My previous post on Clive Hamilton’s selection as The Greens’ candidate in the Higgins by-election has sparked a thread largely devoted to Hamilton’s views and suitability as a candidate, rather than the party’s electoral chances, or indeed, the strategy of using the by-election to highlight climate change as an issue. That sorta proves my point about the lack of wisdom – whatever one thinks of Hamilton – in selecting a controversial, high profile candidate (… though presumably, it will enable The Greens to make an argument that national or global issues trumped local issues – should he do well, that is).
While Possum appeared to believe that The Greens had a shot at Higgins (and blew it with the preselection of Hamilton), Antony Green is much more sceptical. In a new post on his election blog, Green highlights historical data demonstrating that the margin in Higgins somewhat belies how safe the seat probably is in reality. He also argues, on the basis of a number of federal and state by-elections, that a prominent local may well have been a better pick, a point I also made in my post.
In both Cunningham and Fremantle, the Greens ran candidates with local credentials who could concentrate on local issues, classic think global act local politics. Yet in Higgins the Greens have done the reverse, choosing a candidate who lives in Canberra and has no links to the electorate, and is running on a climate change agenda that can only be described as act global politics. It is the exact opposite of a previously successful Green strategy.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Kelly O’Dwyer (see pic in Antony Green’s link) looks like a younger version of Bronwyn Bishop?
In real life, she doesn’t particularly resemble Bronwyn – or the woman purporting to be her currently plastered over mobile billboards in Higgins, to be honest.
I dunno who was responsible for that campaign mugshot, but if I were Liberal headquarters I wouldn’t be hiring them again.
The only Federal House of Reps seat held by the Greens was Cunningham, won by Michael Organ on preferences from the two majors in a fierce contest. Even gaining 22.7% in Melbourne in the 2007 election, without a polarised position between the two majors, the Greens chances are likely to remain snowflakes and hellish within a preferential voting system.
Labor aren’t standing a candidate in Higgins. Statistically they couldn’t win if they pre-selected Barack Obama. Choosing Hamilton then becomes a strategic decision; if nothing else it will give the Greens media access and exposure, both in Victoria and nationally. And given the timing, a chance to lash Wong and Rudd over whatever mealymouthed no action posturing they engage in while in Copenhagen.
Have to agree it is not the way to promote a bottom-up “classic think global act local” campaign. I don’t think anyone in the Greens is arguing it is; disingenous as claims that Hamilton stands a chance may be. At least the electors of Higgins could be sure Hamilton would not fail to play Brutus to Howard’s Caesar.
If Antony Green wasn’t paid as much as he is,then he probably couldn’t care less who won.But seeing the well paid try to reproduce themselves in whatever means are at their disposal then people like him are given the advantage of trying to influence what they actually claim is their analysis of what ends up as their marketplace.He should not be allowed to have a well publicised opinion,but,keep it too himself until after an election is held,thus he can then claim his pay rate is justified.He thus is like all the economists seeking influence.Investment Advisors etc.
The thing everyone needs to remember is that the various State Greens organisations are actually pretty much independant from each other. This partly explains the very different strategies in Higgins and Freo.
I’ve no doubt Hamilton will assure the Higgins electors that he’s ready to move the moment he is elected, as is normal with most absentee candidates. I just hope he runs hard on what you see is what you get. I hope a couple of ‘affluenza’ style scandels – rather than a climate change disaster – happen mid campaign to remind the good burghers of Higgins that they can send a pied piper back to Canberra and feel good about it.
having read Clive’s protestations to the Editor of the Australian I suggest he appoint Keysar Trad as his PR guy. He has the misquoted out of context pleas down pat.
Hamilton’s candidacy will be a spectacular own goal for the Greens. He will campaign on national issues, in particular on climate change, but will poll disastrously, as he will be perceived a blow-in Left authoritarian (not a million miles from the truth).
The wash up will be a severe blow the Greens’ national position on the CPRS.
The Labor Party will love this. One could be forgiven for thinking that not running a candidate and putting the focus on the Greens with their poor candidate was a cunning Labor strategy, but it’s probably just a happy accident.
So, oh locals [if any are here] and pundits, what is the likely spread of votes for the various candidates?
What are the predictions, as realistic as possible, and at what numbers would the Hamilton candidacy be deemed failure or success?
Oh and what would the numbers be for the Libs that would enable someone to declare they done good or done bad?
Is there anything substantially different in the demographics between the electorates of Bradfield and Higgins? The NSW Greens have gone a very different route to the VIC Greens. Susie Gemmell very much typifies the “act local think global” approach that went so well in Fremantle and Cunningham.
