From today’s Crikey email:
Campbell Newman has won a resoundingly convincing victory in the Brisbane City Council election, taking over 60% of the primary vote, topping 50% in 24 of the 26 wards, and sweeping the Liberals into what looks like being a 16-10 Council majority in the wards on his coat tails with a swing against Labor city-wide of 5.5%.
Joe Hockey was first out of the starting blocks to make the predictable claim that Newman’s victory indicated a Liberal revival. As former Liberal Vice-President and election analyst Graham Young pithily put it, this is “baloney”.
Anyone actually paying attention to the campaign would know that the Liberal brand was conspicuous only by its absence from Newman’s campaign material, with his Councillors and candidates badged as the “Can-Do team”. Newman took every possible opportunity to express disinterest in party politics, and to claim that his only concern was the people of Brisbane.
Anyone looking for a party moral from the results might consider that the two wards where Labor got a swing were Morningside – smack in the heart of Kevin territory with a hard working local Councillor – and Wynnum Manly where defeated former Bonner MP Ross Vasta copped a resounding rejection to add to his defeat in the federal election. You could then travel down to the Gold Coast, where the Libs’ attempt to move into Australia’s second largest Council crashed and burned.
Campbell Newman won for three reasons – he at least appeared to be addressing Brisbane’s dire transport woes, on personality and because Labor ran an appalling campaign.
Labor effectively conceded the mayoralty in advance, with candidate Greg Rowell failing to articulate a compelling alternative vision for the city. Some Labor sources are pointing the finger at the party’s failure to disengage itself from Newman’s mortal embrace and leave Civic Cabinet. Although select Councillors continued to enjoy Ministerial style pay packets and power while cohabiting with Campbell, their majority in Civic Cabinet as well as Council meant there was little they could effectively criticise him on, having agreed to most of his initiatives.
The Labor campaign team were slow to pick the swing against the incumbents in the wards, and that’s exemplified by the biggest swing of all – 15% - almost sweeping State Secretary Milton Dick away in his bid to win what was the ultra safe ward of Richlands. The reputation of the Peel Street machine will be sorely dented, although some note that recent state and federal campaigns had been effectively outsourced to Hawker Britton. This result will – rightly – provoke a lot of soul searching in Labor ranks.
The result also showed demographic change working against The Greens, perhaps paradoxically. They liked their chances in three inner city wards – The Gabba, Toowong and Central. Although they polled over 20% of the vote in the first two, the Libs topped the poll convincingly in Toowong and Central, and almost came first in The Gabba. A combination of gentrification and Newman’s coat tails relegated the Greens to third place, and counted them out of contention. But Greens Mayoral candidate Jo-Anne Bragg also went backwards – a disappointing result where there wasn’t much daylight between the major parties in policy terms.
Labor’s high profile Deputy Mayor, David Hinchliffe, nearly lost Central, and it will be interesting to see whether his leadership comes under pressure. But Labor will be watching closely to see if the Libs actually start governing like Liberals. Early in Newman’s first term, a consultant’s report commissioned by him recommended the privatisation of just about everything and staff cuts (Council employs over 7000 workers). He ran a mile.
With an inexperienced team and the loss of the restraining impact of a Labor majority, Newman will now have a tough job ahead and no excuses for not delivering. The next term will show whether Brisbane is still a natural Labor city. In another paradox, the Libs will have to go easy on ideology and partisanship to secure that result.
Elsewhere: More commentary on the result at John Quiggin, Andrew Bartlett and Public Polity.
Crashed and burned? What an understatement for the Libs on the Gold Coast. They did not win a single division despite contesting them all. In my division they came last of three candidates (46%, 28%, 25%). An adjoining division where there were two candidates the Libs went down 70% - 30%.
The scary part about all this though is that Tom Tate might still get up as Mayor despite Ron Clarke getting 16,000 votes more than him. Tate (2nd) and Moelhoek (3rd) each have about 52,000 votes and when the preferences flow…nothing is certain right now.
I think Shayne Sutton’s a potential leader for the decimated ALP. She got a swing towards her, she works hard, is in a fairly safe Labor-voting seat and is one of the more progressive members of the ALP caucus.
It is worth mentioning that all three parties contesting the BCC issued “Just Vote 1″ HTV cards across all wards. I did my comradely duty and voted 1 Green 2 Labor as always. However it looks like the Just Vote One factor has cost Labor at least one and possibly two wards.
