In today’s Crikey, Guy Rundle segues from the latest round of “Nats should leave the Coalition” talk (refracted, this time, if The Australian is to be believed, predictably through the Malcolm Turnbull leadership prism) to a consideration of the impact of environmental crisis on rural voters.
It’s always been the case that rural or farmers’ parties have had a chance of survival in modern Western polities precisely because there are cultural differences which are much more deep seated than often grasped between rural and urban dwellers. In many ways, to live rurally is still to partake in the legacies of a culture which literally goes back to a time immemorial – one closely tied to the rhythms of time, nature and the fruits of the land. There’s a different time sense, and a different set of values, based not just on a different core factor of production, but on a culture where nature is not so distinct.
For us, in the cities, and in Australia that’s most of us, we really do live in a quite distinct world where things like our food supply are far more abstract and thus far less prominent concerns (that is, they’re naturalised in a different sense of the term – backgrounded, rendered relatively invisible and subject to a routinisation which doesn’t prompt reflection).
Hence the sort of validity – though sometimes the motives are suspect – of identification claims made by farmers with Indigenous custodianship (and the very closeness of some cultural motifs leads to an unreasonable and exaggerated fear of the Other).
Rundle’s argument is that the Nats can get serious by taking their constituents’ interweaving with the environment seriously. But he also suggests that the Greens’ ties to a heap of social stands aren’t necessary, nor necessarily fruitful for them. I’m not sure if Rundle knows that there are some Greens in Queensland who certainly don’t perceive themselves as on the left. I myself have never been convinced that there’s a logical link between ecological and left wing politics, speaking as an advocate of left wing politics.
An excerpt from Rundle’s piece:
The Nationals have a road back from extinction, and it’s to leave the Coalition and offer the Liberals looser support in a government scenario based on a range of tougher conditions that emphasise the distinctive conditions and challenges of rural Australia — an agenda which demands a mix of free market politics, protectionism, social democracy and some hard Green thinking.
They should then challenge Libs in rural/regional seats precisely on those differences — and/or persuade Libs such as Bill Heffernan to join them. Heffernan’s eye-popping interview on Lateline the other night made clear that the fissure in right politics doesn’t run through the parties, it runs through the individual pollies — someone like Heffernan sounds identical to Bob Brown when he gets onto topics he knows something about, like water supply and global agriculture.
The Nationals could then explore policy-by-policy links with the Greens, since their respective platforms on a whole range of issues sound increasingly similar anyway. Years ago the canny hook up between the late Rick Farley at the NFF and Philip Toyne at the ACF created a category busting alliance that prompted a giant leap in Australian environmental policy and practice in a dozen different fields.
It’s time for that to happen again, but if the Greens want it they have to change too, and wind up the whole watermelon party routine — green outside, red in. Their championing of human rights and being the only party early and often to talk back to China is admirable, but that and their whole left liberal baggage of euthanasia, abortion policy etc, is the mirror of the Nats’ dilemma — a take it or leave it inner urban new left package delivered late from the 80s.
The Greens should simply dump their social policy per se, take it off the books, and proclaim that on a whole range of issues these are simply conscience votes. It should be possible to imagine in the near future, a Greens senator who is, reasonably and constructively, anti-euthanasia, opposed to drug decriminalisation and anti-abortion.
If the Greens truly believe that the whole ecosystem is under imminent threat then they should redefine these other issues as outside their programmatic politics.
On that basis, a new and more creative politics is possible — one where people can acknowledge their differences while working on solid common ground, outside of zombie categories. But it will take real leadership from both parties to achieve it.
I’m confident the Greens have it if they want to. Can the Nats produce something other than carnival acts and invisible men?
The W.A. Nats might be the model, but ‘free market’ they ain’t. They oppose extending trading hours because it would lead to Coles and Woolworths gaining more market power. And good on ‘em …
The Greens used to be criticised for being a ‘single-issue party’ and thus not a serious player, so they probably won’t go back to that.
I’ve suggested this a few times as a means to the Nats getting some real benefit for their constituents from their seats in parliament. As someone pointed out in response, one of them wouldn’t get to be deputy PM. Maybe they can get past that.
As a country type, if they moved in the direction suggested above I might even vote for ‘em occasionally, as long as Mad Bill Heffernan stays where he is thanks very much.
Hmm, maybe. Origin aint destiny, but its worth remembering that the whole idea of modern ‘Green’ politics emerged from the the NSW BLF Green bans of the early 70s, and they were intimately linked with union concerns, and also broad social solidarity on land rights, concern for inner-urban environments, etc. Petra Kelly of the German Green attributes the label itself directly to Jack Mundey. Hardly an inner-city trendy.
In any case I think the larger question is this: We have an environmental crisis, and where’s the Right? Where’s their solutions? Where’s their defence of the relevance of their own ideological approach in meeting new challenges?
They’ve vacated the stage. Either floundering in denial, or scampering for first class cabins as the ship goes down.
Its a war for our future: and only the left has picked up a shooter and jumped in the trench. Step up to plate!!
The Right wants to believe this is all something the left has invented to beat them around the head. If they maintain this belief, it will be the greatest electoral mistake they have made, or will make in 100 years.
I for one would rather see the Right stoushing us on how best to tackle climate change. Not with their heads in the sand, singing “lalala” and still imagining we aren’t under the most serious threats to our way of life in human history.
If it means they don’t get to be ministers, and so don’t get to ride around in the big white cars, they’re not going to be interested.
Briefly, the problem with Rundle’s argument about the Greens is that:
1. Green politics has always been about the Four Pillars: ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, nonviolence and social & economic justice.
2. The “social policy” of a party doesn’t just affect how it votes in legislatures, what platform it presents to voters and what campaigns it engages in. It also bears on its internal life and operations, its attractiveness to potential members from particular constituencies, its choice of campaigning methods, etc. A Greens Party which is open to people who are down on same sex couples, down on working mothers, down on African migrants, down on TEH UNIONS etc., is not going to be a safe or pleasant space for potential members from those constituencies.
3. “If the Greens truly believe that the whole ecosystem is under imminent threat” this still doesn’t detract from the fact that some ways of dealing with this imminent threat will be more or less democratic, equitable, humane and socially inclusive than others. A party has to have a normative basis on which to choose between alternative policy approaches.
4. The Toyne/Farley ACF/NFF analogy is flawed. The ACF and NFF are different kinds of political actors to the Greens and the Nats. And is
FarleyRundle seriously suggesting that the Greens’ many queer and female members should welcome a homophobic misogynist into their party because he happens to agree that “the whole ecosystem is under imminent threat”?Paul, I’ve heard Drew Hutton make an argument that isn’t too dissimilar to Rundle’s. And from some other Queensland Greens about how they shouldn’t get too close to the left… some of whom are indeed not very union friendly.
“And is Farley seriously suggesting ..”
Rick Farley is dead, so he isn’t suggesting anything.
I find it bizarre and shows a remarkable lack of appreciation of the realities of politics from Rundle. The Greens is a party about far more than just environmental politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the environmental movement is closely linked with the rest of the progressive movement. The vast majority of Greens members are motivated by much more than environmental politics. Our two biggest boosts in membership and our vote were around Tampa and the Iraq war. While we’ve seen another boost in our vote post-Howard, it doesn’t seem to have resulted in the same membership explosion as 2001-2003. If the party were to strip away its social policy agenda, we would lose the vast majority of its members.
You may gain a few more votes in the abstract, but that assumes the party could survive being stripped back to a single-issue party, and assuming that most people would be happy to vote for a party not knowing how it would vote outside of a small number of issues.
It’s particularly bizarre how much the Greens have been maligned over the years for supposedly being a single-issue party, then when we get attention on other things we get the oppposite approach of people saying we don’t really care about the environment.
“Queensland Greens about how they shouldn’t get too close to the left… some of whom are indeed not very union friendly.”
The Old Industrial Left, for example the Ferguson brothers, are extremely hostile to the Greens. Not just because they compete for votes from the same people, but because they see green ideology as an obstacle to the working class improving their lot in life.
Sam, I think that’s certainly true of Martin Ferguson, but probably less so of Laurie and Andrew. The union division of which Andrew is an official is still imposing Green Bans, and Laurie has been on the green side of some major inner-party barneys (e.g. over export woodchipping in 1995). Also, if one looks past Martin Ferguson’s family history and nominal factional allegiances to his actual stances on a range of issues, it’s very difficult to regard him as “Left” in any substantial sense.
That’s true, Sam, though not wholly true – that is, not everyone in those unions or all those unions – the MUA has something of a tradition of environmental activism, for instance, and it’s not entirely fair to some of the stands the CFMEU Mining Division have taken on climate change either. But what I was getting at was some Queensland Greens I’ve run across who are pushing a small business/organic capitalism sort of view, and in some instances, this also manifests itself in some electoral rhetoric hostile to ALP candidates who are union people.
The Queensland Greens are a bit of a different kettle of fish – at least one group therein – to Greens in other states.
Crossed with Paul, there.
The AMWU is another old industrial Left union which is on good terms with the Greens and the environmental movement. When I met AMWU NAtional President Julius Roe in Melbourne in July he pointed out that the AMWU had financially assisted the Greens and generally enjoyed good relations with them. Also Victorian Greens MLC Sue Pennicuik is an erstwhile AMWU official.
Yeah, the more I think of it, Paul, the more I’m not even sure that “old industrial Left union” is a coherent category.
Martin Ferguson he’s a decayed version of the old BWIU pro Soviet left (see Bill Brady as discussed in Tony Harris’ book on ALP Left). AS for Rundle bizarre, any examination of the Greens shows them to be a left-libertarian party, a tiny minority of Greens may disagree but they are a tiny group. Check out the 2007 AES Candidates survey which shows Green candidates to be left of Labor on everything except immigration levels. What about Greens vs. farmers on land clearing! The more significant division in the Greens is between those with a lifestyle identity focus and those with an electoral focus. Does Rundle pine for the doomsday ZPG pop environmentalism of the 1970s?
On the Queensland Greens situation, we did at one time earlier this decade have some issues with people who, to put it broadly, regarded the Greens as a more attractive vehicle for a traditional Left project than the ALP Left or the Leninist groups, and who were none too gentle in how they went about pursuing their agenda. A number of our members including Drew have also had negative experiences with elements of the Leninist Left in the past (e.g. in the anti-Gulf War movement in 1990-91. Quite possibly a consequence of these experiences is a degree of vigilance and raising of hackles regarding the trad Left, beyond what might be required by a purely positive assertion of an independent Green identity.
Well one of the persons in line for preselection as the SA Greens next candidate for next years Legislative Council election is the current CEO of the SA farmers’ Federation.
