Negotiations have been finalised between Labor and The Greens for preferences in the Queensland election. The Greens are directing preferences to Labor in fourteen seats, while receiving preferences in one seat – Indooroopilly.
The list of seats where Labor has requested preferences indicate the ALP is in much more dire trouble in Brisbane than anyone has yet reported or speculated. Seats with margins from 8.5 to 11.3% are in the first line of defence against the LNP. Labor is now running a “save the furniture” strategy, not an election winning strategy.
The full story is at Pineapple Party Time.
I don’t believe the full list of seats has been reported anywhere else yet. The preferences will be announced at a press conference this morning, but PPT has the comprehsensive story before the MSM.
Elsewhere: An explanation of the significance of Green preferences under OPV from Antony Green.
Elsewhere: QUT politics lecturer and former federal MP Mary Crawford on why preferences may not save Ronan Lee.
Just as a matter of interest Mark, what was the reasoning behind this deal? I thought the Greens were vehemently against the Traveston Dam and a Net feed in solar tariff (both labor policies).
The primary consideration from the point of view of The Greens, Jamo, appears to be the re-election of Ronan Lee. They argue that if he’s re-elected to parliament, he’ll be able to be a prominent advocate for the causes Greens voters are concerned by, or perhaps exercise some influence if he’s in a balance of power situation.
Assuming your take is correct, and Labor is in deep trouble, the inevitable question arises as to what the hell the powers that be were doing calling an early election in the first place.
Indeed, Rob.
It’s not difficult to say what they thought they were doing:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/electioncentral/2009/03/11/campaign-conundrum-2-the-timing-of-the-election-and-the-charter-of-budget-honesty/
Whether or not it was a smart thing to do, of course, is another matter.
I think we can all safely declare state govts “going early” to be deeply silly. Nobody elects a bland management-style brand of regime for its bold, savvy, tricky-dickiness.
Its the political equivalent of a category error. People see it as technocrats getting above their station; imagining themselves as ‘players’.
I suspect the QLD ALP might have held on had they gone full term, same with WA.
On other stuff, Im a bit far away, and we dont see much here – but there’s seems to be very little strategy from the Bligh team. Whats the basic ‘re-elect us’ pitch? 3 more years? Borg not ready? Hasnt filtered through nationally. Is that because of reportage, or because there isnt a narrative?
So the issue isnt about securing environmental outcomes for Qld, it is about getting Ronan Lee back into parliament. That just exposes the complete hypocrisy of the Greens. When Ronan Lee left Labor, he said it was because of Labors poor environmental record (Traveston, Solar, Public Transport etc). Yet they’re going to preference them in 14 SEQ marginals. As for his influence if elected in a hung parliament. Antony Greens election calculator shows that if the LNP gets the required swing for a hung parliament then guess which seat they will most certainly have gained. You’ve got it. Indoorapilly.
Robert Merkel @ 3
As far as I’m concerned, calling an early election is a declaration that the government doesn’t have confidence in its ability to govern successfully until the end of its term. That, and my irritation at having to waste part of my weekend casting a vote, would be easily enough for me to vote for the opposition.
Jamo, you can see it another way. In negotiations with the Greens Labor was virtually telling them that the election was lost. Hence Traveston was no longer an isuue because the LNP will jettison it in the blink of an eye.
The implication of what Mark is saying, if I understand it right, is that we are not talking hung parliaments, rather a comfortable LNP win. Labor are trying to stop a landslide and retain a base to fight the next election.
Under these circumstances it is not unreasonable for the Greens to prioritise getting a foothold in the action.
In the case of a hung parliament, given the conservatism of the independents and Peter Wellington’s stated opposition to Traveston, clearly Traveston is history.
Probably OT but surely it has something to do with the fact that the LNP are simply owning the cyber message.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,,25175129-15306,00.html
I may be missing something here, but does than mean the ALP is preferencing the LNP over the Greens in all seats but Indooroopilly?
A vote for ALP is a vote for BORG!
I acknowledge your point Brian, but in an LNP landslide victory they would pick up the seat of Indooroopilly, making Ronan irrelevant.
Lefty E- No. We are only preferencing in 14 seats (and prefs are going to ALP only). And I am one of the people dissapointed with prefs going to them.