For the Liberals to be doing so much better in Brisbane than the Gold Coast is inexplicable if one proceeds from the assumption that the weekend’s election results reflect general levels of political party support in the two cities rather that sui generis factors.
As a local who berated Labor for not putting up more of a fight during the federal election, I must say that the Gold Coast debacle was particularly pleasant to witness.
The Libs spent an absolute fortune pumping out the “Team Tate” propaganda down here, and there were hundreds of them out on the streets for weeks. I had to fight my way through a mob of them just to vote on Saturday!
And for what? They put up candidates in all 14 Divisions and not one of them came close to winning. It’s a solid repudiation of party politics at local level, and I doubt it will be repeated any time soon.
I’d like to know how much the Liberals’ loss cost the party.
When Jim Soorley surprisingly won the Brisbane mayoralty a few weeks ago after Labor’s 1996 debacle, where the ALP was savaged in Brisbane, exactly the same was said about this showed how Labor could re-engage with the voters, blah blah blah.
I doubt that, Spiros, because Jim Soorley won the Brisbane mayoralty in 1991. He was re-elected in 1994, 1997 and 2000.
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Paul, the optional preferential voting system means the Greens will generally “steal” votes from the ALP while there is no such party to split the right wing vote. With Greens preferences only just buoying Hinchliffe in Central (and a few other candidates where the margin is razor thin) the ALP might want to start looking at modifying Queensland’s electoral systems to switch to compulsory preferential voting. First Past the Post (which is what we’ve just about got) is going to potentially keep the ALP out of power where the Greens run strong candidates such as Gabba, Central and Toowong.
It’s not like there’s a whopping field of candidates each BCC election to make preferencing a labourious task. By all rights, Hinchliffe and Boccabella’s combined vote should put him way ahead of Vicki Howard but the “Just Vote 1″ tactic is working against them in the three-way races.
The easiest solution is compulsory preferencing, my preferred solution is open list PR (with STV) in wards returning between four and six councillors.
I think that Joe Hockey is onto something here, all the Libs need to do to be successful like Campbell is completely ignore any connection to the party. Brilliant!
Steve D, I don’t think Tate can win the mayorship unless something rather… “strange” happens with the postal votes. There have been a few strange things already reported, mind you.
The very low turnout (around 70%) was also interesting. Post-(federal)-election fatigue, perhaps?
Well, I’m not sure that happened in Central, Sam. The Greens’ vote was basically unchanged, and the decline in Hinchliffe’s vote transfers straight to the Liberal pile.
Whether or not in the absence of The Greens, Boccabella’s vote would have gone to Hinchliffe is an unknown. What’s more important for The Greens, I think, is they seem to have reached a ceiling beyond which it’s evidently very difficult indeed to expand. At best, The Greens were static, and more realistically, when you take into account the fact that some of Drew Hutton’s vote came in areas formerly in East Brisbane where there hadn’t been a candidate before, you could reasonably argue that the party went slightly backwards - which is a clear truth in terms of the Mayoral vote. It’s not just Labor who will need to do some hard thinking in light of these results.
That’s doubtful. The ALP wasn’t well positioned to win Toowong under any circumstances, and its problem in The Gabba and Central was the strength of the Liberal vote. If you look at it objectively, The Greens, despite polling over 20% in each ward, became more or less irrelevant to the outcome because the Libs did so well.
ABC figures for Central here:
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The ALP’s expectations for Hinchliffe’s primary a few weeks ago were 45% and maybe a bit higher. It was Campbell’s coat tails that almost sunk him - and the aforesaid pathetic Labor campaign.
Spiros:
Kim:
To clarify, Soorley surprisingly won in 1991. His win in 1997 wasn’t surprising, but the magnitude of it was, and was a morale boost for Labor people in and around Brisbane who’d had a tough couple of tally nights during the previous couple of years.
That said, Hockey’s comments can be translated as “Brisbane City Council is the Taiwan of the Liberal Party from which the recapture of the mainland is only a matter of time.”
Yes, like the federal election a resurgent opposition caused stagnation in the Green vote rather than a search for a genuine alternative. Polarising elections tend to depress the minor party vote and that’s exactly what we’ve seen here. The Libs picked up a quarter of the Greens’ votes in some seats.
The Greens will struggle to build on the 20% results in these seats and it’ll either take another giant Labor cock-up and a swing away from the Liberals (the actual result of this will be people staying at home on election day) or a PR system in Brisbane. The ALP once talked about a trial of PR for local government but Beattie’s amalgamations put that to rest.
