As an addendum to our recent discussion on the dynamic between Labor and The Greens in the context of the Victorian election campaign and results, it’s well worth pondering some interesting thoughts from Charles Richardson in today’s Crikey. An excerpt:
This was a bad election for the Greens; their vote rose by less than 1%, much less than the polls and August’s federal result had indicated.
But their position vis-a-vis Labor has strengthened significantly. There are now two Greens voters for every seven Labor voters; the Nationals have not scaled those sort of heights since the 1940s.
The geographical pattern tells the story. South of the Yarra, where the Liberals are competitive, the Greens vote is stagnant: in their 12 best seats there, their vote fell by an average of 0.5% (only Brighton and Sandringham showed significant growth).
But in the 12 best Greens seats north of the Yarra, where Labor is their only rival, their vote is still growing?—?by an average of 3%, including such impressive swings as 7.6% in Williamstown, 7.3% in Footscray and 6.4% in Preston. (These figures are not final, but late counting won’t change the overall pattern.)
The prospect of a Greens challenge in safe Liberal seats has now receded. Liberal voters who were flirting with the Greens have been returning to the fold?—?aided, no doubt, by a Liberal leader who was not openly hostile to progressive values. But Labor’s position is getting worse rather than better; without Liberal preferences, it would have to worry about six or eight of its own seats.
In other words, the Liberals were able to make the Greens into a winning issue precisely because they did not feel threatened by them?—?they could treat it as a matter of pure symbolism. Labor cannot. But it is yet to find much of an alternative.
Elsewhere: Left Flank.
NB: Please keep discussion on this post on topic. General discussion of the Victorian election result can now most appropriately go on this thread.
This a thoughtful and also fairly accurate article. The Green party has not captured the imagination of the traditional working class and remains confined to gentrified former working class areas in our main cities.
Labor can recapture this vote gradually by careful candidate selection and do what the Liberals do i.e allow their members in parliament to make conscience votes and thereby effectively broaden their church. Frankly having to watch Penny Wong speak against Gay Marriage on Q and A was cringeworthy. Labor must abolish its caucus tradition of unanimity in order to be able to appeal to its intellectual left wing and its conservative working class right wing. If they do not reform internal protocols they will cede the intellectual left to the Greens and ultimately destabilise their party in every state and federally. They cannot survive long term running primary votes of between 35% and 38%.
The prospect of a Greens challenge in safe Liberal seats has now receded.
What prospect? What challenge? The Greens are a party of the Left. The idea that they could take safe conservative seats is nutty. There just aren’t that many doctors’ wives.
IMO the current rise of the Green’s vote across Australia has little to do with Labor and Liberal and more to do with a disaffection with the two party system aka the USA.
The days of flag waving football crowd supporting their side are gone, each side is seen as bad as each other and neither that good. People are beginning to think that it makes little difference who is in power (they are probably right).
This is little to do with Green policies and more to do with the Greens not being Lib or Labor. You have to wonder how much a 24/7 in your face news cycle which saturates us with political bickering and gainsaying costs them respect.
People are sick of the old system. No wonder Rudd was so popular, he was out of the usual mould and woke up people to something new. Unfortunately the media and its cycle made sure that didn’t persist.
However I don’t think this popularity of the Greens will go much further. The reason being that when life gets tough and frightening people will turn back to the tried and tested system of two parties. And I think this situation is coming as European and US economies go into meltdown and China needing to put on the breaks. Recession will Australia’s way come at some stage.
Yes, but our renowned small ‘l’ Liberal moderate Howard Cunningham has explained to us that ‘Red Ted’ (seriously) putting the Greens last has been the making of the man as a moderate Lib the base can trust. I expect that that dynamic is very real, and that Baillieu won’t find a way to reverse it for the next election, not even for select cases in deep Labor territory where the Libs don’t expect to be competitive.
They might hate Labor, but they have an irrational fear of the Greens. Therefore it’s only right that they don’t decide to preference the Greens in order to screw with Labor.
You choose your form of demagoguery and you stick with it, I say.
Actually all Labor has to do is allow a conscience vote on serious legislation for the one issue you mention—which they won’t do as long as both they and the Coalition are dedicated to opposing any such legislation being seriously considered. It’s kind of like a blinking contest, only neither side are even at the table.
As for a free vote on any and all legislation, ignoring the tradition of solidarity forever, that would mean unilateral disarmarmament against conservative opponents who no longer practive what they preach in that respect (Howard went out of his way to compromise with unruly Lib backbenchers who threatened to cross the floor, remember).
I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of “Greens: relevant or not??” type discussion pre-and post both recent elections, but Australia seems pretty much silent on the relevance or otherwise of the Nationals.
