I’ve only ever cast two votes for a party other than the Australian Labor Party in the lower house in my life: once for The Greens in the 1995 state election, and once for the Democrats in the 2001 federal election.
Both decisions weren’t primarily actuated by any great enthusiasm for the minor parties with whom I lodged my first preference, but by distaste for the positions Labor had taken.
Tomorrow, I will be voting for Andrew Bartlett as The Greens’ candidate in Brisbane, with Labor’s Arch Bevis second.
It’s somewhat surprising to me that it took 3 elections for Goss Labor to finally disappoint me, but only one for Rudd/Gillard Labor. It’s not a vote I will cast with any great joy, though Andrew Bartlett is a most worthy candidate, and I very much desire the re-election of the Gillard government.
I still have some doubts about The Greens, primarily related to the degree to which some members and tendencies eschew a social democratic ethos. But I think I need to send a message to Labor that they cannot move rightwards with impunity, particularly on climate change. I’m under no great illusion about how that message will be received, but I believe it’s worth sending.
Amen!
You are far from alone.
Yes, almost exactly my reasoning, Mark. For me, climate change over-rides virtually all other concerns, and thus I feel I have little choice.
I too worry about the social democratic qualities of the greens, but I console myself by thinking
a) The party is growing, and changing as it grows, and
b) They deserve the opportunity to disappoint me. God knows, I’ve given Labor enough.
I suspect the ends result of gestures like this will be the ALP looking at the figures, see “12% green vote, 11% came back to labor”, and be content that pandering to the middle still won’t lose them the left. It’s not going to worry them until they start losing seats over it.
“…eschew a social democratic ethos…”
Strange. I’ve got a total opposite opinion. Are you talking about anyone in particular?
Good for you Mark. I’ve been doing exactly that for well over a decade, so Im used to it: but I do recall the first time it represented quite a identity- wobbling shift from my old habitus!
As one of this site’s resident ALP stooges, I endorse this position. Your #2 preference will do.
Well done you Mark.
It would be interesting to note that there is a rough chance that The Greens in this election have a rough chance of having the balance of power in neither house, to the BOP in both houses as of the return of parliament. If Adam Bandt wins Melbourne and maybe (longer shot) ex marrickville Mayor Sam Bryne wins Grayndler and The Greens knock off Gary Humphries in the ACT senate …
In the midst of a reversal of fortune for the ALP, we might get an approximation of the government we actually wanted in 07. I imagine that in some areas Tony Windsor and Rob Oakshott could help form a non-reactionary bloc.
I’m in the same seat, and I’ll be doing the same, for pretty much the same reasons.
I think Brisbane could be an intersting one to watch tomorrow – although, in the end, having grown up in the territory I couldn’t go past Solomon in the election eve marginal seat drinking game.
Austin, that’s an excellent point.
I agree with you that Mark’s typo error likely came from him thinking of Bligh and Iemma Labor, rather than the Greens, when he discussed the “eschewing” of social democracy.
Because Greens votes vary by region a 12-14% national vote should mean that it starts collecting percentages in inner city electorates around 18-20% – there could be a few seats shift into that space this time if the vote reflects the polls.
One issue in achieving that level relates to the ability of the Greens to man the polling booths and harvest the votes effectively. There is a virtuous circle here – as their vote goes up the easier it is to effectively compete for votes through manning the booths effectively.
I think everyone knows what my opinion of this post and of Mark’s voting intention would be, so here’s some sound effects.
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP
HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY
@5 – yes I do, but I don’t think it’s particularly productive to go into at this point in time!
Eh, me too.
But I won’t be putting the ALP second preference – the majors will get pushed down the ticket as far as they can go.
In this seat though, it’s all about the senate, so I would sincerely implore everybody to visit belowtheline.org.au and have a look at the list of numbskulls lined up for your voting pleasure and COMPLETELY IGNORE your favoured party how to vote ticket.
Swan won’t be getting my first preference this time around. It will go to the Greens in both houses. Have only ever voted Labor in my 47 years of voting so it’s a big first for me.
But I hope like hell that Abbott doesn’t get the numbers.
FTR I don’t see that The Greens do eschew an S-D ethos. Actually, they have a lot more of it than do the ALP, which has hardly any left. Policy doesn’t matter at all for them, except as a vehicle for office.
These days, it’s all about career-pathing apparatchiks from the ALP family. The ALP aren’t the masonic lodge, but they could teach them a thing or two about the business. These are the people who produced Latham and Belinda Neal and Eric Roozendale, Carr, Iemma in NSW along with all manner of dodgy folk on the fringes of local government and developers. Look at Richo. Can anyone say he stands for any idea at all, apart from self-aggrandizement?
Federally and in NSW/QLD they have done an especially dreadful job, but that won’t change what they define as “whatever it takes”.
It’s a lesson they might start to learn after March in NSW with OPV. I’m sure we are going to see a lot of usual Labor voters vote 1 Green and then exhaust.
This will lead to the Greens winning seats in their own right, and the Liberals winning seats because the arse has dropped out of the Labor vote and didn’t come back.
I stopped voting Labor when Hawke was prepared to call in the RAAF to break the pilots’ strike for his millionaire mate, Peter Abeles. I’ve voted Democrats and Greens ever since.
I’ll be put my hand up and say I’ll be voting Labor in the House of Reps and Greens in the Senate.
I voted Greens in the House of Reps in 2001 as a protest against Labor’s response to Tampa. But Abbott infuriates me so much and the bile directed toward Gillard infuriates me even more, so Labor gets my vote this time.
However, I fully understand voting 1 Greens.
People who can say “I have voted for party X for my entire life except in year Y and year Z” are fairly out of touch of the swinging voters who decide every single election and will continue to decide every single election into the future.
Forgot to mention that I’ll be voting the same way as Mark for essentially the same reasons. I’ve done it plenty of times before though, so it isn’t a wrench.
Perhaps not so strangely, I usually find it easier to vote 1 Labor when they are in opposition. Especially true in(NSW)state elections.
I’m certainly going to vote for the Greens. However, if they were a remote possibility of forming government or the like, I would have to reconsider that – overall they score highly for me, but have some absolute stinkers of policies too.
“I’m sure we are going to see a lot of usual Labor voters vote 1 Green and then exhaust.
This will lead to the Greens winning seats in their own right, and the Liberals winning seats because the arse has dropped out of the Labor vote and didn’t come back.”
No it won’t. It will lead to informal votes that don’t get the Greens Party elected.
And (as if anyone needed me to say so) I’ll be voting Labor in both houses (but putting Shelley Freeman and Marg Lewis first, and relegating Carr and Conroy to fifth and sixth) and arranging all my preferences by order of least to most mad, with the mad women before the mad men.
The bizarre thing for me is that at the polling booth that I am helping set up, Wilful, I am placing some “corflutes” (sp?) up which say “no nuclear”. I smiled inwardly as I collected it for tomorrow’s events.
Hubby looked at me and raised an eyebrow, knowing my opinion. “Democratic centralism?” he asked winking.
I nodded. We ex-Sparts know about discipline.
The point was about the NSW election Rebekka where preferences are optional.
I think there will also be a huge amount of such votes in Qld in 2012.
I voted Greens 1 in Senate…I respect Andrew Bartlett. Then Labor.
Voted Labor in Reps. By postal vote earlier in the week. My wife S’ reckons she did same.
N’
Like Mark, I will be voting Greens 1, Labor 2 in both the House of Reps and Senate.
Were I to live a few hundred metres south in the electorate of Melbourne, my HoR vote would be something more than symbolic. For now, however, Kelvin Thompson is safe in Wills. However, a strong Greens primary vote should send a clear message to the ALP, particularly on their appalling failure to act on climate change.
In the Senate, a Greens balance of power not only provides insurance against a Coalition government, it will push an ALP government in a better direction.