Well, I think The Greens need to think more about how they can build their vote than changing the voting system, Sam, because the realistic chances of the latter are zip.
The Greens could run more exciting candidates, Sam. I like Drew Hutton, and I voted for him, but he’s not the best speaker in the world. I’ve heard him speak, and he waffles. Plus there may be voter fatigue involved with him being the Green candidate for Senate / Mayor / The Gabba / Town Dogcatcher / etc…
Heh. Haven’t we in NSW always said that Queenslanders simply inhabit a renegade province?
I dunno about this Mark. It’s anecdotal, but Anne Bocabella’s performance at Politics in the Pub last week was all about targeting Hinchliffe - it seemed like she, at least, thought that her job was to persuade disaffected lefties that Labor, and Hinchliffe in particular, were sell-outs. It may be that she had a specially-crafted message for that audience, but I doubt it.
“Just Vote 1″ is supposed to benefit Labor, or was when it was introduced. There has, apparently, been a high “exhaust” rate among Green votes, and there’s a lot of reasons to think, in Central, that these would have been more ALP than Liberal votes.
The moral of the story for mine is that Labor is right to say that Greens candidates torpedo Labor candidates in some wards. They’re wrong to think it’s the Greens’ fault that this happens - it’s theirs for not advancing any policy worth voting for.
Perhaps controversially, I think that the Greens’ policies, or what I heard of them, are laser-targeted Labor wedges. The light rail network is a good idea in some respects, but in my view it’s inner-city politics, and doesn’t address the huge appeal of tunnels &c. to those who can’t drive in, nor get on a bus in the morning, from Sunnybank or Goodna. This is the problem that sunk post-Soorley Labor: most of the effects of public transport initiatives took too long to percolate out beyonf Zone 2. LR is not, on its own, a city-wide transport solution (I know the arguments about it connecting with mass transit but…), but it’s a good way to boost your vote in Central, Toowong and the Gabba at Labor’s expense.
This isn’t necessarily a criticism - I think the Greens need to get tougher and smarter to bust through the “ceiling”, but I’m aware that suggesting this was in part tactical might draw fire from those who think the Greens are above politics.
That’s what I heard too, Jason, around the traps - but it seems to me it didn’t work as her vote didn’t improve on The Greens’ performance last time and all of the anti-Hinchliffe swing went to the Libs. So if there were any voters out there who were disaffected Laborites voting Green, it would seem that they were disaffected in 2004 as well! She doesn’t appear to have taken any votes off Hinchliffe at all, though the totals disguise churning each way - but that doesn’t really matter as what everyone is trying to do is improve their position, not just maintain it.
Mark, I know there’s bugger all chance of electoral reform happening. It’s tough to guess what’s more likely to happen, though. People like the sound of good public transport, walkable communities, reducing air pollution and saving bushland but at the end of the day they want someone who makes an effort to look like they’re getting things done by building big infrastructure projects. So what if the tunnel won’t work, it’s a big piece of concrete and so it’s got to have a chance!
Well, there, Sam, I think Jason makes a good point. The Greens could be focussing on city wide solutions for transport rather than trying to appeal largely to inner city Labor voters.
I”m just excited about Cairns! Go Val!
Mark, the Greens’ light rail plan is designed to bring line-haul public transport to the likes of Carindale, Capalaba, Kenmore, Moggil, Chermside, McDowall, Aspley and to convert buses to zones 4 and 5 to feeders for light and heavy rail. We also suggested rolling out new transit lanes on major suburban arterials. That’s fairly city-wide, no?
How much effort went into publicising that in, say, Aspley, as opposed to West End or New Farm, Sam? That’s the point I take Jason to be making as well.
Kim, we got it in the Quest newspaper for the area as well as the Brisbane Times and MX. The effort was made but as Mark has said, the media kind of gave up on covering the local government elections and the Greens struggle to get media even during the best of times.
Apart from the impact of the ‘Just Vote 1′ approach (i.e. heavy exhausting of preferences) on Hinchliffe (and Enoggera too, where Labor will probably lose as a result of this), another factor which seemed to be at play in Central is a very low voter turnout. This is currently at under 65% even after some postal votes have been added. Pre-polls have yet to be counted, but I’d be surprised if it went over 70%, which is quite low for ‘compulsory’ voting.