A letter writer called Helen Lewers in the AGE today wrote:
We might be better off asking ourselves why Peter Ryan, with that turnout, gets to be deputy premier. Of course, as my old mum used to say, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know…
Sam, the Greens can possibly win some Liberal seats if the Liberal primary vote is below 50% and the Greens primary vote is above Labor. This would see the Greens win on Labor preferences.
Actually I think if the Greens are pragmatic they may be able to get some Liberal preferences in the next state election. In this election the Liberals were scared of having to deal with the Greens in a hung parliament. If the Liberals are confident of outright victory in the next election they may give preferences to the Greens to further weaken Labor.
The Nationals got a very large percentage of the votes in the seats they contested. There is no valid comparison with the Greens, who ran candidates everywhere.
Peter Ryan is deputy premier because he is the leader of the coalition’s bush brand.
What about that plonker Mayne getting a seat with 3,000 votes.
Helen the Nats don’t run in many seats, certainly not around Brunswick, the greens run all over the place.
Its not really comparable. Although rural vote is always worth more than an urban vote – its gods way.
“What about that plonker Mayne getting a seat with 3,000 votes.”
I do not think that is confirmed yet, fxh. But he would be a perfect, high profile, eye on the Coalition.
I think there’s a real point in here somewhere, which along with other factors, explains the ordinary GRN vote compared to the Federal election: the difference between Abbott v Bailieu.
The Fraser Libs returned to the fold.
There’s absolutely no reasons to suspect they will federally in 2013 if Abbott or similar is leader.
I expect the GRNs to poll same or better federally next time as they did in August.
“However I don’t think this popularity of the Greens will go much further. The reason being that when life gets tough and frightening people will turn back to the tried and tested system of two parties.”
TP – I might agree with that if there was the slightest sign of renewal in either of them. But there really isnt.
Like a lot of GRNs member (at least the vast majority who dont personally intend on some political career) Id be just as happy to see GRN policies enacted by another party. I think of lot of other parties mistake this: a lot of people support the GRNs as a mode of influence rather than allegiance. I couldn’t really care less who does it: but I want to see a more sustainable future.
That said, I dont fancy the ALPs chances of pulling it off without us. Its just too much of an electoral stretch for a party seeking a majority. Suspect the GRNs are here to stay.
Yep Lefty E, he can say that because if the MSM dont initiate an attack of their own accord, politicians like Richardson himself will quickly network to ensure that it does.
A wise mum,#5. Its a lesson seared into the collective consciousness of working people, out of long experience and thru eras far harder than our own.
What am I thinking! Just woke up from a deep sleep and thought it Richo, not Charles Richardson!
Dolt!
nmmff, nmff; smack!
#11 applies to richo, not richardson.
If that makes sense…
Go back to bed, Paul.
It is simplistic to see the whole Greens saga in terms of a linear left/right model. However there are a number of issues that are lacking real concern from the major parties that don’t fit easily into the left/right model. These include macro and micro environmental issues, gay marriage, civil liberties, treatment of refugees and the search for alternatives to free market globalization.
To some extent the Greens need to decide where they want to stand on issues such as those listed above and to what extent the position taken will be core policies vs strategies for progressing other core policies.
@6 and 7: The fact remains that the people who voted for the party which got 10.4 of the vote got no representation while the people who voted for the party that got 6.9 got 10 effin’ seats! I’m not disputing what you say, but it does demonstrate one of the limitations of our system.
I think Charles is right that Labor stand, over the course of the next little patch, to be torn somewhat more painfully between the Greens and the Coalition than they have been in the past.
On the one hand, Labor needs to canvass to the Right because a great swathe of electorally crucial seats across middle Australia tends to be full of centre-rightish voters. On the other hand, they need be wary of the fact that the Greens are slowly and steadily lapping up the Left vote in inner metropolitan areas. Damn tough balancing act if you ask me.
Read Dangerfield’s “The Strange Death of Liberal England”. The pattern has similarities here to UK Liberal/Labour in the early 20th century. Greens vote growing in same pattern, similar kind of split being applied to major progressive party, similar death of ideological relevance in both major parties, same shift to the ratbag right by the Tories. Abbott as Bonar Law, stirring trouble in Ulster, and an ALP without values losing votes to a new Left. Uncanny. So, are we seeing the ALP’s Asquith and Lloyd George figures before us now? Time will tell, but if the pattern holds, inside 15 years, Greens are second party, and they govern inside 30.
