak stitching ‘pref deal’ with Libs?
/ loop anti-Green slur
Do note that the ALP can get legislation passed without the Greens support by going to the Nationals.
Yes, or the Libs for that matter.
But as noted, its a golden opportunity for the ALP left to do business.
I tend to think the “association with Greens = electoral negative for majors” may already be history, and (if relations are handled sensibly, as I hope they would be), could be a scare tactic that backfires on the Right electorally.
Lefty E, sooner or later the political sociologists need to do some empirical research on who votes Green, why they vote Green, and how their overall education level, age distribution, income level, occupational mix, lifestyle, etc., compare to that of voters for other parties. This would answer your question.
My hunch is that there could be a combination of: (a) Greens voters being more “information rich” about the political system and therefore knowing that you can vote in other ways than just turning up at your local booth on the day; (b) Green voters being younger on average (and perhaps also being more affluent on average) and therefore more likely to be mobile on weekends. But this is pub sociology, and is no substitute for empirical research.
Yes, sensible guesses Paul. With the upper house (if the “finish strongly” phenomena is also true there) it would fall under a) again – highest proportion of BTL voters of any party.
Which, I presume, would be counted more slowly.
He’s Welsh, I think.
In concluding, you state “…The result (a combined democratic left majority of seats of Labor and Greens, but not a majority of seats for either one of these parties) is what the people wanted – as well as pleasing me greatly…”
What a lot of tripe, you may be pleased, but I wonder how an opportunity for real reform has been squandered and the people could ber happy with that. Real reforms occur with mandates and with the current balance of numbers, all we’ll have is half arsed compromises.
Oh, and don’t pass your opinions as populist, if they really where, don’t you think as a collective, the greens would have been streets ahead of where they are
Who needs psephos when you’ve got Saint Bob
I was under the impression that the Green vote went up because of the high mobility factor with students and young urban professionals – tending for them to be absent of their electorate when the election is called – or even to have moved, and not up-dated their enrollment.
I wonder what effect the new laws will have on the Greens absentee vote. Any ideas Paul?
Which new laws are we talking about?
The new federal enrolment laws, meaning that you only have 8 hours to enrol or update from the moment Chairman John takes the drive up Adelaide Avenue to Yarralumla. From here on in, Greenies, I’d suggest staying off the green and restricting your outings to rides up and down the Main Yarra Trail, lest Bonsai pulls a swifty.
As for the raise in the Green vote once provisional votes (absentees, postals, etc.) are intorduced, the ‘weekend hiker’ factor might be in play – although the number of times I’ve heard Saint Bob and Doctor Rob (di Natale) play that mantra, I’m thinking I’m starting to believe their bollocks a tad too much. (Although not enough to please our favourite Albion Street hack – I await the flaming in earnest!)