Now apart from that consideration I find the whole idea of the Greens dumping all those policies and principles which are the main reason every supporter I know, myself included, votes Greeen outright ridiculous.
And a study of green issues, eg my favourite the plight of the Murray, will readily fit into a leftist analysis. No probs there at all at all.
Ben above sums it up pretty well for me.
Actually I’d happily make a deal with the ALP.
You become a left party and I’ll dump the Greens and put gadzillions of hours into getting votes for you.
Until then I’ll support the best left wing, including green, party in Oz aka the Greens.
There certainly is an element of the Greens who would like to see us burn off the social movements and any sort of non-environmental agenda. Particularly in Queensland and Tasmania. Sometimes, also, it’s seen as a way to appeal more to Liberal voters, although I think the evidence is pretty clear that the vast majority of new Greens voters are ex-ALP voters and the vast majority of those close to switching to the Greens are ex-ALP too.
Yes, to some degree it’s driven by, or at least articulated to, electoral strategy. But I don’t think the evidence suggests it does win over Liberal voters.
@16, yes, Paul, I’m not necessarily judging Drew’s position.
I would emphasise, though, that the majority of the time any push to environmentalise our policy focus comes not so much from a right-wing push as simply the concept that it is more pragmatic and populist for us to shut up about social justice and just talk all climate change all the time. I don’t actually think it has come from a conservatising position most of the time, although obviously figures like Ronan Lee clearly didn’t fit with much of the Greens’ social agenda.
Ahem. To put it mildly, Ben.
Be interesting to see what happens in the Queensland Senate preselection. Last I heard, Lee was still putting his hat in the ring, but I haven’t been following it closely for a few months.
That’s pretty well right, Hannah’s Dad. As there’s no necessary link between the ALP and left wing politics, the Greens going single issue would leave quite a void. Quite a few unions worked out many, many moons ago that the Greens had the sort of IR policies their members wanted – and have helped fund the Greens accordingly. One would presume they wouldn’t want the Greens to go single issue either.
Noe of which surprises any historian of the Green movement – it was originally product of the far left of the union movement. They *intentioanlly* formed an alliance with middle class inner city radicals and heritage legislation supporters in the early 70s; so even the ‘dual character’ of the Green parties today has a direct line to progressive unionism.
Green insiders say the number of members those who ever voted Liberal is 10%, tops.
Rundle can take his anti-left agenda and shove it back where it came from.
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That’s debatable, Lefty E, surely.
It seems to me that one of the big distinctions is that the historical social base of the ALP is a key cleavage in capitalism – around the workplace. There’s a point of identification for most people which is quite immediately graspable – are you the boss or not? That’s got a big cultural dimension – the environment is a somewhat more abstract concern, and doesn’t necessarily translate (except where an attempt is made to live somewhat counter-culturally) into everyday life and culture. Hence, I think the validity of the point I’m making about the sociological differences between rural and urban cultures, and therefore the potential (at least in theory) for a rural Green movement. You can actually see some instances of that popping up – cf. the coal mining on agricultural land protests, but that’s not the whole of it.
Of course, any party, The Greens included, faces a tension between movement and electoral aspects, and the latter have a much bigger pull towards the ‘catch all’ dimension than they once had. My remarks about Labor should also be parsed by recognising that there has been a decades long attack on the identification of work with collective action from the right.
@24, gee, thanks for that profound contribution, silkworm.
Mark,
aren’t you glad to be here?
Sure Mark, and I suspect we’ve not seen the end of moderate green & non-crazy farmer reps alliances.
I’m just pointing out the historical roots of the modern Greens in a particular alliance – one that was consciously entered into by a certain radical sections of the organised working class; because they were dissatisfied with purely industrial & economistic focus of the labor movement as a whole.
Thats a much-neglected aspect of the Greens history (even by the Greens, one must admit).
And yes, of course I was being flippant about the ALP. But I do think thats the point: the link is indeed ‘debatable’! Moreover, only a hidebound materialism would admit that workplaces foster consciousness, but the lived experience of changing weather patterns, floods, droughts etc would not.
Heh, I think I’ll email you about the Qld preselection, Mark. I should probably stop publishing sensitive party information on blogs if I don’t want to be driven out of the party by people with pitchforks.
With friends like these why does the Left need enemies?
Why the frig is Rundle attempting to shift the Greens to the Right and provide counsel to the National party..?!
I also don’t see the direct link between the compelling ecological argument about human-induced climate change and industrially left-wing politics. In NSW, the Greens Party certainly *did* burn off part of their left-wing supporter base when they kicked out the SWP and it hasn’t hurt them; rather, booting the Trots has helped their credibility.
Izquierdista, that the organised Right in Australia so far haven’t engaged seriously with climate change doesn’t mean that in the future they won’t, or that they are somehow incapable of doing so. The industrially-Left, socially progressive Party I’m a member of started its life in the early 20th century in total denial about immigration and free/fair trade—but it’s coming around now.
Also, regarding other nations’ Greens inherent progressiveness, at feministing:
It’s interesting to think about how people like to divide the Greens into two groups, most recently divided between Bob Brown and Lee Rhiannon. While this is mostly crap, it’s interesting to think about Greens as divided according to which of the two ‘creation myths’ they subscribe to: the Franklin Dam or the Green Bans.
Patronising much? The “Light on the Hill” is a myth. All movements have myths. Again, Laborites, show us something positive – like putting the screws on your higher-ups to do a bit more than eff all on climate change, carbon reduction and (in Qld) reproductive rights, for a start – rather than trying to tear down the Greens.
Let’s hope that this kite of Guy Rundle’s never flies. Imagine Christine Milne running a Green/Nats party! As she inevitably would insist on if it came to pass. I found those recent joint Coalition/Greens press conferences very disquieting. No matter how intelligently Milne argued she was opposing the ETS for entirely different reasons from the Coalition her standing alongside them made a conflicting statement. Do I imagine the apparent waning of Bob Brown’s influence as leader and Milne’s growing ascendance?
Frankly, putting questions of principle aside, I’d regard Rundle’s suggestion as politically suicidal for the Greens. The Nationals are a rump and one suspects that within ten years, they will be about as relevant as the DLP.
There are people who support the ALP but want the ALP to know this comes from a concern about social issues perspective. Rundle’s policy would gag them in a chase for votes from people who will effectively vote Coalition in the lower house. The Greens social values voters could then either vote ALP, vote Independent or not at all.
Related OT for a second, but wasn’t it funny on Talking Heads this week, old footage of Jack Mundey being interviewed at Kellys Bush, a packet of B&H slides out from under the camera and he casually accepts without breaking verbal stride… the past is a foreign country and so on.
Liam, I know you can paint the approval of interracial lesbian sex as racist and sexist. I suppose the poster assumes a white lesbian audience…
“that the organised Right in Australia so far haven’t engaged seriously with climate change doesn’t mean that in the future they won’t, or that they are somehow incapable of doing so.”
Hopefully yes Liam- and I for one *want* them to. Stop the denial and get in the game. Step up to plate!
On Rundle’s thesis de jour – meh. This is the sort of thing the ALP Left dreams might happen in some magical universe to save their inner-city seats. Its hardly ‘big picture’ stuff. And they *are* dreaming.
Yeah, I think we agree about Rundle’s fantasising, Izquierdista. I’m just saying that there’s also a semi-deliberate conflation by Greens politicians in public debate of the interests of the planet and the interests of the Australian Greens Party—this is just *waiting* to be challenged by an environmentalist Party supporting more inequality, less democracy, etc. As Norto said:
At some point the Tories are going to flip the switch from “not dealing” to “dealing”. I don’t know how they’ll do it, and it’s not my problem, but they will. What then for the intrinsic Left-environmental link?
IMO, imagining
Baldrick’sRundle’s cunning plan were viable and possible, though, it probably wouldn’t save inner city ALP Left seats so much as crush the last vestiges of the old Country Party and entrench Independents in rural and outer-suburban seats.Hell, I wouldn’t stand in the way of that.
Sure Liam – and then we’d being having an ideological/ strategic debate over how to tackle the problem, not whether to – I’d welcome that shift.
Does anyone know, whether the majority of Greens members are opposed to industrial production per se, or are they opposed to the way in which it is organised i.e. in pursuit of profits with little or no regard for the health of humans or the environment?
Everyone’s covered the key points already. I’ve always viewed the greens as a general left party that’s largely positioned further to the left than the ALP, that has bound itself to green issues as a core or defining issue the way Labor has with unions.
My view is in the latter case that can be a hindrance. To be a simplistic bast*rd the greens could do one of three things:
- nothing, they have defined themselves for the time being and are doing ok, making traction here and there;
- go greener, that is emphasise the overwhelming plenary nature of green issues and be prepared to ditch others for expediency, which seems to be the Rundle model; or
- bed down as a more general left wing party, emphasising the ‘social democratic’ or ‘progressive’ elements rather than having nomenclature, symbols etc that give primacy to the ‘green’.
Rundle’s idea seems pie in the sky, and frankly it’s not a very pleasant pie. Who wants to deal with a quasi religious sect that is obsessed with the environment over all other forms of social progress? Sounds very anti-humanist to me…
Liam, you’re as delusional as Rundle.
What we NEED is a real country party.
Most of the issues the Greens bang on about environmentally impact on rural voters. They’re not necessarily anti farmer – it’s quite easy, as many farmers will testify, and the Landcare experience also demonstrates, to marry good environmental practices and profitable farming.
Farmers are concerned about the environment, it’s their bread and butter. As a recent survey by the ABS shows, they’re climate change believers. They do understand the links between human action and the environment.
So a ‘real’ country party, which supported farmers when it came to economics etc and also pushed environmental issues could work.
But I don’t see it happening out of any reconfigeration of the Greens or the Nats. The Greens – as evidenced by some posts above – are still as much a protest party, intent on changing politics, as they are an environmental one. (One of the best things they could do would be to change their name). The Nationals are very much representative of the squattocracy, and of decresing relevance when one or more members of a farming family has to get a job outside (usually as a nurse or a teacher) to survive.
There is nothing wrong with the name “Greens.”
The most sensible thing Greens pollies have done so far is to start wearing suits. The next most sensible thing (hyperbole alert!) would be to change their name, to differentiate their brand from the really rabid ferals who are classed as ‘greenies’.
If Labor called itself “The Union party” then every time there was bad news about unions on the news there’d be an automatic idenfication with the ALP. If the Liberals called themselves ‘The Big End of Town party’ then every time a James Hardie case blew up, there’d be an automatic negative for the Liberals.