Helen, it depends what you prioritise in an electoral system. Here in NSW we’ve got lots of State and Federal Independents (Clover Moore, Peter Besseling, Richard Torbay, Peter Draper, etc. in Macquarie St, and Windsor and Oakeshott in Canberra).
In almost all of their cases their electoral appeal is keeping out a major Party; either Labor or the Nationals. All of them would be disadvantaged in a more PR-based system if they had to share with majors, obviously because they have no appeal whatsoever outside their particular electorates.
Obviously I don’t agree, but there’s something to be said for people voting to keep the major Parties out. It’s a valid electoral choice and it’s only really possible under single-member electorates. Why should the voters of Sydney/Tamworth/Port Macquarie have to suffer representation from Parties they’ve voted out again and again?
Further on the matter of electoral preference—back in the nineties One Nation was pushing 10% of the popular vote, but only ever translated that into representation in Queensland, because they didn’t have popular enough candidates to take given seats, and because in the other States the other Parties’ strategies of telling people to vote ONP last was so effective (and because they were genuinely despised so widely).
There has to be room in an electoral system for people to express a preference about the parties they don’t want to see represented.
“It’s a valid electoral choice and it’s only really possible under single-member electorates.”
Or Mixed Member Proportional, like NZ, Germany, and loads of other democratic countries, Liamista!
I think the Greens do much better in elections when there is a Labor government because then they act as way of protesting against Labor for not being Left enough. I think their appeal when there’s a Lib government is much less, because then the aim is to get anyone else in.
Izquierdista, under MMP with two- or three-member electorates you’d have had stacks of Hansonist ONP Members in Parliament in the nineties, despite having almost all of the other Parties actively campaigning, with a great deal of popular support, to exclude them.
I’m just saying that the single-member electorate system also has benefits in reflecting electoral choice.
All the discussion fo the Greens future and limitations might be helpfully informed by some firmer statistical analysis of its composition. There seems on some evidence I have seen to be a strong age bias, and there seems to be some influence of higher education. If those patterns work through for another ten years then both the ALP and the Liberals face a structural risk to their voter base.
Lots of contingent events may break those patterns in the meantime of course. Possums Pollytics recent analysis of the Greens vote perhaps might offer some lines of thought that might provide more substance for other lines of analysis such as those suggested in this thread.
One Nation was pushing 10% of the popular vote, but only ever translated that into representation in Queensland
Plus David Oldfield in NSW, in the Legislative Council.
Here’s an idea for the Greens, if they want to get elected: get more votes.
I’d forgotten about Oldfield, Sam, no thanks to you for bringing back his memory.
Or get them in more concentrated areas, was my point. For another instance I don’t think anyone contests that the Greens have much more popular support across NSW than, say, Dawn Fardell, but electing her is a legitmate choice the voters of Dubbo make.
Or get them in more concentrated areas
Indeed. The Greens have to decide whether to go for a niche strategy, concentrating on seats within a 5km radius of CBDs, which is their natural habitat, or a broad-based strategy, trying to become the major left of centre party.
I think hubris will lead them to the latter strategy, which will be a mistake.
“I’m just saying that the single-member electorate system also has benefits in reflecting electoral choice”
I think reflecting electoral choice is SMDs appallingly weak suit. Much better on representation.
There are easy ways to have an electoral system that preserves the role of local independents while assuring a more proportional outcome overall.
Im not sure ‘not liking one party’ is a great argument against democracy! In any case, the ONP never did that well in proportional upper houses either, owing their lack of clout outside QLD (with no upper) and to a lesser extent NSW. All of two members: Len Whathisface in the Feds and David Oldfield in NSW.
SMD seemed to work better for them!
Liam@21: but that’s the whole point. You get whoever has popular support. There are alternatives but as the cliche goes, they tend to be worse.
There is no rule that a small objectionable party in parliament has to be influential – the other parties are free to outvote them. It gets problematic when the other parties can’t bring themselves to do that and instead, say, vote to commit war crimes in the middle east. You see that here already with the Nationals gerrymander and consequent distortion of the Liberal party message. If the ALPberals could bring themselves to vote together you wouldn’t have that problem anywhere near as often.
But blaming that on a tiny rump of agrarian socialists is to completely miss the point. Even if they have 20% of the seats, letting them kick the snot out of a budget supported by the other 80% is entirely the fault of that 80%.
There’s a significant difference between politics and the political economy of production and consumption. Greens voters generally understand that the Greens attempt to engage critically with the political economy of production and consumption and engage in politics as a means to do so. The Greens present a welcome deep critique of existing conditions and politics. That critique is vigorous but bumping into the limits of citizens’ imaginative capacities and willingness to change. It is, however, at least reality based which is more than can be said of social democratic or reactionary parties here and elsewhere.