Like Mark, I still have some doubts about the Greens, though mine are somewhat different. I think some fundamentally mistrust economics and the market – for all their many flaws, markets do many things better than central planning. They are also rather selective in what science they are prepared to accept. Underlying this are some eco-puritan tendancies, as evidenced by the nomination of Clive Hamilton for the Higgins byelection.
Notwithstanding all that, their stated ends are mostly good (even if the means are sometimes clumsy), and they’re prepared to state them comprehensively and unapologetically. Furthermore, my judgement is that the current parliamentary reps, and the likely new ones, are sane, reasonable people who will act responsibly in the Senate. As such, I feel quite comfortable with my decision.
I hope Labor wins. But, really, they have been lousy for the past couple of years.
Then there is the Coalition. Look, obviously I was never going to vote for them anyway. But there are reasonable,, thoughtful, and principled Liberals (including those with both small-l liberal tendancies and true conservatives) out there with whom one can respectfully disagree and sometimes find common ground. But they have been nowhere to be seen this time around. Their campaign has been truly disgusting; every bit as bad as 2001. Labor may not deserve to win, but rarely have the Coalition so richly deserved to lose.
Rebekka @22. I was talking about the 2011 NSW election in my earlier comment.
Sorry if I was unclear.
So it was, Mark, my bad. Skim reading while drinking afternoon coffee (which clearly needs some time to kick in!)
@22:
Rebekka, Matt D is refering to the NSW state elections, where:
Even if lots of first preference votes that are lost to the Greens come back to Labor in later preferences I have a feeling they’ll take notice of the loss on public election funding which comes from first preferences. What’s more the extra funding will help the Greens do even better next time.
I dunno where this Greens implies Communism rhetoric comes from. It’s not representative of the membership (in Qld at least as I don’t want to talk about other states cause I don’t have any info there). Perhaps the vast minority have some kind of Communist leaning. The same type of fringe element exists in all parties.
Robert @ 27:
Abbott once described himself as “the ideological love child of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop”. What Australia needs is the ideological love child of Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Brown. i.e. A green who trusts the market.
As for my voting intentions, I’ll be voting [1] Green, [2] Dems, then any sane independents on the ballot, then ALP, Coalition, with Family-First and similar raving-loony parties last.
No Austin, its just that they are not mindless about their world, anyone like that has always been branded a “commo”, including by Groupers.
I’m sorry Fran, did you just question your spelling? Yes you were correct first time up. When we were selling our house recently, the agent had them listed as “core flutes”.
I’d like the Greens, in a little while, to have a bit of schism between “realos” and “fundies” and have the realos win.
Last time around I went 1. Democrats 2. Green anticipating that I might not have the chance again. Eh. Probably won’t bother with that this time.
here here.
@FMark, yes, so Mark already pointed out.
@Austin, probably because of high-profile marxist Greens like Adam Bandt, Candidate for Melbourne.
I wonder about the impact the apparent upsurge in Greens support will have on Labor strategy in the future. In the past they’ve been happy to ignore the issues important to the middle-class left, because if those voters peeled off to the Greens they’d just come back to the ALP in preferences, but this peeling-off has now become so pronounced that the Greens are challenging for seat wins in some areas that the ALP previously had locked up.* Does that change the calculus? Will Labor show more interest in defending those seats by bringing lefties back into the fold? And if so, what does that do to their efforts to win suburban voters?
* Primarily Melbourne this time around, but Grayndler is a possibility in the future. I live in Grayndler and Anthony Albanese certainly seems to be a bit concerned, judging by the blizzard of pamphlets. If the Greens overtake the Liberals – a strong possibility, as they were less than 4000 votes short in 2007 – and Liberal preferences flow to the Greens as per their HTV, Albo would probably win the 2PP by significantly less than 60-40. He’ll win this time around but the seat will be in striking distance for the Greens in the future.
Yes I’d largely agree Robert, with the difference that I can’t see why one should be confident that the ALP would be less toxic. They might be in practice, but they have given no reason for anyone to suppose it.
I don’t agree with all Greens policies as you know, but I agree with enough of them, and just as importantly, the rationale for them to support them. They are less harmful to public policy and positively worthy in many respects. Their really daffy ideas won’t be taken up. Sadly, most of their good ideas won’t be either.
And you know, say what you like about Bob Brown, but you can’t fault him as not being a conviction politician. here’s a guy who never panders. I heard him talking about ramping up the mining tax and capping executive salary and taking money from rich private schools and giving it to public schools, and about justice for refugees and for gay marriage rights and I felt as I did in 2007, that I really was supporting something worthwhile. hearing the whining from the Master Builders and the Christian School lobby was great. I heard him on Fran Kelly, and he simply walked all over her trolling questions and stayed on message. Again, one has to say: R-E-S-P-E-C-T
I’d like them to do well obviously, but even if they don’t, the mere fact that someone is fighting honestly and with courage on behalf of all humanity and not taking a backward step makes the effort supporting them entirely worthwhile.
You have to love that.
@wilful, “core flutes”, ha ha.
For anyone who’s interested, it’s actually the material the signs are made of.
I’ve historically been a conservative voter….. but voted for Rudd last time because I’ve got strong libertarian tendencies and I think 11 years in government is too long for any party – it was time for a change. I’ll vote Labor again this time, becuase I’d like to see what Gillard can do over a full term, and frankly – the quality of the coalition front bench is woeful.
I’d never vote for the Greens in a pink fit!!
Having narrow interest groups hold the balance of power is an undemocratic way to run a country.
Bartlett’s a good bloke – hope he does well.
After the comment by Rebekka #37 I think this election has definitely broken all records for the number of inane references to the views candidates held when they were silly students.
Wyatt Roy, on the other hand, still is a silly student so his views as a silly student are relevant to this election.
Exactly same reasoning here Stu @ 31, the Greens get my vote AND my $ 1.00 election funding.
As an old rogue myself and because he does work for the electorate, Bob Katter will get my No. 2. Boat people are no issue for Bob and he’ll even work with the Greens, there you go.
As for the Senate, I wont go thruogh the effort of picking the cherries this time and vote straight Green.
I hope it will make a difference, as we probably all do.
Andrew says:
…but Twiggy likes it that way!
Yes Rebekkah, you really should resist the temptation to stoop so low; it doesn’t do your credibility (esp as a critical labor voter) any good.
I will vote Green ATL in the Senate just in case I accidently misnumber the boxes and make the ballot invalid.
The major parties must learn that Climate cannot be politically ignored.
Mark, I don’t see climate change mitigation/exacerbation on a left-right axis. There are right wing greens and left wing browns, so it’s a false equivalence.
Yes, I’m going to keep harping on about this. It irritates the snot out of me when deep browns lecture me on the great labour rights record of the ALP as though that in some way makes up for their ongoing hostility to the environment and the environment movement.
I’m just grumpy that I’m not allowed to wear my “Another Liberal Party” shirt tomorrow as it looks too much like the other ALP shirts.
@Paul Norton, considering those views say he thinks the Greens party should be infiltrated to further the cause of marxism, and he’s now running as a Greens party candidate, I think it’s worth questioning whether he still holds those views.
And no-one I know who’s remotely sensible had views like that at university.
Fran @39. Agree, but you’ve got to wonder a bit, where the Greens will go after Bob has gone!
For me, it’s informal with’Kevin07′ on Reps ballot paper.
For Senate, tosssing up between Greens and believe it or not, Australian Sex Party (no filter, voluntary euthanasia etc). Leaning towards the latter.
Overall prediction, 93 in reverse.
@Ootz – Election funding for this election is $2.31 per vote in each house.
@Ute Man – That’s what I was going to say!
I won’t be voting Green tomorrow, I already did that today.
Tomorrow I’ll be on a booth handing out for the Greens all day in Mascot. Hoping to turn a 5% booth which was not staffed last time into something closer to a 10% booth.