So what happens if there is a wildly different outcome in the elections, margin-wise? If Susie Gemmell doesn’t get any traction but Clive Hamilton gives Kelly a serious challenge, does that mean that Greens parties will be asking high-profile non-locals to stand?
The non-Lib 2PP on Bradfield is 36.5 – if Susie beats that does it mean that the seat is getting more marginal? Higgin’s 2PP is not as deep on 43 – what can we estimate as having been a ‘successful’ result for Clive if he doesn’t get an outright win?
I am a resident of Higgins – already been bombarded with pro-O’Dwyer leaflets, and a ‘farewell’ letter from Costello, complete with colour pictures of O’Dwyer working alongside him.
I am a former member of the Greens, and I’ll definitely be voting for Dr Hamilton, although due to his supportive views on Conroy’s internet firewall I can’t quite bring myself to volunteer to help his campaign, although my girlfriend is going on a 4-hour leaflet drop tomorrow.
Anyone who seriously thinks that any Greens or even a defacto-Labor independent candidate would have a chance in Higgins is kidding themselves. Walking home from work last night through the back streets of Toorak there was one small road with 31 cars parked – 16 of those were BMW X5 4WD’s. Exactly how receptive do you think these constituents will be to Hamilton’s views? He will be lucky to poll 20% in some of these areas.
I’m in Prahran, and he’ll do a lot better there. But certainly not well enough to make it a close race overall.
badseed
I suspect you’re right, badseed, which is why picking Hamilton was such a silly choice. Just about anyone else, even a local ‘nobody’, would poll better for the Greens than he will.
I’d love to have seen how Peter Cundall would have gone.
Gee LP correspondents really do not like Hamilton it seems. It’s a pity because it seems like a great opportunity to organise around some pretty important issues in this by-election, and to add some oomph to the national debate. Obama showed that on the ground organisation is a key factor in winning an electoral contest and it would be interesting to see whether the Greens’ organisation could pull together and pool resources to make a difference in the kind of electorate (at least its inner-city, leftish, alternative parts) that seem like a natural hunting ground for Greens’ sympathisers.
But if folks like badseed won’t get behind them and actually do something to help then a good opportunity will go begging.
Thanx for that: very informative! #;^>’////
Hey Hey Australia: Tesla Roadster Breaks EV World Record: 313 Miles on Single Charge (501 KM) The 10th Annual Global Green Challenge
The Global Green Challenge (a kind of spin off from the World Solar Challenge) in Australia…
Rainbowdog, #13, great name, love it. Don’t worry that many LP correspondents don’t appear to like Hamilton. A lot of what goes on here is brainstorming. I like him but it’s obvious he needs to be heat treated for politics, a bit of annealing and tempering. Best he take notice of what is said here because I think LP is switched on big time.
Posters’ comments here remind me of John Gorton who won the seat of Higgins in a by-election around 1968, however he was unable to vote for himself as he was still enrolled in the seat of Mallee. Similarly there have been several other successful candidates around the nation who’ve only moved into the electorate after winning.
Nevertheless, with the Higgins electorate expanding just 39 square kilometres, the successful candidate would have no problem in having a local face. One should consider the division of Kalgoorlie (held by Barry Haase) an area in excess of two million square kilometres.
The Higgins electorate would need to decide whether they require a federal member who must adhere to party lines – a party with an unsustainable addiction to growth or one who has a strong climate policy – a candidate who recommends a small ecological footprint and a sustainable population for Australia in these times of great uncertainty.
“I’d love to have seen how Peter Cundall would have gone.”
Strewth, Fran, the man is in his 80′s, worked his arse off, and deserves some peace.
I am just happy you were not the likely one local Green member who turned up, at a Higgins branch meeting, to choose the appropriate candidate. Mind you, Hamilton was probably the only person to put up a hand up anyway. It is a quite thankless task and I know good people who been burned by the experience.
I am pretty sure Pete could think of nothing worse than facing all the shite that comes with conviction politics.
Even if I could be persuaded a good local might have got more votes – the fact remians that putative local Green wouldn’t have won, and so I think the “national profile” choice of candidate was a good one.
Federal by-elections – and particularly this one given the profile of the departing member – will be made into a national media circuses. Hamilton will be well placed to raise a range of national issues – specially as he’s the sole opponent.
Joe2
You ageist you …
I quite agree, though he was rpetty active over Gunns and I got the distinct impression he was enjoying himself.
I just think he is a wonderful fellow and I love hearing him speak. He’d be welcome round for dinner anytime. …
I think Pete is great, Fran, and miss him. You might find, if ever he does turn up for dinner, though, that his personal views do not line up with Green policy in just the same way that Clive Hamilton has a few ideas, expressed before standing, that infuriate us net freedom lovers and more.
