Comments on: The battle for Fremantle

By: Al

Al — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:21:25 +0000

T have stumbled upon a new Freo blog (http://spotter8.wordpress.com/) that seems to have a lot of discussion about the Fremantle Bt Election.

They have a few pdf of election material that does not seem to appear on the other blogs as well as a pdf of the Fremantle Herald front page (May 23,2009) in which they put the blame squarely on McGinty for Labor losing Fremantle.

Also I have heard a rumor that Tagliaferri will run for the Mayoralty again in October AND try to regain Fremantle for Labor in the State election in about 3 years time. If McGinty wears the blame Tagliaferri will not have to wear the tag “The man who lost Fremantle” when he has another tilt at becoming a Member for Fremantle in State Parliament.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:40:20 +0000

Adrien,
That’s why I said “emphasise” rather than “use exclusively”.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:09:32 +0000

The Left tends to emphasise force and the use of State power. The Right – persuasion and economic incentives designed to modify the costs to more fully be incorporated into pricing.
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We’ll need both (imho).

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:08:03 +0000

Remember that it was Sir Garfield Barwick who founded the Australian Conservation Foundation, and that Quadrant founder James Macauley was a great lover of the south-west Tasmanian wilderness
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And the green wedge was established by Henry Bolte (no relation).

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:09:20 +0000

Russell,
The use of regulation appears to be going along nicely – and so quickly, too! The terms are clear to everyone and there is no issue with the structure. Oh, wait…
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Paul,
Yes – probably a more full examination. The Left tends to emphasise force and the use of State power. The Right – persuasion and economic incentives designed to modify the costs to more fully be incorporated into pricing.

By: Paul Norton

Paul Norton — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:44:52 +0000

Andrew #162, whilst left and right would tend to differ in the choice of means towards the end of sustainability and conservation, I think the difference is that the left would tend to emphasise government regulation and provision whilst the right would tend to emphasise market-based or market-mimicking economic instruments and assigning private property rights. Both would (and do) see a place for moral suasion and education.

By: Russell

Russell — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:08:31 +0000

Razor – put your vegies in those corrugated iron things that look like rainwater tanks – it will keep pests like Razor Jnr out, you can control the soil and watering more easily, and you don’t have to bend over to do the gardening.

Andrew – how would you use moral suasion to solve the greenhouse gas problem, quickly.

By: Razor

Razor — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:57:36 +0000

Vegie patch is currently at the proposal stage – Mrs Razor thinks it is a great idea but I get to do all the work. I don’t want to do all the work to then have Razor Jnr (Age 2) then wreak havoc.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:56:42 +0000

Paul,
On the philosophical point, I would agree. The difference between a left-wing approach to conservation and a right wing approach (to generalise) is, to me at least, that the left wing will try to use government force to achieve it and the right will tend to use moral suasion.
The desired end is generally similar, the means tend to be different.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:54:12 +0000

Razor,
Odd. We have a worm farm and a vegie patch. Does that beat a worm farm and using a bike?

By: Paul Norton

Paul Norton — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:52:44 +0000

There’s nothing inherently right or left-wing about sustainability and conservation.

Quite so. Remember that it was Sir Garfield Barwick who founded the Australian Conservation Foundation, and that Quadrant founder James Macauley was a great lover of the south-west Tasmanian wilderness. Harry Clarke, who nobody could lump in with THE LEFT, is very strong on global warming and other environmental issues. Jack Strocchi may also have something to say on this point. Oh, and the Maoists at Strange Times a.k.a. Last Superpower must be choking on their rice ration at Gerard Henderson's description of the Greens as "Australia's only genuinely leftist party".

By: Razor

Razor — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:38:11 +0000

“There’s nothing inherently right or left-wing about sustainability and conservation.”

So I’m still allowed to be a RWDB despite having a worm farm and doing more km per year on a bike than in a car?