Calling themselves “Environment First” or similar would give the Greens plausible deniability when ‘the greenies’ were too feral.
That’s a rather sexist remark. None of the females in the Greens have worn suits, nor are they required to.
Why don’t you start wearing a suit, Mehitabel? It might give your arguments a veneer of respectability.
I do. And I look very dashing in it, too.
Some of the comments on this thread remind me of those of Quiggin, who yesterday castigated the Greens for their “political purity.” The difference between Quiggin’s comments and the comments here is that Quiggin’s were well-intentioned.
The Nats in W.A. have now very clearly defined themselves as a country party, but there will still be some conflicts with the greens (one of whom represents the ‘Mining and Pastoral’ seat in the W.A. Parliament. For example I think there would be disagreement about GM crops, live sheep exports and mulesing.
Mehitabel @ 43 seems to sum it up for me (having lived in both country and city).
The Greens are still too closely aligned with “fruitloop” issues in the minds of many rural voters I’ve spoken to (not that I agree with this view).
Mark – the distinct world you mention still exists and is strongly reinforced by the MSM in many ways. Political issues are so strongly city-focussed (apart from election time) that the sense of disempowerment can be pretty strong. The apparent inability of Macqaurie st (in NSW) to see any further west than Broadway becomes very apparent when people try to get even simple “outside” legislation passed.
The Nationals seem to have been bewildered by the sudden appearance of various independents. These independents typically are ex-Nats who realised that their particular constituency would always come second to what was considered good for the party. What I find funny is how long it is taking the Nats to realise this – I listened to dad explain this to Ian Sinclair a few years ago and his laughter was pretty loud. At least until Tony Windsor took the wind out of the sails of the New England Nats
IMHO the Nats deserve to disappear…I don’t think the Greens will fill the hole but it will be interesting to see what happens (especially if the NBN works as hoped).
Paul, Ben and Fran cover it for mine. My opinion of Rundle is always mixed anyway but he likes to stir things up, I reckon he rates well on the Crikey site.
Well, the workday for pundits must be about over, so Mr Rundle will no doubt be along soon to look at this thread.
Guy, if you read this comment, then answer me these questions:
(a.) Are you the same G. Rundle who several years ago wrote in The Age about your desire for a formal ALP/Green alliance?
(b.) If you love the Nationals so much, why not just wish that their members could be set free from party discipline altogether, i.e., hope they go down the path of becoming indendents like Tony Windsor?
(c.) This neo-contrarian anti-left position you’ve adopted, is it in anyway inspired by Camille Paglia deciding she is now basically a Naderite who just happens to believe Palin & Limbaugh & Fox News should run America? It’s okay, fess up; most every political con is imported from overseas…
Rundle’s argument is that the Nats can get serious by taking their constituents’ interweaving with the environment seriously. But he also suggests that the Greens’ ties to a heap of social stands aren’t necessary, nor necessarily fruitful for them.
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Yes and no.
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As the ecology hits the fan more people in the bush are going to see sense in policies of sustainability. Likewise the Greens and the Nts have something in common in that they both appear to be protectionist.
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But the types of people extant in the parties are quite different. For example, the Greens have a lot of Gay candidates. Also a lot of people in the Greens, particularly in the back rooms, are ex-CommParty or New Left types they won’t drop the Watermelon routine.
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On the other hand the demographic of the party could change and the more entrenched conservative positions of the Nats could soften.
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I suspect that a chunck of social conservatives may in fact turn green over the next littl while. And when it comes to economic regulation a lot of Nats are pretty much for it.
The problem as I see it, as an orchardist, is the wide divide between farmers in Australia with the small local producer on one hand and the big agribusiness exporter on the other.
The Nats with their free market ideology which protects the big exporters cannot possibly be relevant to the small family farm local producer except for their lip service to reregulation.
I see the Greens as being entirely relevant to the latter, of which I am one and is why I am a Green. The problem is that most farmers are a bit slow, or to be nice, conservative, and don’t like to let go of old associations which lump all farmers together.
This is the Paglia theory I reckon G. Rundle has adapted for his article,
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.html.
Methinks Rundle has much less personal experience of National voters than Paglia has of 3rd world women.
The polls have been putting the nats at a fraction of the green vote for a long time. The nats only survive because their supporters are concentrated. It would make sense for the nats to align themselves more closely to the greens. It may help them get green preferences to help them throw out the the rural libs.
This doesn’t mean that the greens have nothing to gain by trying to understand the needs of rural voters. Think for example about farmers opposition to good rural land being sacrificed to questionable carbon offset tree planting schemes.
On the other hand the drift of the labor party to the right is leaving a growing opportunity for both the greens and the rural socialists to fill this gap.
H
Steveh @50, yup same up here in Katterland, ‘fruitloops’ and rural voters dont mix really well. Rural voters also would like to see better infrastructure. 30kms from the nations fifth biggest airport, a major tourist destination and fruit bowl of the nation and lo … no mobile reception! Don’t even get me going about our local hospital.
Salient, yup an issue up here too. For example see the Chiquita debacle and increasingly the big fresh food people start to get a bit of, shall we say reputation amongst the producers.
Not so sure if political engagement by the greens would work in that regard. My observation is rural communities have individual identities with individual needs. My guess is, more independents on federal level as well as there will be a push to review federalism as the regions are loosing confidence in state governments.
@ 54 I’m inclined to agree. Diversity of opinion gives policy development credence.
And maybe Guy Rundle is also “a bit slow” if he imagines the critical matters of euthanasia acceptance, pro-abortion policy and drug decriminalisation are just “baggage” that can be jettisoned.
“Likewise the Greens and the Nts have something in common in that they both appear to be protectionist. But the types of people extant in the parties are quite different. For example, the Greens have a lot of Gay candidates.”
Adrien, then you would have been surprised to read this back in 2006: “[W.A.]State Nationals leader Brendon Grylls said his party would be making the same-sex marriage policy a manifesto commitment when Western Australians go to the polls to elect the state government in three years time, but that they would not be campaigning for partnerships before then. Gay and Lesbian Equality WA convenor Rod Swift told the Sydney Star Observer: “There was only a very small fraction of the people in attendance who didn’t vote for this motion. We’re talking more than 80 percent support.”
To my mind Paul @5 nailed it. Even a cursory glance at the Greens’ policy platform makes it clear that they are far from a single issue party. The idea that one could strip away the current committments to social equity, multiculturalism, human rights, etc and be left with a party that most of its current members would continue to campaign for is a nonsense. Attitudes to those issues, along with the environment, are integral to a broader world view that most members share.
However, Mark also has a point when he suggests that environmentalism and social liberalism do not have to go together. It would be feasible for new political parties to arise for example that were broadly centrist on most social and economic policies, but placed the correction of environmental externalities at the heart of their platform.
The reconciliation of these two points is that it is potentially feasible for their to be more than one political party that caters to those that think the two largest parties place insufficient emphasis on environmental issues, at least initially.
To me, the most interesting question is whether more than one environmental based political party would be an equilibrium or whether one would drive out the other. To Rundle’s mind he seems to think that an environment first party that junked the social liberalism would have wider popularity than the Greens do now.
But I’m not sure that is the case, and it would depend on what proportion of current green voters (as opposed to activists) support the more socially liberal and implicitly high taxing (IMHO implementing the current Greens agenda would require Scandinavian taxation levels) elements of their platform, or alternatively, how many current ALP/Liberal/National voters care enough about the environment to vote for an environment based party but are scared off the Greens by their current social policies.
Ultimately that is an empirical question and I’m not sure I have seen much evidence either way as to what is more likely.
Of course, the current equilibrium exists for a reason. And I suspect that is at least partly due to the fact that while philsophically support for the environment can be separated from “leftish” views on other issues, those that think the environment is not prioritised enough have made the leap that markets have failed in this area and are more prone to distrusting them in other areas as well, and that concern for the environment signals a degree of altruism that is also present in support for broader human and animal rights, etc…
Another surprising thing you may not know about W.A. politics – apart from our recently elected Green MLA, we have an independent MLA (helping keep the Liberal government in power) who was elected as a “Liberals for Forests” candidate. Here’s a bit from the Wikipedia entry:
“liberals for forests is an Australian political minor party. It has contested both state and federal elections in recent years, but has only achieved one elected representative – Janet Woollard (elected as an Independent) in Western Australia. It has no representation at the federal level. The party was founded in 2001 by Dr Keith Woollard, husband of Janet Woollard and an ex-AMA president.
The Party generally professes itself to be ideologically aligned with the centre-right sympathies of the Liberal Party of Australia, but with a greater regard to environmentalism”
I think people need to step outside the actual configuration of Australian politics as it exists now. While I disagree with this comment by Lefty E:
… for reasons I’ve already explained (ie sociologically, work is a bigger and much more present feature of most of us urban dwellers’ lives than “the weather” – even when the latter presents itself as confirming emotionally the scientific belief on climate change – WorkChoices and Climate Change – both winners for Labor in 07 – have different degrees of affect and immediacy attached to them…)
… I think Rundle, while writing a provocation (and that’s a good thing imho) is gesturing towards possible configurations – which is what I was trying to get at in my post.
It may well be that the way the Australian political party system looks in 20 years time is as different as it looked 20 years ago, though there will be some continuities to be sure.
What continues to surprise me in these sort of threads is that people can’t distinguish between analysis/critique and advocacy. Rundle, it seems to me, is doing the former. It’s not necessarily (and I don’t think intended to be read as) a normative argument.
I think the failure to see this is one of the big problems with much of the discourse on Australian politics. It lacks imagination.
“It’s time for that to happen again, but if the Greens want it they have to change too, and wind up the whole watermelon party routine — green outside, red in. Their championing of human rights and being the only party early and often to talk back to China is admirable, but that and their whole left liberal baggage of euthanasia, abortion policy etc, is the mirror of the Nats’ dilemma — a take it or leave it inner urban new left package delivered late from the 80s.
The Greens should simply dump their social policy per se, take it off the books, and proclaim that on a whole range of issues these are simply conscience votes. It should be possible to imagine in the near future, a Greens senator who is, reasonably and constructively, anti-euthanasia, opposed to drug decriminalisation and anti-abortion.
If the Greens truly believe that the whole ecosystem is under imminent threat then they should redefine these other issues as outside their programmatic politics.
On that basis, a new and more creative politics is possible — one where people can acknowledge their differences while working on solid common ground, outside of zombie categories. But it will take real leadership from both parties to achieve it.”
Seriously Mark, does that not sound like advocacy to you? If it isn’t advocacy it is a rather poorly written piece as the intent isn’t at all clear….