Whether the general lucklustre campaign means more people couldn’t be botherered voting (or even didn’t realise there was an election on) I don’t know, but it does seem the turnout was worse in Central and The Gabba than any other ward in Brisbane. I have no idea what the reason for this would be, but at a guess it would work normally against the incumbent.
The next worst turnout was in Toowong. Maybe someone can come up with a theory of higher Green votes correlating with lower voter turnout - perhaps all that targetting of Labor just makes Labor leaning voters dispirited and not want to vote at all, rather than change their vote to Green (I’m joking by the way).
At a rough glance of the ABC website, there does seem to be higher turnouts in the outer suburbs - perhaps there’s a huge pile of pre-polls for the highly mobile inner city types. Or maybe inner city types are just more likely to be slackarses. Probably best to wait until all the votes are before expounding further on this.
It would be interesting to know, that’s for sure, Andrew.
You do have to wonder about this “compulsory” voting for local elections, don’t you? A bit of a farce if they are not going to prosecute the 30% who did not vote in many areas. Many people would be surprised to know that there WAS a local election last week, and that they were expected to vote in it.
Sam at 25 - point taken. But how much effort went into door knocking and distributing leaflets or did The Greens concentrate all their human resources on inner city wards?
Kim, as a former Australian Green here in the UK, I must say that I’d be very suprised (and disappointed) if the Greens were doorknocking and leafletting outside of their winnable wards. It’s extremely hard for Greens to win in non PR elections and the only way of doing it is through targeted work (as we well know over here with fptp!).
Newmann does show that Liberals can win if they move to the centre, think Guliani and Bloomberg in the Democrat heartland of New York. This is his significance. Green voters are more motivated hence more likely to turn out hence lower turnout favours them.
Kim, Pippa’s right, a fledgling party like the Greens (at the Council level) must put all their resources into a winnable seat in order to get a foothold from which they can launch themselves into Brisbane at large. Norm Wyndham (McDowall’s Liberal Councillor) has an unassailable lead at the moment simply because of the demographics. We didn’t even run a candidate in McDowall (one of three wards we didn’t run) so fruitless is running there. The effort went into Central, Toowong and The Gabba because those wards were identified as the “Greenest” and hence most winnable.
I’d love for us to run a full suite of 27 candidates at each council election and put the effort into each and every ward but we don’t have the money or resources on account of not having any representation or powerful backers. It’s going to be bloody hard to get a Green up in a non-PR system, as Pippa points out, so our best bet is to concentrate on the most winnable seats and the federal Senate (Larissa Waters nearly got up last year).
I have to respectfully disagree with Pippa. I think that strategically the Greens must look at ways of developing our organisational presence and our vote in the suburbs and regional Australia. The last time anyone counted, these were the places where a majority of voters live, and it’s these people who the Greens need to engage with in order to advance the Green political project.
I also think it’s important that we develop an intellectually sound and politically principled understanding of the differences between ALP Right and ALP Left, and between Labor and Liberals, in order to inform our strategies and our differing relations with these forces. It’s worth reflecting on the extent to which this project is helped or hindered by the fact that those council wards and Federal and State seats which are most winnable for the Greens are also usually held by the ALP Left (and mostly by the left within the Left).
The other aspect to this, Paul and Sam, is that if you were putting more resources into suburban areas, then you’re building the ground for a Senate campaign that might actually win! Just sayin…
Don’t run Anne Boccabella types again! To be frank, she comes across as more of a Liberal in philosophy - just more consultation and a slower pace of development. Her anti-union schtick and parading of teh virtues of small business - not to mention the really nastily personal attacks on Grace Grace and David Hinchliffe - both of whom, whatever their political sins might be - are likeable people really did her no good. It made some sense in the by-election but none whatsoever in the Council election where there was a Liberal candidate - who topped the poll nicely in the end. She certainly wasn’t the right person and didn’t have the right strategy to hoover up any dissilusioned leftie vote. In fact, I know a few people who might have been inclined to vote Green but voted Labor after encountering her campaign!
Wasn’t surprised in the slightest that the Green vote didn’t move in Central.
Paul, the key to Green political success will be to build ties with suburban communities, community groups, charities, church groups, minority organisations, small business groups (chambers of commerce) etc. and bring them into the idea that the Greens are a community-oriented group rather than big business or union oriented and that they can have more input in the Greens than just as a lobby group to a disinterested two-party system.
Kim, I can’t speak for Anne but from what I know of her she’s not opposed to unions per se but of the influence the unions have in putting up candidates through factional deals. It’s anti-democratic, honestly.