As I’ve said previously I always vote Greens in the Senate and this time will be voting Greens in the HoR then going through all the independents/Democrats etc, Liberal Party 3rd to last, Labor 2nd to last and Family First at the bottom.
I just don’t think voting 1) Greens and then 2) Labor will get the message across. Like Hawker, Richo etc have said during this campaign they know the vast majority of Greens votes will be coming back to them regardless which allows the ALP to continue it’s march to the Right.
This Rudd/Gillard Labor government have been disappointing in my opinion and with things like these I can’t support them:
-the mandatory internet filter
-bringing in welfare quarantining nation wide for people on unemployment & single parenting benefits
-the capitulation on climate change culminating in the farce that is/will be the citizens assembly
-the East Timor ‘solution’
-the blatant tax grab with the 25% price hike on packs of cigarettes which for the most part hurts low income earners
Living in Bronwyn Bishop’s electorate putting Greens 1 in Reps is the only option & in the senate, essentially voting the Greens ticket but hoping that putting the execrable Matt Thistlethwaite @ 80 just above One Nation might help stopthe ALP parachuting Sussex Street failures into the senate.
@Rebekka – Adam’s attempt to infiltrate The Greens failed, he came in guns-a-blazing with Marxist theory but was subdued by the homemade chocolate brownies at his local group meeting. He’s now just another Bob Brown fan-boy. Which is great, because diversity of opinion has no place in political parties.
@sam, ha.
I certainly believe in diversity of opinion within parties – I was merely pointing out why people think the Greens are “watermelons”.
I also wonder at the caution about the social dem tendancies in the Greens. I am sure there are all sorts of folk with different P’s OV within the Greens. But my SWEET LORD! those hacks over in the ALP lost the ability to consult or include their grass roots membership sometime in the late 1980′s I think. When was the last time ALP policy was determined by the rank and file?
I am voting Green and may actually join in order to have some kind of ownership of the political process I participate in semi regularly through my vote.
“I also wonder at the caution about the social dem tendancies in the Greens. ”
I think the caution is to do with anti social-dem tendencies in the Greens, but perhaps that’s what you meant.
Me three. It might actually count in the lower house as well. It’s a pity that the ALP candidate is one of their better ministers.
Perhaps this should be titled “How I – And Thousands Like Me – Are Weakening the Left Side of Politics”.
Right-wing voters – according to studies – have lower intelligence than left-wing voters, but (disounting the One Nation period) they at least vote in ways that won’t weaken their own side.
Apparently ablolishing Work Choices, building 20,000 social houses, avoiding mass unemployment with the stimulus, making several good-faith efforts to pass an ETS, an apology to the stolen generations (and serious resources to “close the gap”), introducing paid parental leave, super-fast broadband, ending discrimination for gays in vast areas of legislation, billions extra for health care, lifting seniors out of poverty by large pension increases, serious efforts to help students from low-income background get a tertiary education count for nothing with the modern progressive voter.
What’s wrong with a bit of Marxism in politics? Neoliberalism needs to be balanced somehow.
ootz said:
OTOH … he says that there are no gays in his village, a claim the seems not to be the case.
Jacques,
A vote in that order is effectively a vote for the Liberals on 2nd Preference.
A third or lower preference is counted as your second preference if the candidate you put at 2 has already been eliminated. Its explained here.
You might as well, put the Libs at 2 and save the AEC official some time scanning through your ballot.
Alternatively, do the world’s climate a favour and put the Libs behind the ALP.
Ginja said in part of the ALP’s record:
I quote this merely for amusement value.
Noted also:
1.good faith efforts to attack refugees and shift the agenda to the bigoted right
2. Surrender to mining thugs
3. occupation of Afghanistan
4. opposition to gay marriage reform by the states
5. internet censorship
6. money for school chaplains but not for school counsellors
7. continued public largesse for richest private schools
These things count for something amongst progressives.
@Ginja – We have compulsory preferential voting. The notion that The Greens weaken the left within that system is a pile of horse shit. Labor have done plenty good, but people are allowed to ask for even better.
And for the record, putting the Greens one and the ALP above the Liberals (as most here will do) still means they get the effective vote, so even allowing that the ALP is “the left”, your claim would be wrong.
Ginja – I don’t see how we’re weakening the left by voting for the leftmost of the mainstream parties while still directing our preferences to Labor, thus making both a symbolic gesture while still voting effectively where it matters.
At any rate, for all the areas you mentioned, I suspect if anything the greens would have gone even further than Labor did on all of them. I’m not anti-labor by any means, I just wish they’d actually listen to their left-wing base like the liberals so frequently listen to their right-wing base.
Ginja that would be a more persuasive post if the government that did those things had not been dismissed by the current leader as one which had ‘lost its way’. As has been observed repeatedly during the campaign, it means we have no idea whether a new Labor government would carry on in the same vein or curl up in a small ball and roll in a conservative direction. On the slight evidence available, the latter seems quite a realistic possibility.
Ginja,
Apparently continuing Howards Aboriginal intervention and extending it, acquiescing to mining interests, knifing leaders unnecessarily, politics by opinion poll rather than principle, “Tampa” style reffo bashing and failing at even the most half-arsed approach to climate change that could be conceived by the coal industry are all good “left” policies too?
Stick a fork in them, they’re done being left.
Hey Victorians who are voting tomorrow, help spread this video link around to fight back the Internet filter and tell people to make Stephen Conroy their last preference for the Senate!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ-JgqKhE6M
I’m planning to vote Labor, for two reasons.
The first is that our local Labor candidate Stephen Miles, is a counsellor of the ACF and on the evidence available looks greener than the Greens candidate. We do need to green Labor on the inside and this looks like a good opportunity.
Secondly, I don’t in general believe in protest votes. If everyone protests then you get the candidate you put at #1. So I’m voting for a Labor government, not a Greens government.
It’s a long time since I voted Labor as first choice in the Senate, because I believe in a house of review. It used to be one Democrat below the line, now it will be one Green, and she looks to be a good candidate.
Fran @40
Was that the exchange I heard this morning when in response to “are you going to demand” something-or-other, he replied “I’m not in the business of demanding, I’m in the business of negotiation”. With just a hint of stern. F-T-W!!
Moz @49
Yes, absolutely. Keeping on being a chop it down, dig it up and ship it out economy is NOT intelligent.
Yes absolutely Ginja
And I agree with every single point Fran, and let me add:
8. The utter silence, the utter silence and the complete failure to dismantle the NT Intervention which has achieved fuck all and is a contravention of human rights no WHITE community would ever have to endure in this nation.
But then this:
Do not underestimate the political act that is undertaken when one votes for this woman, this woman who has endured a level of misogyny and sexism that i’ve not seen to such a degree for a long long time. It was a fever pitch assault from every angle. Don’t underestimate it please.
So with all that together, the good and the bad, I voted for Maxine McKew today and therefore for Julia Gillard. Greens upper house.
How funny, Terej P (say Taya) was on the DLP ticket in Bennelong. No 4 on the Labor How To Vote. I put you at 4, Terej. Like Maxine said.
I’m voting Greens tomorrow because I’m a Godless, tree-hugging, wilderness freak with a heritage as an ex-commo-pervert from the docks who just can’t help himself.
Our time has come.
LOL! Spread this one around:
http://newswithnipples.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/this-is-all-i-have-to-say/
Unless you think the Green will finish in front of Miles on preferences Brian, you are voting for the greening of the ALP
Yes, but they won’t. A whole bunch will vote Liberal including some who protest
@Helen
Indeed Helen
Nice to see support for the Greens, and in many ways I’m happy to see us held to a higher standard than other parties*.