Disaffection among educated groups with both Liberal and Labor stems from those parties total failure to critically engage with the ecological crisis. This crisis is driven by overproduction, overconsumption, maldistribution of material benefits and externalisation of the ecological costs of production. The neoliberal consensus between Liberal and Labor, rooted as it is in the class conflicts of industrial production, is inadequate to rapidly deteriorating ecological conditions.
The green vote will wax and wane but at least there is indication that roughly one in ten Australians are seriously engaged with the issues. Views not informed by ecological reality, like for example Michael Costa’s clearly unmedicated rant in today’s Australian Literary review, is a rearguard action against reality. That is, delusional.
Sam:
Have a close look at these results, and you might think twice. In terms of vote, the top four Green seats were exactly the ones you’d expect. It quickly gets away from the “inner city latte sipping” story, though. For #5, would you believe Preston topped 20%? Here’s the votes of all the seats where they got over 15%:
Melbourne 31.1
Northcote 28.9
Brunswick 28
Richmond 26.5
Preston 20
Footscray 19.7
Williamstown 19.7
Prahran 18.6
Ivanhoe 17.2
Sandringham 16.9
Derrimut 16.6
Albert Park 16.5
Hawthorn 16.4
Pascoe Vale 15.4
Essendon 15.4
Brighton 15.2
That’s quite the mixture, notably in the western suburbs. (Note there were strong left-wing independents in Brunswick, Footscray and Albert Park which muck up the figures a bit.) As for swings to them, the top four went like so:
Derrimut 8.6
Footscray 7.6
Williamstown 7.3
Preston 6.4
What those figures say to me is that they’re a lot further from their ceiling in the outer suburbs, and are having a go at getting there. Sounds like a good idea to me.
the political dichotomy of the two major political parties is part of the appeal of the Greens. To my mind and others the Greens aren’t just a protest about Labor not being left enough but part of a wider symbolic protest that the two party system has become one system with two slightly different faces.
Knowing commentators and members of the established order are naturally opposed to the Greens not because they are a more left version of the ALP but because they represent a threat to the status quo. They seek to undermine the legitimacy of the green vote, to minimise its significance and when that fails they ignore the fact that 10% of the voting population thinks the system is seriously flawed. Above all else the established order wants to contain the Green vote lest it become something that cannot be ignored.
I think ideas like these are fundamental to both the major parties and the msm political commentators. It might seem logical to claim that the greens need to broaden their policy program in order to appear more electable but that also risks trapping the greens in the same general political model already inhabited by the two major parties.
That is not to say the Greens shouldn’t be able to offer a genuine alternative government, however their particular challenge is to articulate how a Green government would deliver on its primary objectives (such as carbon, energy and the environment) without turning off the lights. The possibility our near future might force our collective hands is conveniently ignored by the passive majority and the major parties. If you think that cataclysmic climate change is waiting around the corner, then the Greens are the only answer when it comes to the ballot box. Our collective denial about what is happening in the global environment is what allows so many people to vote for either of the major parties. Just as they hope climate change goes away, so to they see the Greens as a passing fad.
“Here’s an idea for the Greens, if they want to get elected: get more votes.”
They are and they have. It’s over ambitious expectations mostly by the commentariat that create them – then when unrealised, use that as a stick to beat up a green failure -that need to be better managed.
It is done just about every election despite a constant upward trajectory of votes.
my rambling thoughts are better summed up by akn @28…
Gillard is a vulture,and the State Government of Victoria under Brumby did a number of things that were upsetting to conservation minded people with wider interests.Remember the Shell canal building in Port Philip Bay.The same Corporation financed Copenhagen.The same type of people who protested against the Canal were protesting against oil corporations using Copenhagen.What has that to do with this blog!? Plenty! A morbid desire with AGW matters refuses to see oil corporations supporting and thus undermining Green objectives.Then the ALP does the same thing.Having come from Bittern on the Mornington Peninsula it is easy for me to see the Greens being undermined by processes of Corporations and Government.Hastings and ACROSS the rail line from Bittern ended up where BP sits.Down further is H.M.A.S. Cerebus. BHP Lysaghts hogs the Hastings foreshore.The Greens seem unable to get round to thinking issues up that use Lysaghts.Like cleaning out Westernport Bay with their Products to then establish mangroves for fish breeding.All very possible.Not taken up by the Greens ,because frankly,they don’t walk the walk and talk the talk,but prefer Lawyers in their camp now.Even with the Shell canal,there must be ways to get the Port Philip Bay safe again for fishing ,and other species that the new Leader well knows were over- fished not far from his dwelling.Obviously the Greens on the Mornington Peninsula had little say over the projections of Green issues on the Campaign trail.Even the Sewerage works that ends at Baxter needs new thoughts applied to these developments.The Greens thus haven’t got many lateral thinkers sticking their necks out for some research that would appeal generally.I suspect the Learned Demographic Rump has destroyed their real influence and acceptance,or at least slowed it down.