Sam, well, that might be her “official position” but it was hardly clear from the way she went after Grace Grace. It was tied up with lots of blah about how superior a person she was because she’d enterprisingly started her own business… etc. And she was using the exact same attack lines the Libs were then using in the federal campaign about “union bosses”. It was pretty revolting.
I think it was an attempt to win the Liberal voters over rather than having them stay at home (which they did for the most part). I agree with you, though, that it’s not fair to denigrate unions and their members.
Anne Boccabella does have a long-standing feud with David Hinchliffe over things like the Inner City Bypass and the removal of trees in the area covered by Central Ward. This probably boiled over into the campaign and made things personal where they shouldn’t necessarily have been personal.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a number of long term feuds, Sam! She basically came across as arrogant and prickly.
It’s more accurate to talk in terms of the influence union officials have, with scant regard for their members’ opinions and interests, under the current ALP structure - and also the fact that the unions might be better able to advocate for their members’ interests with greater independence from the ALP and its internal machinations.
Paul, I think you’re right but you’ll have a hard time convincing the union officials that it’s a good idea to disentangle themselves from the ALP machine. I’m mighty impressed with those unions who have managed to endorse non-ALP candidates such as the Firefighters’ union in Victoria endorsing Adam Bandt at the federal election.
Anyone endorsing Adam has their head screwed on right - I wasn’t aware the fireys had done that Sam. Nice one - especially as he was up against one of the only lefties standing in Victoria.
Adam Bandt is standing for Lord Mayor of Melbourne in an attempt to unseat John So.
Yeah, I did hear about that one. I reckon he’d be in with a shot, but it’d cost a pile and big biz would spend up plenty to keep it from happening.
Well, a lot of Labor supporters (and I dare say Labor members) would agree with that, Sam and Paul, but in the context of the by-election I think it was a hamfisted attempt by Boccabella to capitalise on the circumstances of Grace Grace’s preselection (which actually had bugger all to do with the influence of unions directly) and so appeared pretty cynical. The way she borrowed Liberal attack lines didn’t impress either, and in responding to Grace Grace’s statement that she was proud of her work as a union official (and good on her), Boccabella really veered off into some sort of spiel about how small business was morally superior.
Not a good look to get leftie votes, didn’t get Liberal votes, and generally she was just a poor candidate with a poor grasp of strategy and an attitude a mile high.
All I’m saying is that I hope she doesn’t represent a broader tendency within The Greens. If so, I’d be disturbed.
Paul is spot on about the strategic importance of ‘the suburbs’ to the Greens. We’re ‘demographically challenged’ in the suburbs in that the bulk of our members and volunteers live in the inner areas but I don’t believe it’s out of the question for us to double our federal vote in a lot of suburban booths. Onwards and upwards etc.
With respect to the BCC election, I’d like to make a couple of points. First, this was a city-wide campaign. We ran more candidates than ever before, more than double I think, contesting 23 out of 26 wards and with a number of candidates including Jo Bragg campaigning full-time for months. One of the drawback of the BCC is its size and the only way we have to make a city-wide impact is through the media, who just ignored most of what we did and often didn’t even show up to our events. We can discuss with hindsight whether or not our tactical decisions were the best ones, but the point is this was a citywide campaign and claims to the contrary are missing the forest for the trees.
Second, this election presented us with an outside chance of winning a seat on council. We made the decision last year to focus a lot of attention on Gabba, Central and Toowong judging that the public mood in those wards would be moving in our direction and we would have an opportunity to capitalise on discontent with the old parties’ consensus on development at all costs. Again, with hindsight we can see it didn’t quite work out that way, but getting a councillor elected was our number one goal. Electing a Green to the BCC would have totally changed the rules of the game for us and been the best possible foundation for further advancement.
This was a city-wide campaign, with very specific targets of the sort you always have with single member elections. It’s not a zero sum game and the fact we made tactical decisions about where to focus our meager resources doesn’t in any way mean we were neglecting the areas outside that focus.
d
On the question of union officials and the ALP, it shouldn’t be forgotten that there are many talented, principled and selfless union officials, some of whom have gone on to become very good Labor local councillors and MPs (and, indeed, Premiers and PMs). It’s necessary to make a distinction between the organisational issue of the undue and unaccountable influence of union officials in the present ALP structure, and the merits of individual union officials seeking to become ALP candidates and holders of public office.