I would say that other than the old parties running decidedly uninspiring campaigns & wanting to ‘send a message etc’., I would humbly contend the Greens deserve a vote for putting forward a very positive, constructive and future-focussed set of policy initiatives and actually giving speeches and statements with unashamed policy content. We’ve put out well over 60 initiatives this election alone in fact. (and note that list is not quite complete because we pulled it together right at the end).
So we have campaigned hard for the vote in our own right, and I hope people will also acknowledge that in the wash-up.
And now, in the quiet, I get to go home early for the first time in a while, yippee.
Like everyone else I’ve got everything crossed we don’t wake up to Abbott by the end of the day – but of course also hoping for a record Green vote & result.
cheers, all.
(* I always find it most bemusing, given the many manifest policy failures of the old parties against their own stated philosophies, not to mention plenty long list of shambolic policies etc. that people talk of the greens having ‘some policies that aren’t tenable’ or similar – what the other parties have rigidly adhered to their platform and beliefs & never produce bad policy in a parallel universe I’m not privy to? [rhetorical])
The Greens lost my vote when they came out in support of Smuggles’ paid parental leave thought bubble.
Jeez, I can’t tell you how sick I am of hearing this ‘giving in to the mining thugs’ stuff. For most of the last few decades the returns on mining in terms of shareholder value has been below investment grade. About half, actually. Now they are about where they ought to be, and because it’s a non-renewable resource the tax is perhaps a little on the low side, but not egregiously so.
That’s spoken as a direct investor who doesn’t, apart from one out of about 40, invest in the mining industry. And that one is not in line for the tax, it already pays.
Most of what I hear around this place is based on ideology, frankly, and that includes people I respect heaps.
Fran @ 75, I assume that other people vote for someone they want to govern the place. That’s how the system works. I don’t second guess people who might be playing other games.
…so Brian, it’s just coincidence that the two biggest bits of legislation that would affect the mining industry (the CPRS and the RSPT) didn’t get up and the leaders most associated with them (Turnbull and Rudd) are both gone?
Sure, OK, it’s just a coincidence.
@wilful # 35.
Re: “core flutes”
I heard the Liberal candidate in my electorate was putting up some core flutes plus some smaller, temporary, non-core flutes.
Granted, it makes no differrence to the end result to vote Greens 1 and Labor 2, but aren’t those of you who are also working on the booths concerned at all about leakage of preferences with the other Greens voters??
Were it not for the fact that I live in New England, my vote would never be anything other than Labor in the lower house. As it is I have to take note of TW’s stated intention to check the 2nd preferences of those who vote for him and there is only one way to be in that game.
On the social democrat question, I’ve always found it to be quite clear (even within NSW which is generally thought to be the reddest Green party in the country) that The Greens approach to legislation and action is a social democrat approach.
I remember being taken back a bit when one of our NSW parliamentarians expressed their frustration to me at being seen as Marxist/Trot/Whateva by others in the party. They were quite clear to me about their belief in social democratic principles of governance.
Don’t confuse the policies (which for The Greens tend to be long term visions – remember those?) with the legislative method being employed to inch towards those goals.
It was Tony Abbott who was proposing to send undesirables to the mines. Radical interventionist social policy is more readily found over at the other end of the political spectrum, and with a higher probability of actually being implemented too.
Sam B –
See Also.
Surprises me too
Took them about 5 minutes to disappoint me, right when Goss told everyone to have a cold shower…
My Mum is a rusted-on ALP voter, but is planning to put the Greens ahead. So are we. We’re in safe Labor seats. I’m pretty sure my Dad will vote the other way; pity he’s in Bennelong.
It’s our wedding anniversary tomorrow, and I am hoping the gift is a big Greens BoP. And that the kids stop barracking for Tony Abbott!
I too live in Brisbane electorate and will be giving Bartlett my top vote.
It is unfortunate that Greens’ policies have not had any systematic exposure or analysis in the MSM because it would actually pleasantly surprise many. If you noticed in the response to Christian Kerr’s attempted scare-mongering this week in The Australian, and also to the unusually poor similar putdown by Peter Hartcher (Tomatoes, not Watermelons!) in SMH; I reckon these guys, especially Kerr converted more swinging voters to Greens than the opposite. Anyway that is by way of self-promotion because I have an article about that and other reasons for voting Greens that should be up on the Stump part of Crikey by about now (it missed the cut for today’s Crikey Daily Mail).
I would like to add that I hope this high Greens vote is not a passing protest vote. More than ever this election has surely proven that our democracy is really not too healthy (and I am assuming Abbott will not win…). Guy Rundle said yesterday the only hope for change is a serious disaster (say, like happened in NZ economic meltdown) but that is not going to happen so the next best hope is Greens’ BOP combined with activism, and curing people’s ignorance about better more democratic electoral systems. Most people seem to react positively when they learn about the Hare-Clark system.
Final note: is this the same Fran Barlow who last time I encountered her comments was adamant she was going to vote informal as some kind (what kind I had no idea) of protest signal to the Labor party? And I am still not totally clear from this site whether she is voting 1 Green and etc as per Mark Bahnisch, for a formal vote. I hope so.
I consider the Greens the only modern (within science) party. and I’ll be voting Greens and handing out Greens HTVs at a booth as well. Years ago – back in the 80s when I was primarily a visual artist – I exhibited a piece called “the first appropriation of the Left is virtue” which consisted of small squares of dirt stuck to the ceiling of the gallery. I haven’t voted ‘State Left’ (ie would be class traitors) at least since then.
84, We are going to have to get over this identity/surveillance thing.
They are eventually going to microchip us all, so why not just begin selecting which part of our brain the implant is to be inserted into.
If its “good” for cats’n dogs’n kids, whadda bout adults?
Think of all the folk in Silicon Valley or stationed at Langley, outsideof Washington, who might have to go out and find a real job, if it’s rejected on those flimsy civil rights/liberties grounds.
WTF, is 50 kicking the commie can?
Puhlease, I’d not expect it from DLP supporters, let alone a supposedly literate labor person.
Besides if Labor can be infiltrated by ASIO, CIAm churches etc and bought off by corporations local and offshore, what would the matter be with a good (dinkum) lefty or two.
Surely the ALP is not the home ONLY for neoliberals these days?
I’m voting Greens tomorrow because I’m a Godless, tree-hugging, wilderness freak with a heritage as an ex-commo-pervert from the docks who just can’t help himself.
Hilarious, I love it!
Helen @86 Mein Gott!
Yes Kuke reminds me, 86 not 84, re 91.
Last election I voted Labor,this time Greens 1 Labor 2 liebrals last in the reps, Greens in the senate for all the reasons that Mark so eloquently discussed.
“Do not underestimate the political act that is undertaken when one votes for this woman, this woman who has endured a level of misogyny and sexism that i’ve not seen to such a degree for a long long time. It was a fever pitch assault from every angle. Don’t underestimate it please.
So with all that together, the good and the bad, I voted for Maxine McKew today and therefore for Julia Gillard. Greens upper house.”
This. This. Absolutely this, Casey. I salute you. It’s one of the main reasons I’m putting Labor first.
But, there are a few so-called progressives hanging out here who have participated in the misogyny and sexism levelled at Gillard, whilst vehemently denying that they could possibly harbour a misogynist feeling deep in their breast.
Ute man @ 82, the CPRS and the RSPT were separate issues.
The first wasn’t dudded because of the mining lobby. It had more to do with power generators, which is a different industry. But it collapsed because of a conjunction of political strategy and the internal climate denialism of the Coalition.
But it was seen as a back-flip.
Rudd couldn’t afford a back-flip on the RSPT, but he put himself in a situation where the only way to solve it would have looked like a back-flip. Twiggy Forrest, in conversation with Monica Attard, reckons he had a deal with Rudd. The bottom line was this:
And a very different concept of a tax, which the RSPT wasn’t at all. It was an equity sharing scheme, remember?
Sounds like a back-flip.