Hamilton has certainly copped a bucketing, which is a bit hard on someone who is prepared to take on an almost unwinnable race; probably at considerable financial and emotional expense. When it comes down to it, I am sure he would make a much better parliamentary member than his opponent, who seems to be getting the dream run. Liberals just don’t do ‘liberals’ no more and I am sure she is another, heartless, Bronny.
I’ve actually heard him discourse at some length and althpough I won’t declare that he would please every green, I heard no reason why we wouldn’t.
He has a fascinating life story which marks him out as robustly anti-authoritarian, secular, humanistic, modest and left-of-centre. He even once got sacked for trying his hand at union organising in a foundry!
Good enough for me.
Fran, I’ve heard him extensively out of the garden, as well, and know that he was wise to go for a career in the plant world. He would never have flourished in any other area of our painfully right wing media.
Again, I suspect you’re right, but the kind of people who don’t flourish there might well be plausible Green candidates, no?
I mean, if the Greens don’t think they can win Higgins — and let’s face it, they can’t, at least give us something to shove up the noses of the reactionaries.
And you get paid for each vote these days. I’m betting he’d have got more than Hamilton.
Good on the Greens using this seat to push climate burn.
Meanwhile Liberal candidate refuses to be drawn on radioactive nuclear reactors for Melbourne, position on voluntary euthanasia, position on projected population growth for the City, water shortages and so on.
Should be a very interesting fews weeks ahead.
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The Greens are needed in the House.
I know that we are always told by the media that a responsible party looks after today’s Economy at the expense of our Ecology. There is no economy if the planet can not maintain life. Libs couldnt give a damn about the environs, Lab only care about being seen to care Greens genuinely care about our future. Vote Greens.
Luke Weyland says:The Greens are needed in the House
Needed like a whole in the head. Extreme left should never be taken seriously, the only thing I can see good about the greens is that you never have to wonder who to put last.
Their CPRS would have shut down this nation and would have not doubt commenced the drive towards the post industrial age.
Give me a logical centrist party like the DLP anyday. Thats the minor that is needed more than ever before.
“Give me a logical centrist party like the DLP anyday. Thats the minor that is needed more than ever before.”
Really? What are their policies? I tried to find out, but the website is under construction.
“Anyone who seriously thinks that any Greens or even a defacto-Labor independent candidate would have a chance in Higgins is kidding themselves. ”
Amen.
Hamilton, from his blog, seems to be developing a severe case of candidatitis, no doubt spurred on by Malcolm Mackerras who’s predicting he could win. The thing is, Hamilton thinks everyone’s being SUPER NICE to his campaign lackeys. So that means they’re going to vote for him.
The thing in Higgins is, everyone’s polite. It’s one of the reasons I like living there, despite the Liberal votin, four-wheel drive drivin, etc. The Liberals will retain the seat (although believe me, I’ll be *more* than happy to eat my words if a miracle happens and O’Dwyer loses on Saturday). The Greens will pick up some of the Labor vote, and claim it as a good result.
And she totally looks like Bronwyn Bishop.
Ziggy @ 28 -
1. The Greens are not an extreme left party. They’re actually pretty centrist, and only look left-wing because everyone else has danced about a lightyear to the right.
2. The DLP were never a centrist party. Economically, they were slightly batty socialists, and socially they were somewhat to the right of Mussolini.
Well, Id be delighted to see Higgins go Green, and it must be said, Hamilton has struck it lucky with the timing.
All “conventional” wisdom on this has to be seen against the rupture in space-time and normal programming that has occurred within the liberal party over the last two weeks.
Factor in: by-election; moderates pissed at Abbott, moderates pissed at costello for being pissed at Talcum; hardcores being pissed at the lib candidate for being moderate; the ALP not running; and the utter shambles factor of sitting party – and frankly, its anyone’s guess.
Forget previous trends.
Oh – and also electors know they get to sack the winning candidate about one year from now. Risk and commitment factor much lower than usual.
I’d also be delighted, but although, as you say, the commitment factor is lower than usual, the good people of Higgins would still largely prefer to gnaw off their own leg than vote anything other than the Liberal candidate for Higgins. Take it from a Higgins resident.
Pollster Malcolm Mackerras is tipping the Greens to take Higgins!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/higgins-hopeful-in-climate-change-push/story-e6frg6n6-1225806772718
Kelly O’Dwyer refused to go on local ABC radio to debate Hamilton. I doubt that will go over well and her very expensive and overdone mail boxing campaign may well irritate voters. The Greens have well targeted their message in The Age greenguide, for instance.