On the question of Anne Boccabella, I wasn’t at the meeting in question but I’m prepared to take Kim’s word about it and to share her concern that such comments were made.
Sometimes it’s worth going along to these politics in the pubs things, Paul!
Darryl and Sam, I hope it’s clear that I’m trying to be constructive in my suggestions (and in my criticism). I completely see the point about limited resources, but a suburban strategy also isn’t a zero sum game in that a well run one could produce new activists and assist fundraising as well as new Greens voters.
The way forward for the Greens?
Firstly on whether the Greens attempt to appeal to Liberal voters, as Anne Boccabella clearly did in the state by election where no Liberal candidate ran. This strategy failed, no matter how right wing Anne’s rhetoric was, Liberals seemed to prefer the ALP, even a union bureacrat, to the Greens.
Last Saturday Drew Hutton in the Gabba got the highest ever vote for a Green in Qld. (please correct me if I am wrong). His increased vote came directly from the ALP. The Liberal vote increased so it seems there was little if any leakage from Liberal voters. (Does anyone yet know how Green preferences went in the Gabba or any other ward?)
Since the beginning of the Greens they have claimed to be a “third force” in Australian politics but it seems in reality they have become the emerging left wing force to replace a sold out, increasingly right wing ALP. As Anne Boccabella has proven, a swing to the right or any attempt to appear non-radical is simply abandoning the Greens strength.
The Greens would do much better to publically attack conservatism rather than appeal to it
Secondly,
Why did Drew get a vote so much higher that the other Green candidates? I am sure his media profile helped but, it seems to me, that his success is based on his personal profile in the local community (at least the West End side of the ward). He has been campaigning on a heap of local issues over the past 20 years. Locals know him, not just through his media profile, but because they have seen him and got to know him through his work in the community.
Similarly, the only ever elected Green in Qld. was the former Mayor of Palm Island, Erykah Kyle. Erykah has been an activist on Aboriginal issues, but most importantly on Palm Island issues for 30 or 40 years. The electorate knew her well.
It seems to me that it does not matter how the Greens position themselves or manicure their rhetoric, the central point of success is/will be the integrity and profile of the candidate, not the party. Can-do seems to have learnt the same lesson.
It seems the Greens can get a vote of 7 -10% (in Qld) no matter who the candidate is and this has been the case for nearly 10 years. For them to break out of this plateau they must appear in electorates/communities in between elections, not just during the campaign. They must affect the nature of the electorate and its opinions, not just try and appeal to its status-quo.
Green campaigns tend to begin when elections are called. Preselection occurs very late in the process. Again, Drew was different this time as he has been campaigning for over six months (especially in the East Brisbane side of the ward where he previously had a limited profile).
If I was the boss of the Greens, I would start the 2012 council campaign this week. It is already perhaps a bit too late to do a proper job of the next state election, however I suspect the Greens will ignore the state election again until it is called and all the routine buzz begins.
The Greens have become a viable political machine that is capable of going through the bureacratic motions of participating in elections. However the community activism from where the Greens grew out of no longer seems to be a part of the Greens contemporary political formula.
John (and Kim, too) thanks for the comments. I agree that we need to be working to eke out our own place in Brisbane politics but it will inevitably lead to confrontation with the ALP. The Greens will be competing with the ALP for votes but in Queensland’s optional preferential voting system risk splitting the “left” vote and seeing Liberals returned. Perhaps the presence of the minor left-wing party (Greens) and minor right-wing party (Liberals) is enough to convince the major parties that a return to compulsory preferential voting will allow for a more diverse political discourse without the risk of “spoiling”.
In Central, the high exhaustion of votes which may have flowed to Hinchliffe has seen the potential election of unknown Liberal Vicki Howard. The Nationals and Liberals have a deal at the state level that neither will contest each others’ seats. No such deal can be struck between the ALP and the Greens as the Greens don’t necesssarily have the support in the inner city to get elected on their own (as we’ve seen this weekend) and the ALP would essentially be bribing the Greens to stay out of electoral politics but wouldn’t necessarily hold good on any promises on policy.
The left has always been a fractured lot and it’s going to be bloody tough to find an amicable solution. PR probably isn’t happening so there’s no chance of an SPD-Greens style agreement. Greens support isn’t high enough in one area to get a member elected so there’s no quid pro quo possible between them and the ALP in terms of not standing.