Greens have a rationale for running across the state as they need to try an maximise coverage of how to vote cards to improve their upper house or Senate vote.
Doug #33, absolutely right. There is also the longer-term strategic consideration that the kinds of transformations Greens want to see will only be politically possible if some kind of engagement can occur between people in the suburbs and regions, and Green values and policies.
One of the Greens’ biggest hurdles to overcome is the (often all too accurate) inner-city-out-of-touch-elite perception.
Running candidates (especially proper locals) in the burbs and regions is their only hope to break out of this.
Better, at this stage, to put the majority of resources and time into securing Legislative Council seats. If all the focus had been their, this election, the greens could be sitting with a bulwark of five members.
Liam @21 “under MMP with two- or three-member electorates you’d have had stacks of Hansonist ONP Members in Parliament in the nineties”
Maybe I’m misreading you, but why would that be a bad thing? Defining the ‘problem’ of One Nation in terms of their Parliamentarians or candidates is looking at the problem in reverse. The problem is (or was) that so many people voted for them. (7.5% in 1999, which should have been about 6 MLAs, proportionally?).
BTW, MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) is usually (if not always) single member electorates, with numbers topped up from party lists to achieve a proportional result. Best of both worlds, so far as I can see.
d
if some kind of engagement can occur between people in the suburbs and regions, and Green values and policies.
Paul, dream on.
Here is the reality. 30 years ago, Neville Wran was addressing his caucus on the subject of his Labor government not being true to Labor principles. He said (warning, coarse language alert):
“I’m telling all you fucking marginal members, if those greedy cunts out there wanted fucking spiritualism, they’d join the fucking Hare Krishnas”.
True story.
It was true then and it’s true now.
The Greens actually managed an increase in the Legislative council vote (nearly 10% above the 2006 vote) to over 11%, about 1% higher than for the lower house – final figures not yet available, but may end up with one seat less than in 2006. Increased votes in the Legislative council do not necessarily mean that you will get an increas in the seats. It can work the other way – it depends upon the rleative break up of the votes of the major parties and how close they are to a quota.
You can’t actually focus on increasing your council vote without working on the lower house campaign.
The vote for the Greens in the ACT in the last federal election illustrates the complexity of this. The campaign targeted the ACT Senate seat and practically nothing was done to focus on the candidates for the two House seats.
For all the effort the Senate vote increased by 2% from 21% to 23% – meanwhile the House of reps vote increase by nearly 6% from 13% in 2007 to nearly 19% in Canberra and over 20% in Fraser.
Interesting.
The fate of the Democrats might be a better model for what could go wrong for the Greens. They are both essentially parties of the educated middle class. Several things went wrong for the Democrats:
1. The emergence of the Greens took away supporters whose reason for voting D were environmental ones.
2. They backed the coalition on a number of key votes including the ETS and a reduction of industrial rights – made Labor supporters who were giving them their primary vote as a way of pushing Labor to the left return to putting Labor first.
3. A surge in the polls started them trying to make the move to major party by having policies on everything – which meant that voting Democrat no longer gave a message to the majors.
4. They began to enjoy the power they held too much for their own good.
Firstly
Nice to know I am renowned!
It makes sense to put the Greens last, because they are further away ideologically to the Liberal Party than the ALP are. It ain’t personal.
But that move did solidify in many people’s minds that Ted possessed some strength, which was quite possibly the only thing that was lacking in convincing many he was electable. For the totally disengaged, it may have been the first thing they had heard about Baillieu since the last election, when he had barely arrived on the scene.
Cant find the, but great piece by Tim Colebatch in the age showing:
-20 of ALPs 43 seats came home on GRN prefs (say cheerio to the idea that ALP might pref GRNs last)
- GRN vote expanding to next rig of seats out from inner city (ALbert Pk, Williamstown, Footscray, Essendon)
- Once again, GRN HTVs mean almost nothing: ALP got 75% where GRN ran prefs to them, 76% in the few open tickets
- 33% of LNP voters ignored LNP HTVs and voted GRN, which now gives the GRNs some guidance on where they need to be on primaries.
ALSO: Looks like Colleen Hartland is going to get up in West Metro, restoring GRNs to 3 in Leg Council. And the final swing to GRN was modest, but twice that earlier reported: +1.2%.