I don’t know whether Twiggy is telling the truth, but I do know that reality is not captured in neat one-liners.
And I have grave doubts whether Rudd was capable of leading the party to a glorious victory, but that is truly unknowable and I have not the slightest interest in discussing it.
Can we now get back on topic, please?
MrJ asked:
Yes it is Michael.
“And I have grave doubts whether Rudd was capable of leading the party to a glorious victory, but that is truly unknowable and I have not the slightest interest in discussing it.:
Agree so much with both these points, Brian.
Sorry but Tony Abbott is the one using bigotry. It’s been roughly 9 years since the Tampa and still some on our side of politics fall for the wedge. Ask any serious refugee advocate and they will tell you that conditions for refugees have improved significantly since Labor came to office (the fact that there hasn’t been a riot or serious incident at a detention centre under Labor is proof of that).
And it was far from a wholesale surrender to the mining companies – Labor did get billions more out them (Abbott is proposing to give the mining companies money).
But on the broad sweep of policy, this has been a progressive Labor government – I would argue much more progressive than the Hawke-Keating governments.
Progressives overseas – facing massive austerity cuts – would shake their heads in amazement at the attitude of many Australian progressives. Don’t you remember how horrible is was under Howard?!
P.S. Fran Barlow: did you miss those 3 times the Government tried to get the CPRS through the Senate?
But, of course, Labor should have gone to a double dissolution election (never mind that all the commentary last year was to the effect that going to an early election would be an utterly cynical act).
I would add that Labor has spent billions on climate change even in the absence of a CPRS.
As always, either way Labor can’t win and the facts don’t matter much.
Your gripe is with Tony Abbott – fallen for the Tories’ wedge yet again.
Ginja said:
I saw no time they tried to pass a proper ETS through the senate. They proposed a polluter gets paid scheme. That empowered the enemies of the program and they qwent from caving to opposing. Well done Rudd.
Had he simply presented them with Garnaut they would have caved in or he could have had his excuse for a DD “to affirm the mandate of 2007 and continue the important work of protecting Australia from the GFC”. He would have won in a canter.
Also Ginja
Most of it wasted, at least as far as AGW is concerned.
May I suggest that those wishing to send Labor a message that instead of voting Green and preferencing to the ALP, have the courage to put Labor last. By preferencing 2 to Labor you are still propping up a right wing agenda and letting Labor off the hook. The ALP counts on Green voters to preference to them because of some outdated idea that the ALp is a left wing party. They are not and on most issues the ALP and Libs are identical.
Voters need to break free from irrational emotional loyalties and realise that helping Labor get elected just encourages them to continue to stand for nothing.
Personally I will not be voting Green. I wil vote for the Democratic Labor Party in my seat and probably in the senate and put Labor last.
If only Labor could dictate the composition of the Senate and create its own electorate. It’s all so simple for Green supporters.
The fact is, there has been solid, incremental progressive change under this government – and plenty of reasons to reward them with your first preference.
100, I’d say it all gets back to “knowable unknowns” and “unknown knowables” ( loosely, after D Rumsfeldt, former US Secretary for Defense.
Yes, thats why many will exhaust their preference back down to labor.
That’s depite labor being a home for the likes of Joe Tripodi.
Spanna: don’t you remember the old joke about the DLP: it wasn’t democratic, it wasn’t labour, and it wasn’t a party.
C’mon you can’t really believe all tha.
sorry, 108 directed to ginja. But we know labor has also done good things. We just wonder why it so hides its progressive light “under a bushell”, as to these things rather than crap about cutting the deficit and quarantining welfare.
@106 actually it isn’t ‘so simple’ for Greens supporters – they’ve had to put up with years of conservative sanctimonious shit from Labor and its supporters.
…missed a t.
Paul Walter: not for long. Tripodi is leaving politics.
Ginja, nice to see you have thrown a works in the Spana.
Perhaps Mr/Ms Spana would be good enough to explain how the DLP is a better friend to teachers and teacher unions, and school kids, and school kids’ parents; and to left-wingers….
than are the Greens or the ALP.
Over to you Mr/Ms Spana.
“It is unfortunate that Greens’ policies have not had any systematic exposure or analysis in the MSM because it would actually pleasantly surprise many. ”
If you think that, I don’t think you understand what the “many” want or think. When I look closely at many of the Greens Party policies I’m horrified, and I’m leftish, if not extremely left.
@Fine and Casey, amen sisters.
@spana, you vote for Tony Abbott and the Liberals, you don’t “teach Labor a lesson”, you get an Abbott government. That’s just stupid.
Why so cynical people? Maybe it’s that Labor supporters tend to come from lower down the social ladder than Green supporters and we just have more realistic expectations – are less prone to chucking a tantrum.
Ginja, you argue,
“The fact is, there has been solid, incremental progressive change under this government – and plenty of reasons to reward them with your first preference.”
Are you serious?
How do you excuse the ALP’s history of training Indonesian troops despite human rights abuses?
How do you excue the ALP welcoming members of the Chinese dictatorship to Canberra whil Tibetans die?
How do you excuse Gillard advocating scab labour?
How do you excuse them caving in to the mining industry?
How do you explain Gillard advocating right wing Liberal party education policy?
Progressive? I say disgusting.
Ginja said:
It’s just as simple for ALP MPs. They just refuse to act. The Libs would have caved. Abbott admitted as much and if they had not, then the DD was on with a new senate in November. The ALP was still popular. Rudd was would still have been seen as a man of conviction and possessed of a mandate, plus the GFC would have implied a need for continuity. The Liberals would have been bitterly divided.
The Libs would have crashed and burned. Fielding would have gone and a couple of Lib senators too. With that majority, Labour could have moved on to do its RSPT and other reforms.
Rebekka said”
What policies horrify you Rebekka?
There are some that aren’t the best — no nuclear power, general opposition to GM, maybe the higher ed policy … but I don’t think these are the things that you are bothered about.
well ginja, isn’t it just convenient for everyone concerned that in the Australian system you can have your cake and eat it too. You can chuck a green tantrum and vote in the ALP.
If a few seats swing away from labor on that basis, maybe they’ll swing left a bit, and we’ll all be happy.
My thinking is that this extraordinarily high Greens polling suggests an extraordinarily high return of preferences to labor. I can’t imagine higher than 80% but I doubt it will be lower than the last election.
I also think that if the greens primary vote on the day struggles to meet the poll expectations then that lost primary vote will be all going back to the ALP.
My guess is that’s going to happen – the Greens primary in these polls is a protest that will swing back to labor when people wake up in the booth, so the 52-48 2PP polls represent what we’ll see on the day. It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out in the marginal seats.
Ambigulous,
The Greens have a good education policy but are pretty bad in areas of social engineering and political correctness. If I was just voting for Green’s education policy and foreign policy they would be number 1.
As for the ALP on education the idiocy of their policy has so far advocated
1. Myschool – compare underfunded schools in poor areas with rich private schools and balme teachers for the difference.
2. Make schools have new halls when their classrooms are falling apart.
3. Attack teachers and call in backpackers to break their workbans (ie. Scab labor – shame).
4. Support performance based pay. Yes, let’s intorduce free market capitalism to the school. Let’s pit teacher against teacher based on standardised tests. Great idea Julia.
The ALP on education has lost the plot. It is a disgusting policy based on drilling work skills into kids rather than actually teaching them to think.
On education alone Labor should be last.
Ginja said:
Maybe its just that the rusted on ALP supporters are more defensive and sanctimonious and inclined to mistake tribalism for politics.
Spana: Rudd raised human rights abuses during his Chinese trip (a made himself unpopular with the Communist regime as a result).
For every act of supposed bastardry by the ALP produced here I can point to two decent, progressive acts by Labor.
115, With that startling disclosure comes an invitation to explain exactly what “horrifies” you as to the Greens policies.