By: Adrien

Adrien — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:30:24 +0000

Paul – A lot of Liberal voters are liberals straight down the line, and in the absence of a Liberal candidate who they felt closest to in terms of the economic liberal agenda, they preferred the Greens to Labor in terms of the social liberal and civil liberal agenda. The pejorative term for such people is “Doctors’ wives”.
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Reasonable. And the Libs do preference the Greens in certain seats hoping to bump the ALP and/or split the Left. But an appreciable amount of them are concerned about the environment so they vote Green to put pressure on the governing parties. They may not wish the Greens to win govt but they want their voice there. Or ‘a voice’ for the environment.
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I’m not sure how it breaks down everywhere but I seem to recall that 20% of the Greens’ vote comes from the Right.
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There’s nothing inherently right or left-wing about sustainability and conservation. And there’s no hard and fast relationship between the rulebook approach that marks current Greens policy and achieving sustainability. The policy is that way because of the predominance of ex-ALP and ex-Comm party people in the Greens.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:32:11 +0000

Paul,
I think that many of the Liberal voters in traditionally ALP areas would not want to vote for the ALP in a pink fit and they saw the best way of hurting them was to vote Green. This sort of behaviour could be seen when Phil Cleary won Wills in 1992 and many other instances.
Seriously, guys – pushing the ALP towards a more blatently socialist agenda could only be good for the Libs. It is one of the reasons why governing parties rarely run in elections like this – you are on a hiding to nothing and you really want the preference flows (and, better, the primary flows) to go towards minor parties. The ALP loss here has made Ripper look even worse than he does and has emboldened the ALP Left. Net result is all positive for Barnett.

By: Paul Norton

Paul Norton — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:52:48 +0000

Peterc and Andrew,

How’s this for an alternative explanation? A lot of Liberal voters are liberals straight down the line, and in the absence of a Liberal candidate who they felt closest to in terms of the economic liberal agenda, they preferred the Greens to Labor in terms of the social liberal and civil liberal agenda. The pejorative term for such people is “Doctors’ wives”.

Actually, I think each of us is onto part of the explanation. Another part could be that the number of Liberal voters who shifted to Labor in preference to the Greens may have been more or less balanced by the number of erstwhile Labor voters going over to the Greens, creating the superficial impression of a Liberal to Green shift.

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:50:24 +0000

“the Greens received all those extra votes …(tradionally Liberal) areas”:

This will be the ‘Green is the New Black’ phenomenon. For $50 you can get (actually you can’t, stocks are sold out) a t-shirt that says so: “100% Cotton sourced from countries that have the best climates to support cotton crops (e.g. monsoonal rain), etc, etc”

How many seats, state and federal, does labor hold on the back of preferences from greens voters, and thus potentially at risk if the tories adopt a strategy of running dead, like in freo, dog whistling to their constituency that a vote for a green is the only effective vote against labor?
In the recent Qld state farce, even the premier had to go to preferences, the treasurer very much so, and the inheritrix of beattie’s old seat was within 5% of being done by the tory, the greens 4:1 preference flow her way saved her ass.

Greens voters’ actual aggregate preferences, (as distinct from whatever head office deal is extant), the majority being watermelons, will forever stop the tories from winning these seats where the green vote has got above 15% or so. Maybe the tories will generally wake up to that fact of modern electoral life, learn to hold their nose, run dead a la freo, getting behind Green candidates as the only way to dislodge labor, the only way to dry up the watermelon green preference flow which is after all what keeps getting labor in in these seats.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:56:57 +0000

Peterc,
No, I think the Liberal intent was that if the ALP had to try to defend the “heartland” areas by moving towards the Greens they (the ALP) would become increasingly alienated from the areas that they need to win to get elected as a viable government.
Very simple, old ploy – but it works. Freo is simply the latest example.

By: Peterc

Peterc — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:16:34 +0000

Maybe Liberal voters can see the climate emergency we are in and are not impressed with state and federal Labor’s lack of commitment to do anything substantive about it.

By: Alphonse

Alphonse — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:03:03 +0000

John

I live in South Fremantle and have not seen the flyer you are talking about. I have just asked some friends in the Fremantle CBD and they have not seen it either, can somone upload it?

Iwas puzzled that the Greens received all those extra votes from East Freo and Bicton (tradionally Liberal) areas.

By: John Walsh

John Walsh — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:55:13 +0000

Sorry to get back to the Freo election (and away from teachers, artists etc) but I have been thinking about the last 3 fold flyer Zagami dropped in my area (East Fremantle), which is traditionally Liberal. Baisically the leaflets message placed more emphasis on “Don’t vote Labor” then “Vote Zagami”. I think that Zagami was more intent on making Fremantle a marginal seat then about getting votes for himself. I sopek to my neighbor who is also a Liberalvoter and he said that he was going to vote Green because he did not want to waist his vote on an independant who had no chance of winning. If this was what Zagami wanted to achieve it succeeded because the Greens piccked up about 2000 extra votes from a traditional Liberal area. Very clever campaigning.