I’m a bit unsure as to why this preference deal indicates that Labor is in so much trouble, wouldn’t hey want to negotiate as many preferences from as many sources as they can muster as a matter of course? It’s not like they’ve had to make any earth shattering promises like canceling the building of dams in order to get this preference deal. From a long way away, I can’t help thinking that Labor is running a bit of an exercise in expectations management in regards to the election outcome.
Thank you Jamo@11, someone’s talking some sense, and Ronan’s likely to be irrelevent now even without a landslide, this will backfire, just making him and the greens look cynical and untrustworhy.
If my reading is correct the LNP candidate for Indro actually has pretty good green credentials, or at least he’s been pitching green, a leafy green suburban sorta green, he’s pretty much stolen ronan’s play book even.
This s given the LNP fantastic ammunition: they just gotta say…
Trust Ronan Lee, proven rat? Trust the Greens? The LNP has more, and more significant, stated green policies ( 44c/kwhr solar earner, policy to make qld the renewable energy capital by 2015, clear opposition to traveston, and stopping coal mines on farm land) than labor, who by Ronan’s admission, are environmental vandals, so bad that he left, and now the Greens preference Labor just for his career’s sake? Our evironmentally and economically responsible policies, which we will stick to, counted for nothing with the greens, who seem to have been infected with the political animal virus when they let Mr Lee in their bed. You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Labor know they are on a hiding to nothing, that’s why they’re prepared to stoop so low as to preference a rat from their own ranks. If you want a greener, more climate-change adapted queensland and indooripilly, get with the strength, have a voice in parliament, vote LNP, you know what you’ll be getting: Money in the bank from your solar panels.
No, it would mean that Labor is saying “Just Vote One” in all seats outside Indooroopilly.
PDAA, you have to factor in OPV. Labor has rarely needed preferences to win a lot of Brisbane seats over the last 3 elections, even when they haven’t got 50% + 1 on primaries. And the initial position in negotiations with The Greens was not that serious, because they thought they wouldn’t need prefs again. The turnaround to giving Ronan Lee preferences indicates that Labor became more concerned to do a deal at the cost of doing something they’d rather not do.
OPV and the entrenched “just vote one” culture make preferences a very different ballgame. The candidate who has first position on primaries has a huge advantage, and it becomes much more difficult to win from second place. That’s typically been Labor, and that’s why it’s the respective primaries as between the LNP and Labor that are key to understanding what results will be, not 2PP, which is mythical really.
The exhaust rate of the Greens preferences will still be at about 40% despite the allocations, though there will be some advantage in terms of their distribution between Labor/LNP/exhaust in seats where they’re directed.
But they’re just not as valuable a commodity in Queensland OPV. So where they are directed, they must be really needed.
I suppose there is a bit of impression management in it, but the impression is (at this stage of the game) true. I imagine that Anna Bligh will play the “we’re going to lose card” shortly. But that’s a serious concern rather than a smokescreen.
Antony Green on Greens preferences and OPV:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2009/03/green-preferenc.html
It really is rubbish to suggest that any policy outcomes can be achieved from preference negotiations.
The National Party in 1995, when they gained Greens preferences by promising a whole bunch of environmental concessions and then broke their word, and the ALP on a smaller scale at every election, have demonstrated to the Greens that negotiating to gain policy concessions for preferences is a waste of time. Either side will break their word. So they gained the only thing they could gain, which is preferences which will reduce the likelihood that the left vote will be split and elect the LNP (although the chances of that are still very high).
Say whatever you like about Ronan personally, but the Greens are in politics in order to defeat the major parties and achieve policies directly, not by funnelling preferences one way or the other. To get there they need to get people elected, and that means making these deals.
It’s also worth remembering that most Greens voters have more sympathy for the ALP than the Liberals, and except in extreme cases they tend towards wanting the ALP to stay in government, if they want to kick them around a bit. If the Greens are seen as giving power to a conservative government, it will be a disaster for them, as it was in 1995 (possibly one of the worst decisions the Greens have ever made in Australia).
While I’m making the pragmatic argument for doing a deal with the ALP, the fact also remains that, despite the crying of this occasional LNP-leaning Green voter (reminds me of those mythical Hillary Clinton voters who were going to vote for McCain), the Greens’ policies will be further set back under an LNP government, despite the LNP opposing the building of a single dam (out of 13). The principled decisions is to not help elect Lawrence Springborg as Premier of Queensland.
Yes, I remember thinking that in WA last year, and look how that turned out.
Thanks for that, Mark. My assumption that any government would want to garner all the preferences it could was wrong. With OPV, it seems preferences aren’t always that important.