The continual use of the word “should” signals as the piece as normative, at least as how I read it…
LO, I might have distorted the meaning somewhat by only excerpting the last bit. The context of the argument there is Rundle’s propositions about the decline of coherence in coherent ideological positions overall, which applies equally to the Libs and Labor. What I think he’s getting at is that both the Nats and Greens could break out of their electoral limitations were they to reconfigure themselves in the way he suggests.
I’d also note that “should” can indicate a conditional term in an argument – if x is so, then y should do z. Laying out an argument is not the same as endorsing a position.
I realise that, but the relevant statements do not read as though they are conditional….it reads as a prescription….
Beyond that, I just disagree with him that it would be either feasible for desirable for the current Greens to transform themselves in that way…political reconfigurations do occur, but the one Rundle describes would be enormous and ultimately destructive….I mean, would any of the current Green MPs, at either the state or federal level want to be members of such a party?
There is perhaps an argument for the Greens broadening their electoral appeal along some dimensions, but I think it is highly questionable whether an accommodation with the Nats is the most effective way to do it….
Don’t forget, LO, he’s arguing the Nats would have to change too.
um, the Democrats anyone?
It was their demise that really set the Green vote going, and for a party that was started by a Liberal Senator and retained a fair whack of small-l liberals, it’s core Senate vote during the 80′s/90′s was I’d suggest was a goodly proportion of current Green voters who were voting/alive (!) back then, (not Green Party members) and especially as they embraced, or moved further left or even rather, functioned as a brake on the excesses of the Hawke/Keating Govt.
Interesting to reflect on the different policy mixes prior Cheryl’s defection & the GST/Meg Lees debacle, including their environmental credentials and their policy alliances or not with the other major parties and their seemingly broader appeal across the entire electorate, rather than in say the inner-city as per the Greens.
Twenty years ago Hawke & Keating in Labor and Forever Young Fogey in the Libs had pretty much concluded the way the major parties would be, and we haven’t seen much change on that front in the succeeding years.
The big developement since then is in the minors; the collapse of the ADs’ dream of a centre party & the slow, unstoppable rise of the Greens.
What are the Greens going to do in the next couple of decades other than establish themselves as a third party movement that can perpetuate themselves over generations (something neither the DLP nor the Democrats could do)?
I think some people have decided that Wong and Garrett are a brick wall they (not so much the Greens, but rather, sensitive progressives in general) have slammed up against, and they’re floudering around with political fantasies. Of course these fantasies are predicated on the fact that the minor party we’re talking about has shown it isn’t beholden to the old, crude, Pilgerite resentments, but I fail to see how this translates into the movement in question joining with some make-believe touchy feely RARA push.
I grew up around the Victorian National Party voter base, and still have friends and family in that world. I can see these people going independent, and even supporting the occasional Peter Andren type—but I don’t see any possiblity of a fusion between the Greens and any rural movement.
Have any of you people ever met a Nat politician? It doesn’t matter that they’re mostly not Oz op-ed page reactionaries when it comes to AGW/hard science fact. They’re living in 1977, ffs.
“It may well be that the way the Australian political party system looks in 20 years time is as different as it looked 20 years ago, though there will be some continuities to be sure.”
Everyone forget the Progress Party these days! They foreshadowed neo-liberal ideas in a time (Fraser’s) when they were still just backroom mutterings in the Libs.
I agree work is more immediate influence on consciousness Mark – but Id say weather is catching up, and I can assure it has completely overtaken in places like the Pacific (…and perhaps New Orleans? Bangladesh?). And in the subconscious – well I do think people deep down feel things aren’t right, and this accounts as much as anything for the spectacular rise in priority of environmental issues over the last 10 years in the broader public mind.
And in any case – isnt weather-determinism pretty much what Rundle is arguing here as a basis for Green-Nat reconfig? Folks close to the land etc?
Yes, I agree it’s changing, Lefty E.
I still think the identification isn’t powerful enough for The Greens to ever really aspire to major party status. The Democrats would have had a big problem there too, but a different one.
By and large, the Greens are on the right track to becoming a major political party. The ALP is quickly filling the void created by the lack of relevance of the Libs. The ideological vacuum that’s been created by the ALP’s shift is ultimately what’s leading to Green’s emergence into political relevance as of late.
I think the things that hurt the Greens the most are a) a lack of money and b) a lack of bonhomie with the “average” Australian. The latter is pretty much a function of spin, made possible by the former.
The Greens don’t have to go down the grandstanding ‘hold press conferences in front of buildings under constrcution’ route, which is ultimately dishonest, but I think it’s something they’ll have to break to get from 14% of the vote to 40%.
Liam #31,
But, but, but… we’re the Greens, and that means we’re always already tolerant, cosmopolitan, egalitarian, non-racist and non-sexist because we’re not burdened with Original Sin like those Lefties who are always already totalitarian, violent, crazy, unpopular, drug-pushing, child-molesting unborn baby murderers and card-carrying union members who leave a smell in the toilet when they go unlike us Greens who never leave a smell in the toilet… get my meaning?
To my mind Paul @5 nailed it. Even a cursory glance at the Greens’ policy platform makes it clear that they are far from a single issue party. The idea that one could strip away the current committments to social equity, multiculturalism, human rights, etc and be left with a party that most of its current members would continue to campaign for is a nonsense. Attitudes to those issues, along with the environment, are integral to a broader world view that most members share.
However, Mark also has a point when he suggests that environmentalism and social liberalism do not have to go together.
Firstly as a Green thank you for the first paragraph LO, it’s always nice to see intelligent outsiders ‘get it’, especially as it’s taking far too long for the sloppy MSM to catch up the fact that the Greens have long been a multi-issue party.
With regard to the second point that Mark made, yes there’s no doubt that another political party may well carve a niche based on an environmental ethos without the social progressiveness of the Greens.
I would argue it would not be a particularly coherent philosophy. People in this thread, and just in general tend to forget I think that the Greens have a coherent paradigm (or probably more accurately a philosophy for paradigmatic change) that is holistic in focus, and thus in considering the issue of sustainability, it inevitably looks at human society & economy not just in relation to the environment, but in terms of what preconditions need to be present in human society to support a long-term sustainable solution. Inevitably that leads to recognising basics such as that inequality must be addressed to minimise the temptation for some to take more now leaving less for others present and future, and so on. It’s entirely true that some in the Greens focus more on the environment as an issue in isolation, and others focus on more traditional lefty concerns etc. but I think that variation is found in any political party.
This is encouraged by how we all look at political parties -we silo the policies and look at them individually, rather than remembering that the credible parties actually have a holistic workd-view behind them all that is meant to link them. The whole point of the branding of the Greens as a single issue party was to undermine people’s perception that the Greens have such a coherent and holistic world view.
Rundle’s argument I find pretty sloppy and for want of a better term, unethical, because as a Green I can’t imagine trading off human rights for environmental ones, because they are intrinsically linked in my world view, as just one eg.
There’s no doubt in my mind that as the Greens get much better at presenting themselves and finding ways around the MSM to do so to rural voters, we’ll cotinue to pinch Nat voters who are also socially progressive (which is a fair few rural voters in my experience).
Where I personally feel the Greens can achieve considerable growth is within the blue collar vote (for want of a better term). The Greens have much to say to people in this demographic around environmental health issues, workers rights, and the kind of society we want to live in, the kinds of industry we want to have for work opportunities, our work-family balance, government services vs taxes (yes much more like the Scandinavian model), and infrastructure.
I wouldn’t hesitate to say that our messaging in this area needs to improve, and that will mean more in the Party who come from relatively wealthy backgrounds, have a tertiary education and that classic sense of entitlment need to be either convinced or shifted to allow others to bring the Green’s world view to the broader electorate in terms they understand and relate to. That won’t involve jettisoning half the Party’s Charter.
Liam, that German Green ad is a disgrace.
Ootz,
If the nats could give up the ministerial appointments and ditch the Libs, they’d be like some uber-Harradine, often having balance of power in bouth houses. You’d soon have fibre optic broadband rolling down the roadbase driveway of every back-of-beyond sheep station in the land.
Absolute insanity.
The Greens don’t need to ditch their social policy and cultural baggage – it is the Nationals who are losing their demographics and constituency and need to get with the times.
It is this stupid obsession with the kulcha wars that has lead to the rise of the Greens as politically relevent, and increasingly damage the Nationals electoral chances. This is especially so at a federal level, because a network of agrarian communities is no longer a viable single electorate and the rural electorates are simply becoming too large and diverse, or end up being dominated by the electoral interests and politics of the larger towns. I’ll agree that rural voters do tend to be more conservative and there are cultural differences, but I think the reason why the Nationals have remained electable has more to do with our electoral system. To remain electable it is they who need to mainstream and bring their voters with them.
And it shouldn’t be that hard. People born in the country have the same chance of being related to someone who is gay, having an abortion, or their kids having a drug problem than their urban counter-parts. It ain’t some medieval peasant utopia out there all wedding bells and beer and only fuck according to the seasons and in the missionary position and such.
I don’t understand the reasoning behind this at all. Why would the only left party leave a policy vacuum on drug law reform, women’s rights etc to the Libertarian right?
hannah’s dad @ 17, I went to hear Carol Vincent at a “Meet the Candidates” session a couple of weeks ago – she is very, very impressive, in a similar way to Christine Milne (except a bit less strident). I hope she ends up being our Legislative Council candidate next year. If anyone can drag the farmers towards the Greens, it’d be her.
“how many current ALP/Liberal/National voters care enough about the environment to vote for an environment based party but are scared off the Greens by their current social policies.”
Probably a few. The reverse is probably also true.
“Don’t forget, LO, he’s arguing the Nats would have to change too.”
Rundle may briefly say he is- and I have read the full article – but I do not see anything much that he suggests the Nats would need to do to bring to the unlikely marriage table.
It’s more a case that some Nats have finally caught up with good environmental conerns and plans that the greens have been running with since their beginning. Let’s find a way for them to jump on board.
It would be madness for greens to do a u-turn and drop progressive policy just because the Nats and other parties are struggling to catch up.
Dave at #77
Interesting, I suppose I should get off my rear end and find out a bit more about all 4 of the candidates and get myself involved.
I live in the donga, sort of, and its a bit hard to get into the party political dynamics.
Actually one of the strengths of the Greens, at least here in SA, is the depth of their selection process and how it involves members democratically. Having been involved in the selection process of ‘the other party’, the Greens present as a welcome contrast.
A comment in general.
Look Rundle is way off beam in his article, I dunno why exactly but ignorance is a real possibility.
The Greens are succeeding, success breeds success.