I don’t have any problems with the Greens standing, Sam. I have a problem with what Anne Bocabella did when she stood. And I’m not arguing that the Greens should run in the suburbs at the expense of the inner city - I think it’s important to do both, and as I said, as you build up membership and activate activists, you then increase your net resources.
Kim, I understand what you’re saying. What I’m saying is that getting a Green elected is proving to be tricky, particularly under our current electoral system. I don’t think attacking unions is the thing to do and I’m sure Ms Grace will be a great member for Brisbane Central no matter how she was preselected. I have no beef with union officials being elected as representatives.
My fourth post at Public Polity on the BCC election outlines what I believe the way forward should be. (I’ve added a few edits to the post based on what’s been said here).
Running a good campaign months and years ahead is, of course, the way to win. But targeting is still essential. In local govt elections in Norwich the Greens are now winning seats in both council estates and suburban seats. But they had to win seats to gain credibility before they could possibly have won in those areas, and of course that was in the city centre first. I imagine it would work much the same elsewhere…
Pippa,
You are correct. I say the following to muddy the waters a bit, not to contradict you.
2 or 3 federal electons ago (cant remember which) the booth with the highest (%) Green vote in Queensland was Boulia, a small remote township of about 300 people in N.W. Qld. - a strong National party town in Bob Katter’s electorate of Kennedy.
The Green candidate was from a local family who, through her work as a council employee, was a key person in community and welfare programs. She got a great vote in her home town but nowhere else in the electorate.
I believe it is a question of the chicken or the egg. Why do inner city electorates have the highest Green vote? Could it be because the Greens have been running in the inner city sice they began and very few other places? (not including “paper” candidates). They used to get votes in the city of 2 - 4% as is the case with any unknown independent. But they stuck at it over time and pushed this to 8 -26%.
The Greens were born in West End, Brisbane in the mid 80s (although the Taswegians dispute this). Today the Greens state H.Q. is in West End. It is no surprise that West End today has the highest Green vote in the state. (around 30%, sometimes more in local booths).
I’m no sociologist or psephulupogus but I suspect the inner city is the prime target for the Greens because that’s where the Greens have been active and organised, not necessarily because of the demographics.
Not sure what all this means for the senate which is where they are most likeley to get elected.
49: “Does anyone yet know how Green preferences went in the Gabba or any other ward?”
Well, I scrutineered there, and in my booth, one of the WestEndia ones, I was surprised at how freely lib voters were throwing preferences to Jo Bragg, much more freely than labor voters were. Rather an empty gesture really since Newman’s preference were never going to be counted.
Nonetheless it shows that lib voters don’t have a strangeleove/clockwork orange reflex about putting a valid mark against a green candidate. After all, the real estate industry’s demographic descriptor for the green constituency is ” alternate rich”, they have DNA in common.
Ms Bragg actually went within about 20 votes of beating the labor candidate, thus being the benificiary of preferences, rather than the donor. Given how much wrong initial bundling into 50’s turned out to have happened and needed to be redone in the end, and the argy bargy about spoiled/clear intent votes, that 20 or so may have actually been there. But as I say this booth was one of the green ghetto ones.
Labor voters were way more stingy preferencing green, showing i guess that it is them prone to the psychological block, the strangle reflex, irrational though it is, It’s a sign of actually being threatened I guess.
Out out, green spot. Unbrain me now, milk of human greenness and all those other affects of guilty consciences. They really can’t come to terms with being considered to be as bad as the other lot, and thus that greens giving preferences both ways is an expression of that profound ambivalence, rather than some cosmic betrayal of the good guys. By definition, the truly corrupt don’t think they are.
There were a scary number of senior moments during counting. Hard to believe but some electoral commission employees just don’t get how to score preferences. We didn’t get out till nearly ten, and considering they don’t get paid after 8.30, it goes to show how much re-counting piles had to be done.
My favourite voting pattern seen was what we termed “Pinning the Tail on the Donkey”
an almost donkey vote 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,8, because campbell newman was second last on the form.
John Tracy: “Does anyone yet know how Green preferences went in the Gabba or any other ward?”
Two party preferred figures are available for all booths from the ECQ website. There were 18 wards that were ALP-Lib-Grn contests and in all of those, the majority of Greens “just voted one” (topping out at over 70%). Where Green voters expressed a preference, the ALP-Lib split ranged from about 50-50 to 75-25.
“Last Saturday Drew Hutton in the Gabba got the highest ever vote for a Green in Qld. (please correct me if I am wrong). His increased vote came directly from the ALP.”