Guess we will find out tomorrow night.
Pollster Malcolm Mackerras has a history of making wild predictions. When some occasionally come true (purely randomly as far as I can tell) he’s then hailed as a prophet.
Higgins residents couldn’t give a stuff whether their Liberal candidates turn up to debate other candidates. Peter Costello never, ever turned up to a candidates’ forum, a debate of any sort, or anything where everything couldn’t be carefully scripted and he couldn’t control the questions he was asked, and they kept re-electing him.
You would find that many Higgins voters are listeners to 774 and it is a very bad look.
I also know the electorate well, Rebekka, having lived there for years. Point taken on Mackerras but it is interesting that he is prepared to call for the greens.
I still think a Greens win in Higgins is highly unlikely. But if it happens, it’s hard to interpret it as anything other than a massive slap in the face to the hard right.
And I have a feeling that many in the leafy liberal suburbs would enjoy doing just that, Robert. You are correct, of course, it is an unlikely result.
Not that interesting. Mackerras also predicted that John Kerry would defeat George W. Bush in a “landslide”.
And a 4% swing to Labor in 2004.
Maybe someone had been fiddling with his pendulum, Rebekka@40.
And maybe the loyalty to a Liberal candidate in Higgins was a bit about tip and less about a love of the hard right. Voters have a chance to stick it to them, the climate change skeptics, and in a few months time make it all nice by voting Kelly in, then. If there are any small “l” liberals around you will find them in Malvern.
Well, I certainly hope you’re right, but unfortunately I don’t think the loyalty to the Libs in Higgins is dependent on any particular factor or leader. Those small-l liberals didn’t love John Howard either, but I didn’t notice the Member for Higgins being thrown out because of it.
Well, he was also the only one to predict Keating would win in 1993.
I think its going to be damn close – especially without Costello’s personal vote. Dwyer’s gone to ground, and wont go on radio.
David Jackmanson has an interesting piece in the Oz today about why teh Left should dismiss Hamilton.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/green-wowser-is-no-leftie/story-e6frg6zo-1225806770219
Even more interesting is the fact the Oz ran it. Guess they must be concerned Hamilton’s a chance.
Word on the street is that internal polling showed Costello didn’t *have* a personal vote.
Sez Antony Green: “Until now I would’ve discounted the chances of the Greens winning”. Though it’s not clear what chances he is actually giving them.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/04/2762235.htm
Sam@44
The article provoked the usual howls from those defining socialism as “the wish to regulate others; for big government;” etc i.e the standard Howard-era American- libertarianish talking points. This just underlines the utterly moronic and ignorant audience to which the Oz contrives.
One chap even said that Marx called the workers “stupid asses”, when as everyone who has paid attention knows, he was talking of the financial speculators!
I corrected him on that.
Still, Hamilton is a wowser. I’m glad I don’t live in Higgins because I couldn’t vote for him despite his position on climate change.
While I would be far more inclined to believe a prediction from Antony Green than from Malcolm Mackerras, he’s not actually going so far as to predict a Greens win.
No, he’s not Rebekka, but I am.
Clive Hamilton will win Higgins. The Liberals are in utter disarray. Abbott’s standing in a seat like Higgins must be very low – for many reasons, all of them obvious.
And on the most important issue – climate change – the voters will know where Clive Hamilton stands – but won’t have a clue what the Liberal candidate’s position is. Even if she’s allowed to have one.
OK – when I say the Greens will win – what I mean is that it is probabaly too close to call – but the momentum and positivity of the Greens – the air of desperation that emanates from the Libs – should see Higgins fall.
I agree Wbb. My money’s 70-30 on Hamilton to bring it home (and, of course, to then lose it next year). Low turnout will favour Greens.
The short and mid term factors all favour him – this is going to be nothing other than a Lib voters referendum on last weeks spill, and they will cane Abbbot wihtout mercy
And long term: The old two party system is collapsing in the inner cities. Bit like an ice shelf. Alp v Green contests is where this is all heading. Its inevitable.
Abbotts thinks it will not reflect on him re the change of a win in Higgins and Bradfield by the greens.
sorry should of said the CHANCE
Should have said chance. The participle said needs its auxiliary and of can’t do that work.
[/end blue_pencil]
i wish i lived in Higgins so i could vote for Clive.
i met him some years ago and he was a very very nice gentleman
educated and new exactly what he was talking about.
I have Never VOTED GREEN but i certainly would today if i lived in
Higgins.
Even if its a small swing we can rejoice.
I just want to say one thing: I was right.