They are riding a gentle but steadily discernible wave to increasing membership and funding [mainly due to electoral success], positive public awareness where the old myths of the media and the other mobs are being seen for what they are, smears based on fear, getting more publicity than ever before, inevitably that is having a positive impact on the public.
More parliamentary members than ever before with a strong probability of more coming.
Go and have a look at Possum’s sidebar where he shows how each of the parties is going compared to 07 election.
The Greens support is up everywhere, in virtually all categories and states, the only party succeeding overall. Not by much maybe, but succeeding.
The COALition, Nats, even the ALP, are a mixed bag, with the first two mainly negative.
About half of the increase of the ALP 2PP since the election is down to the Greens.
The Greens have a winning formula.
Why change?
One of the sillier tropes in MSM commentary about the Greens is the idea that the NSW Greens are factionally divided between so-called “red Greens” and “blue Greens”, with individuals such as Jamie Parker and Cate Faehrmann being placed in the latter category in opposition to Lee Rhiannon. During the 1990s I knew Jamie Parker reasonably well and Cate Faehrmann very well, and politically neither individual had a blue bone in their body, nor is there any good reason to believe that they have acquired any in the intervening years.
Yeah Paul – a lot of that stuff is wish-fulfillment from ALP HQs who occasionally wish that their dishonest “a vote for anyone but us is a vote for TEH LIBS” campaigns had a grain of truth.
Exhibit A: this shitstain from VIC ALP Hackquarters.
Look at him: totally unrepentant, total contempt for the electoral commission, a total liar (Twentyman in fact pref’ed ALP) and thinking he’s clever.
Oi Einstein, was that Kororoit shitsheet from the same brilliant VIC ALP brainstrust toolkit that brought us 6 years of Fielding? I sense a similar level of strategic and tactical nous in this latest embarrassing performance.
I also recall Jamie Parker — I assume he is the same Jamie Parker who studied at Macquarie Uni in the 1980s — and he seemed to share the same outlook on social issues as most left-of-centre people.
While I have no trouble agreeing that work is a more powerful influence on cultural consciousness, the argument that the ALP is inherently a party of the left seems to me to rely on a further step that a particular political analysis inevitably (or at least) usually flows from that particular consciousness, and I’m not sure that that argument has been sustained.
Yes, criticisms of (some sections of) the Greens as engaging in electoral hostility towards the ALP needs to be seen in the context of the kind of broad left unity that the ALP is known for.
The Jamie Parker I knew was studying at Macquarie in the early 1990s – he’s a very, very tall man.
From what I understand the thought of Heffernan joining the Nats is only slightly more believble than Bob Brown doing so.
I think several previous commenters have correctly alluded to the key issue – electoral success. As opposed to what works for the internal dynamic of the party. Rundle is proposing that greater success will come by streamlining the Greens’ policy focus, while others make the valid point that ditching broadly Left issues will lose members and support. Without a clear indication that one formula is greatly superior (in terms of garnering votes), I’d suggest not engaging in large-scale reform, a process that imposes costs of its own. At least that’s my experience with ‘restructuring’ in the workplace.
A whimsical idea occurs – why not take back the label ‘conservative’? Conserve the environment, conserve existing worker’s rights, conserve social democratic values, conserve hard-won gains in human rights… Plus it would be highly amusing to see dreadlocked, pierced, hemp-sandal-wearing scruffians voting for the Conservative Party.
“The Nats with their free market ideology”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I was wondering when the ALP vs. Green stoush would start.
@84 – Martin, perhaps it defends on how one defines the left? That’s really the crux of the issue. It’s not automatic that a particular set of essentially liberal values on social policies are associated with the left. They had more champions in the Liberal party and the Democrats in the 70s and 80s than in Labor. There are some very complex dynamics at work here, but I still can’t help thinking people are forgetting history and seeing everything through a current partisan lens.
“A whimsical idea occurs – why not take back the label ‘conservative’? Conserve the environment, conserve existing worker’s rights, conserve social democratic values, conserve hard-won gains in human rights… Plus it would be highly amusing to see dreadlocked, pierced, hemp-sandal-wearing scruffians voting for the Conservative Party.”
I want to take back the lable Liberal.
I want to take back the label “Labor”.
I want to take back the label “Party”.
There’s no way to do public debate like the Blutarsky way, Senator. Especially when you’re confronting existential threats.
I’ll stoush lightly I promise
Fair enough. Won’t argue with that.
told you it would be light
but I’ll see if I can step it up just one notch.
I think that the above discussion shows that neither history not current dynamics are sufficient. You really need to consider both. But on that note you didn’t address my more subbstantive point. I’m happy to say that the ALP came out of a particular materialist anaysis of work that was inherently leftist (by certain definitions of left). I am less convinced that this analysis is characteristic of the modern ALP (although I’m not completely sceptical of the idea either).
I’m sorry, Haiku, but if you want togas and public debate, accept no substitute.
Topical, too: happy 20th, LoB.
20th? There’s ten years missing there, boxhead.
IMO there’s a place for a Party of evil in the current spectrum, if we’re talking current Party dynamics that keep the current Australian discipline with unifying pledges.
Whoops! Right you are.
Party of Evil, eh?
yes, I certainly didn’t want to start another boring ALP-Green stoush, above. I posted that out of genuine (even non-partisan: Twentyman was an independent, not a Green) outrage on behalf of all Victorians. That hack must be stopped!
On out there reclaimations of language: here’s one of my faves. Brilliantly confronts a host of preconceptions.
Myriad (and any other Greens supporter that wishes to respond), I guess one of my main concerns with the Greens platform is that it has been devised without giving proper consideration to how to pay for it all.
A very large proportion of the actions in the platform result in a call for additional public spending – whether that be education, health, the environment, infrastructure, more generous welfare state, etc. Although the platform is not detailed enough to be “costed”, full implementation would seem to me to imply a rise in the public expenditure share to around the levels of the Scandanavian countries – that is close to 50% of GDP. Currently, public expenditure in Australia is closer to 30% of GDP.
Now, I don’t want to criticise the goal as such, we can leave that for another time. But the platform just doesn’t have a credible plan to pay for that increase in the role of the public sector. Indeed, the promise to move away from the GST toward taxes on corporations, labour inomce, the environment and closing loopholes would make it harder to achieve the stated goals.
First, if the greens are successful in moving Australia to a near zero emissions country in the medium term, ultimately there will be no pollution to tax – so that is not a long-term solution to the financing gap. Second, closing loopholes, broadening the base, etc is unlikely to yield much more than a couple of per cent of GDP. Third, the promise to lift the corporate rate to 33% wouldn’t yield much additional revenue and corporate taxes much above that would be highly distortionary. Fourth, Australia already raises a disproportionate share of revenue from taxing income.
If you take a look at Europe, most countries have broad based valued added taxes of close to 20%. They have done this because the income tax rates that would need to apply to generate the additional revenue they need would simply be too high and distort decisions too much.
By all means, the Greens should have a committment to greater social equity, and making the tax system more progressive. But in having that committment, the party cannot take for granted how to pay for those committments or the impact on household and firm decisions of the choice of how to pay for those committments.
None of this matters if the Greens remain a niche party targeting some 10 to 15% of the overall electorate and balance of power in the Senate. But if they hope to increase this vote share significantly, then in the process there will be greater scrutiny of the non-environmental aspects of their platform. If the financing is not credible it will potentially undermine the push to become a larger party. As such, I think it would be to the benefit of the Greens if they employed a couple of people that know a bit more about public finance to examine those aspects of the platform and think harder about how the broader goals and policies can be financed equitably, efficiently and credibly.
Yes thank you, Lefty E, @ 82 and 98. When will Vic Labor get rid of this turd? Us voters do notice these things you know!
Obviously in the long term, a Scandanavian level of taxation would have to apply to corporations as well as individuals if the Greens agenda were to be implemented.
I for one would welcome this, I would love to live in a society rather then an economy. But I fear such a change would never be politically possible. But I still am glad that there are Greens out there to vote for and give people like me someone to vote for.
And lets face it, the Greens will never form a government anyway. Australian voters are way too tribal to change in larger numbers from the two party club.
Scandanavian countries do not have high levels of corporate taxation Brent. Indeed, in 2009 the corporate tax rate in Sweden will be 26.3% – lower than Australia’s!! Norway’s is also lower than Australia’s at 28%!! Finland’s is 26%!! Denmark’s is 25%!!
Oh, I did not know that. Well, I still think that BHP and NAB and the likes could cough up a bit more! I am a bit tired of Shareholders Uber Alles being Australia’s unofficial motto.
#97 “I was born in…”
Yowie zowie, best moniker in show. Gold medal for something, if I could only put a name to it.
MMM, now THAT’s good bass.
As a kid I did know plenty of Nat voting farmers concerned by the Murray/Darling basin issue, and I assume this tendency is what people here are referencing when they talk of that RARA movement being somewhat environmentally aware (& why I wrote upthread, “It doesn’t matter that they’re mostly not Oz op-ed page reactionaries when it comes to AGW/hard science fact”).
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s remember what fealess non-Liberal Senator Barnaby Joyce really believes about the big issue: “Well, climate’s changing all the time. There’s no issue about climate change. It’s the extent that humans are affecting it is a debate that I believe is going to go on.
What I question absolutely is that this emission trading scheme of Australia’s will have any effect whatsoever. I think that is a load of rubbish, to think that Australia is going to change the climate. It is not. Australia is going to put a lot of Australians out of a job. That’s what Australia is going to do.”
Regardless of what the National voters I’ve known might think, I retract what I wrote about their representatives supporting hard science.
It doesn’t matter that many of us on the Left have been conditioned to think political movements are (or should be) autonomous of whatever parliamentary leadership they have, they’re not.
LO wrote: “First, if the greens are successful in moving Australia to a near zero emissions country in the medium term, ultimately there will be no pollution to tax – so that is not a long-term solution”
I don’t think that, realistically, the Greens have to produce plans that will be implemented forever. Who’s to say what the changed situation in twenty years time may necessitate or be conducive to. Did Rudd have a policy of borrowing lots of money and sending $900 cheques out to everyone? The Greens can evolve their policies as other parties do.
I think there’s loads of money that can be gained for government spending by changing the rules on capital gains tax and trusts. Andrew Norton had a somewhat drastic suggestion recently – if I remember it was in relation to bringing the budget back into surplus – which was to pay all the family benefits now on offer to just the poorest 50% of those currently receiving them. He thought this would save the government about $10 billion per year. Worth looking into?
Russell
It is of course true that all sorts of unforseen shocks and events make long-term budget planning complicated. But it is pretty clear that there is a large gap between how much the Greens would like to spend, and what they have set out to raise in revenue. The platform reads as though the government has no budget constraint. In my eyes, that undermines their credibility somewhat.