Drew’s vote so far is 0.8% higher than what Ben Pennings got in Dutton Park in 2004, and I expect that to go up a smidge when Absentee and pre-polls are counted. That’s across the ward, and it includes a large areas that wasn’t in the 2004 ward. At the booths that were the same (west end - highgate hill) the swing to the Greens was about 2-3%. Did this come “directly from the ALP?” Perhaps it did, we have no way of telling. But any consideration of that question has to consider Murray Swan, who ran as an independant in 2004 and got 5%. This time the Independant (David Norton) got 1.4%, so there’s about 3.6% of the ind/protest vote unaccounted for and I suggest that’s a more likely source of votes going ‘directly’ to the Greens than the ALP.
IsayIsayIsay: “…in my booth, one of the West End ones, I was surprised at how freely lib voters were throwing preferences to Jo Bragg, much more freely than labor voters were… Labor voters were way more stingy preferencing green…”
The Greens were number two on the Liberal HTV in The Gabba, but the ALP went just vote one.
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Sorry, just realised IsayIsayIsay was talking mayor and I was talking councilor.
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John,
A strong local candidate is always valuable and local factors can certainly over ride underlying demographics. I know very little of the demographics of Qld, but from my memory of Australian Elections Survey Data as an undergraduate as well as the various studies I’ve seen commissioned by the Greens in England the demographics are pretty clear and similar in both countries. Highly educated, more likely to be young, more likely to be female, over here highly likely to read the Guardian
No, it’s a sign of Labor voters being very obedient and dutifully following the ALP how to vote card. Green voters are a much more free-spirited bunch, as evidence in the fact that at the booth I worked on in Fairfield in 2004 half of them either just voted 1 or preferenced Newman for Lord Mayor even though we were recommending preferences to Labor.
Of course this could also reflect the prevalence of an Irish-Catholic mindset amongst Labor voters, and of a British Nonconformist Protestant mindset amongst Green votes.
Paul N @60 - interesting theory????
Thanx Daryll and I.S.I.S.I.S. for your answers to my question. It seems how to vote cards are still very powerful.
Murray Swan’s main support base is amongst business people, especialy the local landlord/real estate network. I suspect his voters returned to the Liberals.
“Murray Swan’s main support base is amongst business people, especialy the local landlord/real estate network. I suspect his voters returned to the Liberals.”
Just had a peek at the 2004 results and Swan’s preferences were 45% exhausted. Of the 55% remaining, 62% went Green, 24% Lib and 15% ALP.
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Can I say how good it is to see an intelligent discussion of Green electoral strategies and positioning almost absent of abuse and name calling.
Several things to say:
Andrew, in Victoria (and I think elsewhere) turnout is almost always lower in inner city seats with lots of renters and students, which also tend to be green heartland. Applies at state and federal as well. Not entirely sure why.
Kim, I can’t speak for Anne Boccabella, but those sentiments do crop up in Green candidates here, but we’re talking one in twenty. It’s not a big strand in the party. Perhaps more common in Qld, certainly you would never hear it from a Green running for the Melbourne equivalent of central.
Further, I think Boccabella’s vote in Central was a shocker and suggests the approach was electorally unsuccessful (as well as being politically wrong IMHO). However, her vote in the by-election was very strong compared to that in the by-elections here a few weeks before, so I think we can say it did work when there was no Liberal candidate but flopped when there was. Hardly surprising.
I also think the Qld Greens took the only viable strategy here. They ran everywhere to build a presence for the Senate, but threw what they could at the best wards knowing that winning something will do more for their votes in the outer suburbs in the long run than any campaigning they could do this time. In hindsight triage might have been advisable - maybe they could only afford to run hard in two seats not three if also running moderate campaigns across most of the city.
John, a history of campaigning in an area helps, as does a high profile candidate, but the bulk of the Green vote can be predicted simply by looking at two things - how many people have university degrees and how many were born post 1965.
Oh and Geoff, I have to disagree that low turnouts always favour the Greens. I think there is evidence that the Greens have two voting blocks, one of whom is highly motivated and will vote in a hurricane, and one is particularly unmotivated because they think democracy is rigged and pointless (all pollies are corrupt, teh Greens are the least corrupt of them sort of thing).
A moderately low turnout election drops off the second category of Green voters, lowering the Green %. A very low turnout election takes out a whole lot of mid-motivation voters who usually aren’t Green so the Green % goes back up.