Particularly that which could (possibly) offend an authentic lefty, for example?
Like Fran Barlow, “I dont see that the Greens do eschew a social democratic ethos”, and their program looks a lot more authentic as to a progressive manifesto than anything that, say, an Andrew Fraser or Steve conroy, have come up with lately.
Michael R James @ 89: well said.
Own view: Labor and the Libs are the parties of industrial capitalism. They are its creatures as are their members. They are the politics of the 19 and 20th centuries staggering on into the 21st. Zombie politics par excellence.
Watch out for more alliances designed to prop up existing power relations around control of the system of production and consumption, ie, a Lib/Lab Senate alliance to pass an ETS that pays polluters to pollute (more) like the last failed effort of Rudd’s. Such an alliance will fool some of the people some of the time. But, as the sayin’ goes…
Uteman commented on another thread that two leaders from two opposed parties put forward good policy positions: Turnbull in support of a CPRS and Rudd proposed the mining super profits tax. Both parliamentarians now extinguished. That is no accident. Rebekka – it is about the ruling class protecting interests. That’s why you need Marxists coz class power is real.
NB: Rebekka, exactly which Greens policies do you abhor? And why?
…tribalism, loyalty – same thing.
@Fran, they’re three of the things that do worry me, actually – no nuclear means no OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights, which makes access to nuclear medicine for diagnosis and treatment of cancer more difficult (something that’s been brought to my attention in the last twelve months when someone in my family needed it), no GM is just a knee-jerk anti-science reaction as far as I’m concerned, and yes, the higher ed policy (I find it particularly ironic that academics should be able to research anything they like, except if it involves nuclear because it scares the Greens).
Along with regulating CEO salaries, getting rid of the GST, protectionism, a top tax rate of 50%, a bigger role for the IMF… I could go on for a long time, but my dinner is ready
Spana:
What, you want more?
In fact the accusation of social engineering is real old cold war stuff deriving from Karl Poppa’s critique of Platonism “The Open Sociewty and Its Enemies”. The interesting thing is that the major at social engineering in the ast decade and a half derived from scientists’ claims that mapping the humane genome would allow behavioural coontrol over wilfully bad human behaviour as the biological “control” for the behaviour was isolated.
Fail.
So, what sort of social engineering do you want from the Greens?
Ginja,
Surely everyon has a line where they say no more. The ALP crossed that line for me years ago afer I met Indonesian troops in occupied East Timor who had been trained under an ALP government by the Australian military. This was simply immoral in my view. Days later I met East Timorese who had been tortured by Indonesian troops.
In recent years we have seen privatisation, anti union legislation, right wing education and economic policy and very little else. The line was crossed years ago fo me. I don’t know where your line is but I suggest the ALp don’t have many more things to sell out or betray.
No way. ALP last.
“Regulating executive salaries”. Shame on them.
As for nuclear, we are quite sure now that the problems with reactor design and wastage, since Chernobyl, have all been straightened out and that we know for sure that rogue states and terrorists (USA? Israel?) can’t get hold of the stuff to blow themselves and everyone else to smithereens.
Don’t blame me. I’ll be voting for Kodos.
@paul walter, I’m not a huge fan of nuclear power, I don’t believe we have a safe enough solution for the waste. The small amounts caused by a reactor like OPAL, though, which creates medicines that are vital for people with cancer, and for nuclear diagnostic medicine for early diagnosis (particularly for children with cancer) are well within acceptable risks I’d say, given the lives they save.
And yes, I do think regulating executive salaries is a stupid, poorly thought through idea. We have enough problems with the “brain drain” – the smartest Australians going overseas. Let’s exaccerbate that situation, shall we, by paying articificially low salaries in Australia. Made of stupid. And guaranteed to make our country stupider.
There are clearly areas where the market does not work – where there are externalised costs, for example, and where companies get too large and eliminate competition. I certainly would not argue for a totally free economy. I do think, however, that most of the time the market functions more effectively than government, I am not a big fan of tax and churn, and I am not a big fan of populist nonsense like regulating salaries, which the market can do quite adequately.
Rebekka, can you specify which Greens policies you find to be protectionist, and explain why a tax rate of 50% for those earning more than one million dollars a year horrifies you?
Can you also please explain “a bigger role for the IMF”, in light that the Greens specifically call for the IMF to be abolished?
Nick, the Greens economic policy specifically says:
“national governments must not allow the pressures from the globalisation of trade to override the democratic preferences of their citizens. ”
And I don’t know where you get the idea that they want to abolish the IMF, their economic policy also says:
“international institutions such as the World trade Organisation (WTO) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank must assist countries to achieve their democratically determined priorities within ecological constraints. ”
Doesn’t sound much like abolishing to me.
A 50% tax rate is a stupid idea for several reasons – one is that people earning that much will use family trusts and companies, as they already do, to avoid paying tax. They won’t be paying $500,000 a year. The people who’ll really benefit are tax accountants and tax lawyers. I’m a big fan of the idea of aligning the top personal tax rate with the company tax rate.
Secondly, once again with the brain drain problem Australia already has. Seriously, do we want to get rid of all the smart, successful people from our country? High effective tax rates are already a barrier to people wanting to come here to work, as well as a cause of people deciding that they can make a better living somewhere else.
Once more, knee-jerk populism is all I’m seeing here.
Da fix is in!
- no nuclear means no OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights, which makes access to nuclear medicine for diagnosis and treatment of cancer more difficult
In a nuclear free world, we would only need one reactor for the entire planet to supply the one nuclear product which has no non-nuclear counterpart.
This is the weakest of all defences for nuclear.
- no GM is just a knee-jerk anti-science reaction
Unless you actually look at how the industry works. The primary driver of GM foods is not yield, but resistance to the stronger pesticides and herbicides produced by the same companies that develop the GM crops. Just read the entry on “Roundup (herbicide)” in Wikipedia as a starting point.
- the higher ed policy
Some don’t agree:
Australian Education Union (AEU)
National Tertiary Education Union
National Union of Students (NUS)
Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA)
- Along with regulating CEO salaries
Only limited to $5 million p/a, not progressive enough really.
- getting rid of the GST
Perhaps the most regressive tax we have (that Labor opposed in opposition)
- protectionism
Opposing pro-business free-trade agreements by another name.
- a top tax rate of 50%
Progressive tax is so anti-progressive!
- a bigger role for the IMF
Try abolition of the IMF.
I’m starting to think that you are relying on truthiness.
Just vote LIEgeral, Spana, that’s who the DLP are. Stop with the ALP hurt my feelings schtick and have a good look at the party you support. Then start whinging.
Well Spana I first met Aussie training for Indonesian Officers at Holsworthy in ’57 and that wasn’t a Labor government initiative.
Greens in the Senate, Labor in the Reps. I only care about little green budgies that fly around in jewel-like flocks in the red desert and loathe and detest evil budgie smugglers.
# Are you serious, 134?
Well, we do have some substantial differences.
If you think I;m going to vote for a labor party that sells outa People for the nostrums of the expropriators of Wall st and the authors of the 2007 crash, with more to come, you can think again.
“no taxation without representation”.
@jane, hear hear.
Now, I’m going to bed as I have to be up before 6am to drape a booth in bunting.
Good luck tomorrow, everybody but Spanah and his Liberal voting buddies.
Good luck to you too Rebekka, try to sneer at the Libs more than your Green comrades!
Jane,
the ALP trained Indonesian troops during the illegal occupation of East Timor. It is not hurt feelings. It is horrific human rights abuses. Nothing has chnaged in reagards to foreign policy – look at complicity in West Papua.
Zorronsky, Indonesian was not in East Timor until 1975. And anyway, the ALp continued a immoral policy, as they do today.
I said right at the start of the campaign I’m voting 1 Green, 2 Labor. I’m also usually an ALP voter. But not this time. We have to tell Labor that climate change is not to be ignored.