The fiscal stimulus by Rudd largely entails a temporary increase in government outlays, not a permanent one. There is a large difference between that and a permanent increase in outlays.
Andrew Norton’s idea is quite a good one. And there are many other areas where I am sure the Greens would like to reduce spending (defense being one of them). But think of it his way. To raise the Australian welfare state to the generosity of the Scandanavian welfare state would imply an increase (in today’s dollars) in spending of around $200 billion a year. You simply cannot raise that sort of money with the plans outlined in the Greens’ platform.
Obviously nobody cares about that right now, because the Greens aren’t going to form a government, or even be in a coalition government for the forseeable future.
But in the medium term, I think it would be in the Greens’ interests to think a bit more deeply about these issues….
Rundles article is though provoking but I doubt practical for the Greens to divest themselves of some kind of generic left social agenda. There’s definitely a tension in environmental politics for the left though-doesn’t mean the two can’t fit together. I can think of plenty of true blue lefties though that are further right than Arnie on a given set of green issues. The one area I’d most raise an eyebrow at in Rundles piece thoug is the so called farmer/greenie alliance. I think the intention was great but the outcomes were unfortunately largely illusory as a quick examination of current practices will show. Landcare in Australia was a great idea but I’m not sure its really worked. I think its very difficult to show that it made much difference at all outside of a handful of inspiring and comitted landowners. Sure provided a lot of free fences for the rural sector though.
Jack
I live in the country and of necessity talk to a lot of farmers.
I don’t think there is a farmer/greenie alliance and I don’t think that’s possible, if by ‘greenie’ we mean the party. If we’re talking environmental principles, no problem. Farmers recognise that good environmental practices are good business – planting trees provides windbreaks, removing blackberries leads to more productive pasture, protecting the waterways from runoff protects water quality etc.
Yes, there are farmers who do environmentally damaging things, and I know who they are because the other farmers complain about them.
As for LandCare, sorry, can see the successes every day. Our area has the highest percentage of farmers involved in Landcare, and it’s taken very seriously – lots of field days, on ground trials, water testing, fencing off of waterways, etc. I’ve been forums right across Victoria and seen similar programs in operation. I know farmers who were once tree choppers who are now tree planters.
Neither the Nats or the Greens can tap into this movement. The Nats are too fixated (at a leadership level) on big farming interests and pleasing the Libs; the Greens are too progressive socially.
That’s why I was talking about another party entirely, one which won’t scare the horses socially but will support the kind of environmental action most farmers want to see.
“LO wrote: “First, if the greens are successful in moving Australia to a near zero emissions country in the medium term, ultimately there will be no pollution to tax – so that is not a long-term solution…..”
.
I’d thought this was possibly a mistake – the Green’s website describes a policy of moving to ” NET zero emiissions…”.
From their policies links -
“Goals
The Australian Greens want:
13.Australia to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as is feasible and by no later than 2050 with a minimum of 40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2020.
.
Many of the other policies are fine motherhood type statements but they lack explantions about how the goals would be achieved and this absence ( perhaps others could direct me to the relevant information source ) leaves a space where the opponents of this policies can hatch all sorts of mischief.
Prior to the last election I recall graziers looking worried as they had heard that all agriculture west of the Newell Highway ( roughly runs down NSW from Qld to Vict about 350 klms inland ) would be banned by the actions of the incoming ALP government.
RARA voters can be insular in their expectations and demands and there will be a space where Green policies should be able to attract some support from otherwise conservative voters. If the policies are likely to be financially attractive then all manner of other concerns can be downplayed.
The trouble with Landcare is that, while it is achieving wonderful results, everyone knows that in a sense, this good work is being undone many times over while logging of native forests continues.
On the Greens and farming communities, I think that given the scarce resources of the Greens, they are much better off concentrating their efforts in the cities rather than tackling the rather rusted on conservatives out here in rural areas.
Doesn’t anyone actually READ? I’m not saying the Greens should be out after the farmer vote at all.
And Salient Green, what a load of tosh. On that logic, let’s NOT do anything about climate change, either, because gee, we’re still eating tuna and killing dolphins.
Logging BTW is a sustainable industry. It’d be good to have some kind of consistency on the issue. On one hand, many environmentalists point to biofuels as a replacement for coal, and cite Norway etc as examples and on the other they decry the cutting down of trees.
They say plant more trees and then tsk tsk about the unnaturalness of plantation timbers and the MIS schemes.
I’m far from saying clear fell all native forests. But some can be logged sustainably and it’s better to log here, where there is a vigilant environmentally aware population to oversee it, than to log overseas in countries where there isn’t.
This is exactly why the Greens won’t cut it in rural areas. They have no understanding of the practicalities of many of these issues and even less understandings of their complexities and impacts.
I repeat: what is needed is a new bush party, which understands both the environment and farmers.
The ALP may end up being it by default but it would need to reorganise its approach to country campaigning.
I’ll point this out again, having previously done so in other venues to no avail.
The Greens do quite well in rural areas.
They are by no means, as the fallacy tries to make out, a ‘city slicker’ party.
More rural [relatively speaking] than the ALP probably.
Check this out.
Its the %s of their vote the Greens get by population regions for Australia, first row ’04 election, then ’07.
Inner Metro 10% …….. 10.8%
Outer Metro 6.3% …….. 6.5%
Provincial 7.4% …….. 7.5%
RURAL 5.5% …….. 6.4%
OK, clearly they do best in inner metro, but 6.4% in rural is not to be sneezed at, nor is 7.5% in provincial, and I suspect there would be a bigger disparity if we looked at the ALP numbers on the same basis.
Similarly once you get outside the ‘elite’ suburbs the Liberal vote drops dramatically and of course the Nats don’t even bother standing in metro.
Also note that their biggest increase from ’04 to ’07 was in the rural category.
I would suggest that, contrary to the fallacy and myth, the Greens actually have the most even spread of votes on a regional basis.
Source: http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/Pubs/rp/2008-09/09rp08.pdf
Interesting, HD. A paper which talks about the Greens vote being highly regionalised and you interpret it in the opposite way.
The figures you should be looking at is the differential between city/rural votes -obviously it’s the difference in proportion which is significant, not the raw numbers. The difference between two percentages may only be one or two per cent, but that can translate to 10% of their actual vote. (So if I poll 1% in rural areas but 9% in the inner ciy, my vote is as polarised as a big party scoring 30% in rural areas and 54% — alert! maths isn’t my strong point, but I believe the principle is correct).
On those figures (and I repeat, my maths is dodgy and I’m happy to be corrected), the differential between Labor’s country and city vote is about 1.5% (proportional to overall voter numbers); the Libs is 2.5 (as you’d expect, with the Nats picking up the difference) and the Greens is 2% – so the difference in spread between the majors and Greens is not hugely different.
In other words, the Greens share of the regional vote compared to the metro vote reflects the ‘normal’ range for parties running in both rural and regional areas.
As for Liberals votes dropping off in regional areas, purleeasse. Some of the safest Liberal seats are rural.
“In other words, the Greens share of the regional vote compared to the metro vote reflects the ‘normal’ range for parties running in both rural and regional areas.”
Which is at odds with this [from #111]:
” I think that given the scarce resources of the Greens, they are much better off concentrating their efforts in the cities rather than tackling the rather rusted on conservatives out here in rural areas.”
which is what I was responding to.
As I was pointing out, the fallacy that the Greens are just a city slicker party with bugger all rural support is, well, a fallacy.
“As for Liberals votes dropping off in regional areas, purleeasse. Some of the safest Liberal seats are rural”
Agreed.
I was comparing ‘rich’ metro to ‘poor’ metro.
All the parties have their particular constituencies, what I was pointing out is that the Greens haver a wider spread than is acknowledged.
For example in SA the 2 rural seats are strongly Liberal, before the ’07 election two of the safest in the country, although one is not so safe now. I live in one of those seats and next door to the other.
In those seats the ALP scored huge swings [2PP], each around 10%, but that still leaves a long way to go, 5%in one, about 10% in the other.
Previously the ALP primary vote was abyssmal, which is a common element in rural Oz and which is what I was contrasting to the Greens.
Now compare that to the urban strongholds [eg Port Adelaide in SA] of the ALP where they can get 50-60% of the primary vote and the Libs sans Nats struggle which is in strong contrast to their elite urban suburbs support [eg Malcolm's seat].
So what we have is noticeable differeneces in the appeal of the parties according to the urban/rural and socio economic nature of the electorates.
But within that range the Greens are relatively consistent.
Which, to repeat, is at odds with the fallacy that they have limited appeal to rural voters.
Think of it this way.
Overall the Greens got 7.8% vote in ’07 in the whole of Oz.
They got 6.4% in rural regions.
That is not a huge discrepancy.
What would the figures be for the ALP?
Seriously?
I’d be interested to find that out.
If the ETU (after splitting from Labor Left) decided to financially help The Greens we will be seeing an interesting QLD Parliament.
It always annoys me that the Greens get more votes in the Lower House than the Nats, but can’t win a seat.
2007:
Greens 7.8% no seats
Nats 5.5% 10 seats
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/
Russel #60 – Yes I am surprised, quite pleasantly. Cheers.
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Martin – Yes, criticisms of (some sections of) the Greens as engaging in electoral hostility towards the ALP needs to be seen in the context of the kind of broad left unity that the ALP is known for.
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The Greens are being hostile…
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Oh that’s rich, Rich I tells ya. The ALP are the Woprld Heavyweight Champions of hostile. And their hostility is rooted in the bogus assertion of progressive unity by which the Greens are committing a cardinal sin if they have the temerity to decline to preference the ALP but the ALP are entitled to get reactionaries like Fielding a seat in the House.
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The Labor Party’s culture can be very very unpleasant. Even compared to the Tories.
Mehitabel #112. Don’t get cranky, it affects your ability to think. I put enough qualification in my post that there was no reason for you to come to the conclusion that I think Landcare was not worth doing.
However, I clearly remember the outrage and sense of betrayal felt by many landcare groups when back in the 90′s, the news came out that continued logging of native forests put paid to many times the forestry efforts of the Landcare program. If that wasn’t your experience then good for you.
I think the only inconsistancy is your understanding of the logging/forestry issue. No old growth forests should be logged. Given the destruction of native forests to this day, we need to preserve even regrowth. No one tsk tsk’s about planting of trees but a plantation IS un-natural in that it can’t take the place of a natural forest ecosystem. And don’t get me started on MIS’s.
hannah’s dad. The Green vote in my electorate was 5.1%. That means the overall Green vote in 07 was 53% higher than in Barker and the average inner city Green vote 96% higher than in Barker. That’s what you call rusted on conservative! I wouldn’t like our SA Greens to waste any great effort here and I am sure they wouldn’t.