Paul – heh, yes. Just getting that one in before the ALP does.
PDAA, sort of yes, sort of no.
If you need the preferences, they’re very important indeed. It’s just that it’s much harder to get them with the high exhaust rate under OPV.
It’s really the Beattie “Just Vote One” strategy – designed (successfully) to wipe out the conservatives and make minor parties irrelevant – coming back to haunt Labor.
In other words, Labor started off the campaign not thinking they’d need preferences because they’d be well ahead on the primary vote in most seats they hold. That swiftly changed, and they were reduced to doing something they didn’t want to do – preferencing Ronan Lee.
Having said that, it’s an agreement made out of desparation on both sides. Ronan Lee probably won’t win, and as I said at PPT, it really would make more sense for The Greens to be going for Council pr – where they’d very possibly be in the balance of power in Brisbane more or less permanently.
‘The principled decisions is to not help elect Lawrence Springborg as Premier of Queensland’.
We know all about the principles of the Greens dont we. They’re the mob that recently preferenced One Nation ahead of the Liberal Party in the Mayo by-election. Further name me 3 LNP policies on the evironment that the Greens disagree with.
Elsewhere: QUT politics lecturer and former federal MP Mary Crawford on why preferences may not save Ronan Lee.
Jamo: I see Antony Green explained to you (@3.51pm), at your request (“Can you also confirm that in the federal Mayo by-election the Greens prefeenced one nation ahead of the Liberal Party.”) the apparent anomoly of “Greens preferencing One Nation” in Mayo as not being the sinister act you seem to be troubled that it was:
I’m sure you, to whom principle is so important, we’re going to come back and clear it up as soon as you had a chance, rather than leave that bit of rhetoric as a dangling accusation which you now know to be false. I think you’ll find they don’t eat babies either.
Don’t mention it.
I am with jamo, I think, and anyone else that reckons this stinks to high heaven. Worse, it will prove counterproductive, even for the narrow cynical purpose it was designed: furthering the Ronan Lee and Drew Hutton, as his inevitable staffer, careers. As a one time defector, he could be given the benefit of the doubt, that leaving labor was an act of environmental concscience. But now he’s just a double rat. He, or they, the greens negotiation brains trust, has trashed any claims he, and unfortunately, by association, also the Greens as a party, had to being principled and trustworthy. If I was in Indro, I’d be suss about giving him my vote, now.
I reckon the damage is deeper, and more widespread: that there is, or was, a significant and growing constituency on the turn from tory to green: the “Green is the New Black” crowd, if I’m in a disparaging mood, or “Conservative to Conservatationist” if I’m toadying. To the extent the Greens were set to pick them up, as primary or preferences, aided by the estrangemnet of trad Libs from the brave new LNP (with a silent L) party, looking for somewhere to lay their votes, that opportunity has been lost now that the Greens can be seen as Labor’s gutless handmaidens again, Ronan’s vainglorious pre-pre-election posturing not withstanding. They’ll revert to type and just vote 1 tory.
They were also set to pick up a secod tranche, what may have formerly been meaningfully called the Ronan Lee ex-Labor constituency, who think labor are poor environmental stewards, hopelessly conflicted by their union and industrial patronage. That of course is a nonsense now: even ronan lee isn’t ronan lee ex-labor now, he’s pro-labor.
What price can we get for a labor win now?
Mark,
Could I ask you to do an examination of the two or three leading candidates in each of the ten or so most marginal Qld seats? Wirth an election this close it really will come down to those candidates, and some of them (e.g. Liddy Clark) might not necessarily disappear with the next changing tide. Whether it’s here or at PPT doesn’t matter to me.
I’m hoping for something more than the sort of overview Antony Green does – “In Mullet Creek, Labor has endorsed schoolteacher Jane Smith while the LNP have selected local businessman Billy Bloggs for the third time” – I mean something that looks at the degree to which a candidate has significant roots in a particular community, factional alignment, whether they are heavily managed by head office, etc. Is this too much to ask, given time & resources?
Mark, if the Greens TRULY turn out Labor is not in trouble. But I think that more than a few Libertarians w/ family healthcare & education on their minds might also make the DIFFERENCE.
PLENTY not interested in polls.
But MANY interested in THE CHANGE.
We can see it in Anna Bligh’s eyes. Her smile.