Spana: ALP last? After Tony Abbott? Sorry mate, after Work Choices, the Iraq war and 11 years of Howard, I can’t follow your logic.
Rebekkah, as I suspected – an ALP member. Do we really have any credibility? I have seen how the ALP and especially young Labor works. It is ugly. It is careereerist and it is ruthless. Why do you think membership is at an all time low?
As for the Greens foreign policy they have an excellent one. They were defenders of Timor and Tibet. just a shame about the loopy social policy.
In Griffith I’ll be voting for Kevin Rudd because he really is an outstanding local member.
Senate – I’ll vote Labor in hope that a winning Gillard will be emboldened to plunge a stake into the heart of the Labor-right trog mentality and bring some ethics into play.
If Abbott gets in all, I can only hope that he does a Harold Holt as he action-manfully swims out to the boats to personally turn them back.
Exactly Kim. There comes a time when their cynicism just cannot be endorsed.
Good for Spana, Kim, Anita and the rest, a good discussion so far.
Rebekka:
It is not a bigger role for these internaional institutions that the Greens want but a change of direction in their policies. Nowhere do the Greens propose more of the same. Rather, they want those institutions to stop imposing vicious anti-democratic, Friedmanite policies in preference for assisting nations achieve their democratically determined, ecologically sustainable goals.
Just like the policy actually states.
Rebekka:
No, I just want to get rid of the sort of overpaid, cynical bastards who poisoned workforces for years with asbestos despite knowing the risks and then who managed to dump the insurance arm of J.H. so as to minimise compensation payments. Whoever wants those sorts of clever Australians is welcome to them. If hiking the tax rate will do it then bring it!
“14. national governments must not allow the pressures from the globalisation of trade to override the democratic preferences of their citizens.”
How is that a protectionist policy? Where does it mention it has anything to do with regulating trade to protect Australian industry and workers?
“one is that people earning that much will use family trusts and companies, as they already do, to avoid paying tax. They won’t be paying $500,000 a year.”
Well, yes, in fact, they will. Every person who has declared they have earned more than $1,000,000 will pay that much or more. Are you arguing that nobody has a declared income of $1,000,000 a year in Australia?
The Greens have also pledged to tax family trusts the same as companies, and close up many high income tax avoidance loopholes.
Care to put some evidence behind your brain drain arguments?
“international institutions such as the World trade Organisation (WTO) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank must assist countries to achieve their democratically determined priorities within ecological constraints”
Global Economics: “22. support abolition of, unless radical reform can democratise, the IMF, World Bank and WTO.”
Excellent to see so many of you voting Greens.
I just want to respond to the social democracy issue because I think it is important. This follows from my Overland article (http://web.overland.org.au/previous-issues/feature-tad-tietze/ and discussed on LP here: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/06/03/the-greens-as-a-social-democratic-and-left-party/).
In writing my essay, I used British Marxist Ian Birchall’s definition of social democratic parties as being those “which have a programmatic commitment to some form of socialism and some link (organisational, traditional or ideological) with the working class, but whose practice is predominantly parliamentary and reformist.” This covers not just traditional social democratic parties like Germany’s SPD, but also Labor-style parties. I think it’s useful because it doesn’t lock social democracy into one particular historical era (e.g. the post-WWII Keynesian, state interventionist phase), which can then leave us comparing today’s situation with some idealised ALP based on a historically narrow period.
By such criteria, the Greens is definitely not a social democratic party. But the question has to be: is a revival of progressive politics *only* possible through a revival of traditional social democracy? I think the Greens, whatever their contradictions, have proven that the answer is “no”.
Nevertheless, there are some strengths that social democracy has — links to the working class and commitment to some sort of socialist critique of capitalism — that the Greens are weak on, and it is not clear that the Greens can adapt to play a role solving the crisis of political representation facing the working class and the Left. However, to write them off now because of these problems would be like arguing we would have been better off without the ALP ever having existed.
None of that should downgrade how vital it is that progressives should vote 1 Greens & 2 ALP this election. A big Greens vote can only give confidence to all those opposed to how lousy the ALP has become.
PS For more on Greens’ economic policies/philosophies, I’ve posted the first two parts of my analysis at my blog (http://left-flank.blogspot.com/2010/08/greens-economics-1-ecological-ethics.html & http://left-flank.blogspot.com/2010/08/greens-economics-2-problem-with-problem.html)
I suppose it’s lucky that preferences voting will allow conscience voting for the Greens to keep Labor in power, but I won’t go that way. My conscience says vote Labor because any possibility of Abbott leading the Coalition to a win or to holding any measure of power in the Senate means we’re screwed. In this election it’s important to keep the Libnats humbled and let Labor’s second term bring us some good news, rather than just not bad. That way, we have a chance to achieve something. Greens in power, as if that was possible in this election, would only mean obstructionism from both Labor and Libnats, and I’d prefer “moving forward” if just an inch than not at all. But go ahead, vote Green or Sex or whatever else makes you feel virtuous, just don’t complain when Abbott takes his mandate and brings back zombie Howardism.
Doug @11: I have never handed out how to vote cards but this time round I volunteered to do this for the Greens for pre-poll and Saturday. I am not a Greens member but think the country needs to move their way on issues such as climate action and refugees.
First time I’ve heard of the executive brain drain. It would explain the strategic vacuum that is Australian management. Funny thing is I thought the brain drain concerns were normally about Australian ingenuity having to go offshore because local business lacked the vision to develop it. Perhaps they’re chasing those expat managers?
And on the carbon pollution retention scheme, Labor chose to use it to play politics and split the Libs rather than get good policy. And the policy the greens rejected was worse than useless.
But I’ll still preference Labor over Liberal. If preferences were optional it would be a harder decision whether to preference either.
Spana, you mean like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, SIEVX, Baxter Detention Centre, Gitmo, Mamdouh Habib, David Hicks, Vivian Solo, Conelia Rau, children overboard, WMDs, Dr Haneef…. No people hurt there, no cynical manipulation of the truth?
Don’t forget the Howard government’s grab for East Timor’s oil and their and the Fraser government’s complicity in the human rights abuses in East Timor.
No-one comes out of this with clean hands.
*Three* elections to lose enthusiasm for Goss? You weren’t disillusioned by the ALP until *after* the 1995 election?
You can’t even appeal to hindsight on that one?
d
“First time I’ve heard of the executive brain drain. It would explain the strategic vacuum that is Australian management.”
Oh my, *that’s* the most likely explanation you can find for the failings of the Australian managerial class?
d
Jane. I agree. But just because the Libs have bad foriegn policy does not mean Labor has a moral one. ALP foreing policy is appalling. In Ghandian terms people should withdraw their consent for both parties. Conscience wise I cannot support a party that will train troops who committ human rights abuses. It crosses the line. Just as the Libs did when they attacked Iraq.
Perhaps I needed a sarcasm tag Darryl?
Rebekka@134 “Seriously, do we want to get rid of all the smart, successful people from our country? High effective tax rates are already a barrier to people wanting to come here to work, as well as a cause of people deciding that they can make a better living somewhere else.”
No snark here, seriously. Can you give me some sources for Australia’s effective tax rates on executives being high? I accept that our marginal rates on income might be high, but on the total tax liability, Local, State/Provincial and National, I’ve never seen a comprehensive examination of how Au meaures up against our ‘competitors’.
d
Why I’m voting for Labor Tomorrow:
Because this has been a decent government of progressive reform. As Joseph Stiglitz said, this government put together the world’s best-designed stimulus package (a package that was skewed towards those on low and middle inclomes).
I’m also voting Labor in the knowledge that all great reforming governments from FDR’s to Gough Whitlam’s are denounced when in office as hopeless sell-outs by the far-Left. It’s only later that their achievements are appreciated.