Not cranky, Salient, bad cold. Which is – if you look back – why I’m qualifying almost everything I say. I know what I’m trying to say but am aware enough of cognitive fugginess to realise it might not be getting across.
Your example simply underlines what I was saying: the implication is that there’s some kind of connection between Landcare and forestry and that somehow action in one area is undermined/demeaned by inaction in another. Something is always better than nothing; the forests were going to be logged whether Landcare existed or not. That Landcare did exist to some extent countered the loss of the forest.
OK so we’re not logging forests, old growth or regrowth. We’re not going to encourage the planting of plantations, it’s all too commercial and therefore icky. So where are we getting our timber from?
Obviously we’re either importing it (and thus exporting our environmental problems, very global citizenish of us) or not using timber at all.
Which is it?
HD – well I did find it out, because I needed to do rough calc for my post.
The ALP’s metro vote (primary) was 46, it’s non metro 39. When you look at this in proportional terms, this means there is a smaller difference between the ALP metro/non metro vote (a factor of 1.5) than there is for the Greens (a factor of
2) thus meaning that the ALP vote is more consistent across cadres than the Greens.
#120, plantations need to be encouraged only by ending the logging of native forests. As I said, no one tsk tsk’s the planting of trees but a plantation is no substitute of the ecology of a natural forest while being of course the required substitute for the timber of native forests. Sorry to hear you’re feeling crook. I feel I can be endlessly patient with you now.
Thanks, SG. Endless patience is always good when dealing with me, sick or well!
I think we are on the same page after all, unless you’re being REALLY nice.
Okay folks a few general points:
1) i didn’t suggest that the Greens should go into alliance with Nats as a coalition – simply explore the idea of a comprehensive agreement on shared policy around a number of issues to do with land degradation, mining, water etc etc – possibly with the idea of launching a shared statement on the fairly dire situation of the australian environment.
The political possibility – if both sides could have less emphasis on the social policies that are conscience issues anyway, – would not only be that the Greens and Nats could form a senate bloc on these issues of 12-15 votes, but also the possibility of preference exchanges in selected seats and state senate races.
Both minor parties benefit because they then have the capacity to really follow through and/or terrify the major parties they usually preference into genuine concessions.
This strikes me simply as the creativity and audacity needed for effective small party politics – similar to the DLP peeling off from Labor, a pretty big move.
2) Yes, i did suggest that the Greens offer the ALP a formal alliance in exchange for de facto taking their inner-city seats? why not have both strategies running concurrently? they’re house and senate separate, city and rural separate – it pushes other parties to have to react. The ALP would rather do anything that cede seats to the Greens, but they may have to eventually
3) a lot of the comments here have exactly the sort of ‘total package’ politics that i think is not merely stupid, but actually categorically incorrect, for the reasons both mark and i point to – the whole argument of green politics is that we are killing the system that sustains us all (and within which life is worth living), whatever out politics. It’s a universal category, and should be bodied forth by a universal politics. Issues like abortion, euthanasia, drug liberalisation are either incommensurable to toher moral questions (abortion), or simply a zombie form of ‘rights’ liberalism that has come attached to the left, and then the greens, by osmosis (if zombies osmose).
As a leftist i opposed legalised mass euthanasia because i think it treats people like machine parts to be thrown out, I oppose multiculturalism per se (though not a multiethnic immigrant society) because it’s a cultural technology to manipulate labour markets. not a grounded policy, i support pushing back against the chinese when they tell us what films we can show, but not lecturing them in the bastract about human rights, and so on….
The idea that a whole bunch of political attitudes fit together as a coherent philosophy, rather than the sum total of beliefs, prejudices and received thinking of an inner-urban sub-class is an expression of the moral vanity that many on the right so rightly criticse. It’s also profoundly unhistorical – the Communist left was hardly left-liberal, and the ALP began as a racist social conservative party, more opposed to female emancipation than non-labour.
The aggresiveness of many of the comments suggest to me the degree to which – no less than for rural australia – the green total package supports an identity, not a politics, and one based on an inherent sense of superiority. Well, if you can’t hold a pro-choice position without acknowledging the moral seriousness of (some) people on the other side, then you never really arrived at the belief in a clear, reflective and enlightened fashion.
Time to take off the cape and the red underwear gang, and stop jumping off the garage roof – and start talking across the divide about common causes, and common ends
As a leftist i opposed legalised mass euthanasia
Wha…what? Who has ever suggested legalising mass euthanasia?
Yowza, I’m going to write a longer response later, one ignoring non sequiturs about ‘mass euthanasia’ and ‘cultural technology to manipulate labour markets’.
Wha indeed.
What, no mention of “compulsory drugs in schools”?
What MIS schemes? The industry’s pretty much collapsed.
Guy – I appreciate your point that the environment is such a huge issue that it should be enough for a party to focus on. But there would be differences even within an environmental party over priorities and strategies (are the Greens and the ACF talking to each other yet?).
On the other hand the Green MPs are voting on stuff on parliament – if they vote consistently on issues the party is going to be known as having those policies. I kind of like the idea of the Greens as a broadly ‘progressive’ party – I vote for them because of their broad aims though I sometimes disagree with them. The W.A. Nats should be of interest to their Eastern States relations – this week in the W.A. Parliament they teamed up with the Greens to amend the government’s mandatory sentencing laws to exclude juveniles.
Why don’t you come clean, Rundle? Do you or do you not support a woman’s right to abortion?
What is the Greens membership base like in Regional and Rural Australia compared to the suburbs?
Coming in late I think a lot of the early discussion was based around the assumption Guy was suggesting dumping all non-environmental policies. That would be a position worth of contempt – as the disastrous performance of Green parties that have tried this in other countries proves.
However, there is certainly room for discussion on dumping specific policies, such as euthanasia and drugs. It’s a case by case thing.
I completely agree with Paul’s second point way back at #5. There are some members of the Greens who are anti-abortion who manage not to be offensive. However, having dealt with a handful of anti-abortion Green men who are appalling misogynist (and often homophobic), I’d say that doing anything that would make them feel more comfortable being in the party would have the immediate effect of driving out ten times as many women, and sympathetic men. Any gain of votes would be trivial compared to the damage to the party’s ability to function.
I also suspect abortion and euthanasia have majority support outside the metro areas.
#131
Probably, I presume, disproportionately low in rural areas yet strangely the one rural electorate I can actually give numbers on had MORE than its fair share of Greens members.
I know cos I was the list keeper for that electorate for a while and we had nearly double the average number of members of the suburban electorates.
That may have been an anomaly though.
Or not.
Hang on.
There is a huge difference between saying that I respect the sincerity and integrity of (at least some of) the people that I disagree with, and saying that these matters are just conscience issues which a political party cannot or should not formulate a consistent position on.
It’s one thing to say that a party’s politics should focus on one issue to the exclusion of all others; its quite a different argument to say that a political position on abortion can’t be reached because its a “conscience issue”.
I don’t entirely understand this argument. It seems to suggest that environmental protection is so important it should transcend other claims. Yet surely it is the case that solutions to these problems will embody industrial changes and social changes? Is the ALPs industrial politics universal?
I also don’t understand this argument.
Personally speaking I’ve never had the impression that my opinions formed an authoritative guide to ‘right thinking’, and frankly I haven’t met many people that have. The whole ‘inner-urban sub-class’ looks suspiciously straw-like.
I am informed by – but not in the least motivated by – what the late 19th century Labor party, or mid 20th century Communist party felt about these issues.
But just because I recognise that these issues are not all resolved in one go, that I can agree with 20th century conservatives on some things and disagree with 19th century socialists on others doesn’t suggest to me that my politics are therefore able to be compromised.
For some reason Guy’s response makes me think of that advertisment with Arthur Tunstall and Cathy Freeman…
Who’s bringing the tea?
Well, if YOU can’t advocate for abolishing an entire political party’s social policy without acknowledging the serious passion based on moral conviction of (some) people who identify with it without calling them smug wanna-be superheroes ignorant of reality, then perhaps you never really thought about what you were writing.
Now stepping back from the garage roof.
Aren’t you just asking for the Nationals to become an environmental party of the right to maintain their own relevance? I don’t follow the logical conclusion that the neoleft must therefore give up social reforms they have been associated with since their beginning.
I’d be surprised if they did find common ground environmental policy – I’d suspect they would even have trouble agreeing on what the most pressing environmental problems are let alone the solutions. But hey let them try.
But what you are advocating was the view of several Greens members when I was a member; that is remove ‘controversial’ policies in the pursuit of electoral success. Policies like the ones mentioned above, but also sex work policy.
Those damn hookers and drug addicts. Not a vote winner in them.
But their fucking people Guy. And at the moment what you are arguing would leave them without even that skerrick of representation in mainstream politics that they have.
As a leftist, your all cool with this?
@133 Hannah’s Dad.
May I ask what electorate that was?
Hmmm, does Mr Rundle have a Deep Throat at Hyattgate, or has the unthinkable happened: someone in the Nats Federal Council has started reading LP, and put up a motion on the basis of this thread’s post?
Don’t get too excited, youse erstwhile browner-shade-of-green/greener-shade-of-brown cross-dresserfolks (to continue Guy’s fruit’n'veg analogy, avocadoes = brown on the outside, green inside ?)…
Hmmm, I see the redistribution in Ryan ( covering Larissa Waters Mt Cootha state seat, which she took to 23.8% First Preferences in the context of a very close 36.26 / 37.88 FP split for the majors ) has reduced the mucoid Michael Johnson’s margin to just 1.2% ….
hmmm, Larissa wrests Greens control from the Drew/ Ronan faction, poaches Ross Daniels, who looks better as a green anyway, from labor, David Gibson ( who took a solar feedin tariff, no coal on farmland, and no traveston dam to the 09 state election as LNP policies) talks the LNP into going for making Ryan into the new Freemantle, and Robert’s your parent’s brother.
I have a name for this new anti-progressive party Rundle wants to set up – DLP.
Gur – a lot of the comments here have exactly the sort of ‘total package’ politics that i think is not merely stupid, but actually categorically incorrect
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Altho’ I agree with the sentiment the problem here is that parliamentary practice is rife with ‘total package politics’. It’s called caucus discipline. If the Nats were to enter into a contingency agreement with the Greens conservatives and progressives alike would howl for blood (dealing with the devil) and yes that is fundamentally stupid political theology at work. However a more Machiavellian reason to oppose such alliances would be that it would make things much more difficult for the ALP and the Libs in terms of controlling debate and policy.