The Dolphin…& the Bear.
moby – memory gospel
N’
Andrew E – I very much doubt I’ll have time – though it’s a good idea.
There’s also William Bowe’s seat guide, of course, apart from Antony Green’s:
http://www.pollbludger.com/qld2009.htm
“The Greens were top of the ticket and may have numbered straight down the ballot for simplicity, which if it was true, meant that One Nation was ahead of the Liberal candidate”.
After having done a little bit of research I dont think that was the case, because they purposely preferenced Family First last, and FFP was not last on the ballot paper. I stand to be corrected however.
I live in Capalaba (supposedly safe Labor) and have noticed that none of the LNP signs have authorisations on them. There have been no signs or advertising at all from the Greens that I can see.
At Bowen Hills yesterday, I saw a couple of LNP signs from a distance, and they appeared to have no authorisation either. Has anybody seen authorisations on any LNP signs?
I know the LNP are a “new” party, but it’s the same people running it. Could it be that they believe the electoral act doesn’t apply to them? Would they show the same lack of attention to detail in running Qld if they won?
As the wicket gets stickier for Labor, what odds we’ll start seeing ads with the following voice-over?
“Did you know that John Bjelke-Petersen is a candidate for the Liberal NATIONAL Party in the state election?
“Did you know that if Lawrence Springborg’s Liberal NATIONAL Party wins the election, John Bjelke-Petersen could become a State Government Minister?
“That could be a stepping stone towards John Bjelke-Petersen becoming the Liberal NATIONAL Premier of Queensland after Lawrence Springborg.
“Don’t YOU worry about that?”
Jamo, do you actually have a copy of this alleged Green HTV in Mayo, or is this just second hand rumour? First you’re saying the Greens put One Nation ahead of the Libs, but you don’t know the order. Then you say that the Greens put Family First last, but elsewhere I’ve seen someone damning them for doing a deal with Family First in Mayo to go to FF in return for the open ticket which FF ran.
If the whole basis of your claim that the Greens have no principles is that they supposedly preferenced a party that came 10th out of 11 ahead of the one that won, and you don’t actually have any evidence this happened anyway then it is a pretty weak claim.
… and given the only thing between the QLD ALP and near certain defeat might be a strong flow of Green refs (as per usual), maybe Bligh supporters could start asking more relevant questions eg Why is Borg looking like winning, what is wrong with the ALP campaign, why did Bligh go early? Who’s running the campaign and is it too late to sack them?….etc
I didn’t think that Ronan Lee had much chance going into this election, but I wonder whether tonnes of oil washing up on Queensland’s beaches might just stir a few environmental consciences. Still, it’s more likely that it will shift votes from Labor to Green than LNP to Green. Not a lot of help to Lee, since the LNP are his real threat.
However, it might bring Mount Coot-tha onto the radar. Waters needs a 10% swing. I think she’ll get 2% just by being a better candidate with a higher profile. Having Lee next door and the government more on the nose ought to be worth another 2-4% (although the statewide polls aren’t showing this). That still leaves her 4-6% short. I wouldn’t think the oil slick would be worth more than 2-3%, so I’d say it is unlikely, but its not looking ridiculous any more.
Meanwhile, the Torres Strait has had enough of Quinceland: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/13/2516074.htm
On Indooroopilly and Mount Coot-tha, this comment from Dennis Atkins may be of interest:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/electioncentral/2009/03/12/more-on-opv-and-preferences/comment-page-1/#comment-1946
Hi everyone, I’m a long-time reader but first-time poster and just wanted to add that I am bitterly disapointed with the Greens this election. I cannot understand why preferences for RL were so important that they didn’t get a better deal for our environment this election. This is the time to push Labor around! They are absolutely in BIG trouble and now is exactly the time to demand some better action than we have got.
I can’t help but feel badly let down and I reckon the oil spill down in brisbane this week probably just shows how bad Labor’s care for the environment really is… absolutely nothing.
It’s probably got something to do with the election that they wanted to play the spill down, but to leave that stuff to soak in for a couple of days is just negligent. They should have got the planes out with the detergent and broken-down the oil in the sea, where it will dilute down and dispurse quickly…
I don’t know about you guys, but to me the only alternative isn’t anymore. Oh well, I guess I’ll just cop the $60 fine.
Chris, as the LNP candidate for Capalaba, I can assure you that all of my signage has ‘authorised by’ information on it. If you are still concerned, you could simply give me a call.Many Thanks
Paul Gleeson