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For this reason alone I think it’s a good idea. And I’ve long thought that the rural areas would be a hotbed of support for environmental policy sooner or later. They have to pay the price directly. However we should not over-simplify the task. What is being suggested is a direct blow to the architecture of power in this country. The political spectrum would in effect become differently shaped. And that is unacceptable to many people in a position to do something about it.
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There would also be a sense of betrayal if the social agenda of these parties were to be modified for the purposes of co-operation. Social traditionalists and their enemies, that is anyone queer, would both feel betyrayed. That such policy modifications would not in any way alter the law to suit either of ‘em better would not matter. In both cases they would feel marginalized and without a voice. And that would make them very angry.
“However, there is certainly room for discussion on dumping specific policies, such as euthanasia and drugs. It’s a case by case thing.”
The Greens softened there drug policy before the last election due to the distortions made of it by tabloids and the major parties. Still it is quite sound and is similar to the position on drugs taken in Portugal and some other few places quite a few years back.
The sky has not fallen in where drug abuse is treated as a medical problem. By all means discuss it but why ditch a policy that most professionals working in the field endorse just to make things palatable for those slur mongers unwilling to look at the issue fairly?
The present arrangements endorsed by both our major parties are clearly failing and even the U.S. is showing signs of ditching its tough on drugs policy that like here results in an ever expanding, predominantly black, jail population.
The Health Report is discussing the Portugal example tomorrow.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2009/2661510.htm
Guy #124,
Guy, it will not happen. There are a range of issue where it makes sense, water being a big one, but every time a suggestion on strategic alliances is made, there is a visceral reaction, that “we don’t get into bed with those bastards”. And that is one of the more understated reactions. Note I’m not saying which bastards.
I suspect you have been influenced by the Four Corners program on coal mining in the Liverpool Plains where Barnaby Joyce got a bit green for farming on an issue where the Greens were already active.
The environment is so important that it needs to be mainstreamed. Neither of the major parties looks like engaging as they should. And even if ecological thinking did enter politics, there would still be a Green Party of some sort.
Enter mainstream politics, that is (ecological thinking).
That portion that I’ve bolded, is it just a cool statement of historical fact, or a yearning nostalgia for the days when the true radicals didn’t have to deal with these bloody human-rights and quality-of-life issues?
Plenty of communists and other militant Left types who came of age in the Depression went to their graves distrusting the New Left. For many of them (the old guard) it was all about fighting for position within the old structure of the industrial working class—focussing on wiminists, non-whites and deviants was a diversion, if not an actual betrayal, of real progressive values.
I was just thinking this the other day when flicking through Old Left biographies at a used book store. Where are the pre-eminent liberty agendas from your bolshie veterans of the thirties and forties? (Off the top of my head I can point you to Frank Hardy’s The Unlucky Australians, and some communist support for Aboriginal rights years before the ’67 referendum—though I wonder if maybe Hardy was inspired to write about indigenous issues by his more cosmopolitan sister, Mary, instead of by da pardy.)
I don’t see the sense in the Greens adopting an Old Left monomania about the Big Issue, and disdain for anything that is secondary to the Big Issue (petit bourgeois belief systems?).
There might also be Machiavellian reasons for raising a trial balloon about Green and RARA cooperation.
But I don’t know for sure.
Mostly I think there is a certain allure to the rural Independents in the state and federal parliaments, with the balance of power exercised by the troika in Victoria earlier this decade and the SA independent speaker being seen as ‘Real Democracy in Action’, even by plenty on the Left.
But Peter Andren was the only bush independent truly compatible with the Left. Otherwise we have to look at the examples of metropolitan MPs like Cleary, Mack, Moore.
And the electorate isn’t making anymore of those.
Nick at 144. Thst’s a fascinating idea about Mary Hardy. I was a fan of hers when I was a kid.
Excellent post Mark. Insightful comments.
If the Greens & Nats can’t come up w/ some common ground & reach across the aisles during this “sociotech-energy-transition era” then it seems obvious to me that Independent candidates &/or a new party will have to fill the gap.
Not all small farmers are just sheep OR organic vege farmers, some are both. Not all rural people are church goers and homophobes. Some go to church & are gay themselves, or are more sympathetic to gay/lesbian gay rights issues because of family/friends or just plain higher cognitive ability than some.
Not all farmers prefer de-stressing on grog every night like some red faced, sweaty agro pollies who appear on our tele every night & morning…but rather enjoy a quiet puff in the paddocks. Often to ease hard labour pain. And angst about volatile climatic conditions…&/or water issues. Or brought on by banks & interest rates.
Not all male growers are happy about free trade agreements, some prefer selling sensibly & locally…but also aren’t too hot on “abortion by demand” if it means they have no say.
Not all female growers want middlemen dictating the prices for their produce who seem to prioritise the dominant supermarket chain’s needs over theirs…but also aren’t keen on domineering patriarchal parties & their affiliation to some religious organisations using their sway/influence to deny them & their daughters/sons sex education, contraceptives and choice.
This thread is “democracy in action”. Let’s see more of it in the rural areas.
N’
While there has been much agonising about the Greens on this thread, comparatively little reflection has been devoted to the Nats. IMHO, the Nats’ chief problem is that they try to walk both sides of the barbed wire fence when it comes to exactly which rural voters they represent: family farmers or agribusiness and miners? The imbroglio on the Liverpool Plains reveals this conflict in sharp relief, as soon will the similar conflict about to erupt in the Surat Basin.
A bit of history might help. In the nineteenth century agribusiness representatives dominated colonial parliaments through their appointed upper houses as the aristocracy they imagined themselves to be. The emergence of the Country Party was possible primarily because the various selector and soldier settler schemes established a smallholder class with voting clout, magnified by malapportionment in most states and federally. The early Country Party (and Labor in Queensland at least) promoted agrarian market interventions to provide controlled conditions for agricultural production, through establishment of cooperatives, milk production quotas and pools, single desk overseas marketing etc etc.
The parties of urban capital (Fusion, UAP, Liberal) were happy enough to go along with this agenda in return for delivery of electoral victory and the spoils of control over the more important ministries. It all fell apart in the late 1970s, when the federal Nats went along with the ‘free trade’ agenda begun by Whitlam and embraced by Fraser/Lynch/Howard. For a time there were rural profits to be made canibalising the smallholdings to consolidate them into big agribusinesses and to convert them on the outskirts of cities into residential developments and hobby farms.
If you look at where the Nats’ seats used to be, it is a tale of demographic and economic change wrought by the very policies they embraced: northern and southern coastal New South Wales, the Hunter, rural south east Queensland, Wide Bay, the coastal far north. Agricultural production continues, but no longer sustains a population capable of returning members of parliament.
As an aside, it’s worth noting that the Green vote is strong in some (although not all) of these formerly Nat seats, e.g. northern and south coast NSW, FNQ. I doubt whether the Nats are capable of turning this remorseless drift around, since their remaining constituents have done reasonably well out of the policy mix they have been able to secure as junior coalition partners.
For what it’s worth, I reckon that while the right wing populism that Barnaby and his dwindling band of buddies spouts plays well on rural verandahs, many of his supporters would ditch him in a trice if there were good economic reasons to do so. Environmentally sustainable land use is going to require agricultural producers to come onside. If the Greens come up with some policies that will deliver both increased income for farmers and environmental outcomes, they may just get over the line in some of the seats where they’re already doing all right.
Agree. I refuse to vote Green whilst they support abortion. I have neve understood why being passionate about the environment is linked to supporting taking the life of an unborn child. How can the Greens campaign for frog habitats yet support open slather on unborn children in the name of an outdated ideology. Being pro environment and pro peace if anything should mean pro life. If you love nature and support non violence then you can’t support abortion.
[Moderator Note: the Mark of the Sock Puppet has been applied ~tigtog]
Moderator note
@Me and @Pro life and pro environment.,
Since these two comments were posted using the same IP and email address, in future choose a consistent moniker or be welcomed to the moderation queue. If you want to morph your moniker as part of your commentary, register a gravatar that will identify you to other readers.
But Me/Pro Life whatever, being responsible environmentally also means supporting the culling of excess and feral populations. A true Green would support the complete annihilation of brumbies, feral cats, wild dogs, deer, wild pigs, buffalo, foxes, rabbits, sparrows, cane toads, blackberries, lantana, etc etc.
So no logical contradiction there.
Politics can make very strange bedfellows esp. at the local level.
OMG!!! A Liberal-Green coalition!!? Since 2004!…..in a city council with a pop. 125,000!…….ah, you’ve got all this to look forward to.
I’m not exactly sure of the back-story (embarrassed to admit…will check and anything interesting will phone in) – you have to suspect personalities and one of the Greens councillors got a v. bad rep. for pushing to put parking meters all around Clovelly Beach a few years ago – I wasn’t there but HG Nelson with a ton of locals turned up at the next Council meeting, and HG “spoke” at the meeting…. the plan was ditched and a “No Parking Meters Party” dude was elected with Craig Wing running as the Number 2 (you gotta love the east)…but none of this would have happened without the help of the ever helpful NSW State Labor Govt whose blowback on local politics managed to finally do in even my local Waverley Council – a still functional ALP Left dominated council after 27 years straight holding the reins (with about the last ten or so being Labor-Green coalition, so it’s not all weird ICYWW.)
Speaking of the east, Comrade Liam, I know dispatches never make it further west than Centennial Park, but you’ll choke on your chai to know ‘we’ are still holding Bondi Beach, Bondi, Bondi Surf Club, Bronte and all Clovelly booths – 66% 2pp at Clovelly Beach booth if you don’t mind on Nov 2007. Which will all be of great interest when the inevitable threads relating to Wentworth start up next year. Only 3%…. less than Maxine. (As to who’ll be parachuted in as the ALP candidate should be directed to Anna’s thread.)
As for the Nats, god knows where Liberal Party policy will be next week, let alone next year….ok, just being silly now, local politics will do that to you.
I refuse to vote Green whilst they support abortion. I have neve understood why being passionate about the environment is linked to supporting taking the life of an unborn child.
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It isn’t.
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If you love nature and support non violence then you can’t support abortion.
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Rubbish.
Jo, it’s true that I don’t know much about what’s going on on the Eastern Front, but I’m glad to hear you’ve secured a beachhead in front of the enemy’s entrenchments.
As to parachuting, I’m sure General Tebbutt’s 4th Petersham Fallschirmjäger could drop on your side of the Siegfried Line (aka ANZAC Parade) as long as they could be reinforced eventually by General Albanese’s Grayndler Panzer Division.
I for one cannot wait.