@62 – Darryl, might be worth checking out the Lateral Economics paper for CEDA by Nicholas Gruen that demonstrated that high marginal tax rates don’t drive execs and managers overseas.
It’s a myth.
(Ps – rest of world in huge mess, remember?)
a) Ginja 101 “this has been a progressive Labor government” and your earlier listing @61.
Question: which Government are you referring to? Apparently the Australian Government “lost its way” earlier this year.
This has been confirmed by repeated affirmations by our current PM. So are we to assume that implementation of those admirable activities on your list can now be used as KPIs for a Government losing its way?
b) Anita@147. Maybe Mr Rabbit could go for a swim down at Margaret River.
c) Really appreciated the ‘wife bashing’ analogy used earlier by someone – how long do you put up with being bashed?
Rebekka @ 127 –
Medical radio-isotopes can be produced using a cyclotron, a nuclear reactor is not essential. Regardless, I doubt it would be any more problematic to source isotopes from another country, in the same way we source the machinery that uses them. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone has done a cost:benefit analysis?
BTW: my father died of cancer. I find it extremely cynical and distasteful, not to mention misleading, to use such an emotional argument to counter the Greens policy.
Personally, I have no problem with nuclear energy, I do however have a problem with uranium mining, so when one of those whizz-bang reactors that Fran keeps going on about is real, I’ll be all for nuclear power.
As to the anti-GM – knee-jerk and anti-science, you say? What research do you base that on? It’s a tough one because where one area of research may prove to be extremely useful ie: greater drought tolerance in crops, another may prove to be extremely problematic, ie: so-called round-up ready crops. With the latter, I think the science may suggest extreme caution is extremely wise, lest we find ourselves with a whole suite of chemical resistant weeds taking over both our productive land and our natural landscape. Glyphosate has only been around for about 30-40 years? I think and we are already seeing resistant weeds on roadsides here, where Roundup is the main herbicide being used. You think farmers aren’t more than a little worried about those super-weeds ending up in their crops?
The problem is allowing GM means we can’t encourage one facet, without then becoming exposed to the other. In that case, an anti-GM stance is no more knee-jerk or anti-science than a pro-GM one.
As to my vote. I’m still undecided about the reps – I want Gillard to win, but I don’t like my local rep. I’ll be following the Greens preference allocation in the Senate except I’ll be putting Labor last as a protest against the amount of power Labor’s right wing unions have. Farrell isn’t up this time, but Labor’s number 1 pick is bound to be one of his lackeys.
In Melbourne electorate, I’m voting 1 Lib, 2 Lab in acknowledgement of the quirky nature of the exhaustive preferential voting system.
paul of albury@161
No, I just a good night’s sleep. :^)
d
Way ahead of me as usual, Katz, Please explain?
wbb,
If he does that his vote will exhaust and then not count at all. It is the same as submitting a blank one.
so spana, the libs “crossed a line” when they attacked Iraq (and killed a million people) but you’re gonna vote for them anyway because Labour trained troops in Indonesia, just like the libs.
Better the devil you know, eh?
“this has been a decent government of progressive reform.” (Ginja @ 163).
Like hell it has. let’s look at the facts:
The “Education Revolution” including NAPLAN and MySchool has been no more than a rebadging of policies initiated by the Howard government (the only reason conservative education warriors are opposed to the “education revolution” is that it’s now a Labor program).
Where Tony Abbott is spruiking his willingness to get on the phone to the president of Nauru to “turn back the boats”, the ALP is spruiking its willingness to sling the Timorese government a poty of readies to take asylum seekers off our hands.
While Abbott wants to introduce income managment for the unemployed and single mothers as soon as he’s elected, Labor is content to experiment on the population of the Northern Territory until they have enough “evidence” to justify inflicting it on the whole country.
Thanks for the votes and (mostly) kind words folks.
I think the comment I’d most agree with was way back @4:
“The end result of gestures like (voting Greens) will be the ALP looking at the figures, see “12% green vote, 11% came back to labor”, and be content that pandering to the middle still won’t lose them the left. It’s not going to worry them until they start losing seats over it.
I don’t expect to win this time, but to me and others who are too frustrated with the delay and lack of meaningful action on climate change, the pandering to anti-refugee and anti-rights rhetoric, and the general degrading of parliamentary/democratic process – all of which I see as being a product of the dynamics inherent in our very rigid and ever more shallow two-party system – the only way we will ever see a substantive shift is when Labor & Liberal start losing House of Reps seats to another party.
That is NOT to say that Labor & Liberal are identical. There are clear and important differences, and I shudder with the thought that we may get a Tony Abbott PM, especially were he to get elected at this time, so soon after they lost office. But the liberal component of the Liberals (in as much as it still exists) and the progressive aspects of Labor are unlikely to get significantly greater sway within the current two party dynamic.
The Greens still have some developing/evolving to do, but it is good to get the extra scrutiny of policies that comes with growing support.
There was some of the usual scare-mongering of course (the “Greens will ban fishing” lie seemed to be the one parroted with the most gusto – seems to replaced the “Greens will give out free heroin” lie this time around), but most of the ‘shock-horror, have a look at what their policies are!’ pieces by the likes of Christian Kerr predominantly highlighted quite defensible and often quite mainstream policies (apart from the occasional gross misrepresentation).
To give just one example, taxing trusts as companies was once Howard policy, and a commitment he gave to Crean Labor in exchange for Labor backing the halving of capital gains tax (a commitment he later broke of course). Yet now it’s being presented as proof the Greens’ alleged watermelon (or even tomato) tendencies.
Anyway, must go. Vote early and vote often and all that.
Yes, even Howard had more character than the current coalition. They are a decimated disaster zone, with most of what passed there for talent moving on, yet some out here are contemplating giving them government?
For all the drastic events that have occured with the labor
government and cynical abandonment of keystones of democratic as with democratic socialist labor policy, they are still at least in working order.
Are people not going to preference them before the yappsy opposition tory coalition?
I hope so, I hope Australia does not cut off its nose to spite its face.
I commented on this the other day.
Briefly, if you want an ALP win in Melbourne, then the Libs must outpoll the Greens.
If the Greens outpoll the Libs, then Lib preferences will win the seat for the Greens.
If the Libs outpoll the Greens, then the Greens preferences will win the seat for the ALP.
My task is to make sure that the Libs outpoll the Greens so that my preference, an ALP win, will come true.
ah, yes – the parth that gave us Fielding can’t help itself.
Of course it assumes that greens voters don’t preference the libs. The more labor puts it’s ‘what ever it takes’ ethos on display, the more it contributes to the worst.election.ever sentiments. No wonder Tanner walked.
party^^
*needs coffee*
More a case of “worst election until the next one”, I’d say.
OTOH, with the Greens moving into the policy debate vacuum, this election still has the capacity to produce a pleasant surprise or two. Fingers crossed.
Course, Katz’s strategy depends on at least 30-40% ALP vote in Melbourne. They can’t come out and print “1 Lib 2 ALP” on their how-to-vote cards; that tactic’s for a self-selected elite minority. An Otherwise, you end up with a Green versus Liberal fight, which the Greens would win on ALP preferences.
I’m interested how many people will implement this idea of Katz’s, and how many people baulked at the idea. (“Vote Liberal? Fuck No!”) Resulting influence on election: very small.
I wish I lived in Andrew Bartlett’s electorate, so I could vote for him. So I did the next best thing: Kate Emma-Ross followed by Kevin Rudd. Go Greens.
I voted for the Greens this morning. My electorate was a Liberal seat (after being Labor for many many years), however the redistribution in 2009 caused it to be notionally 5% Labor. The names in my seat are annoying people and I wouldn’t any of them winning personally. Esp. the Labor candidate who was involved in local council and campaigned on lamearse “I’m one of you” crap.
After the struggles, the many phone calls and the intense stress to be able to obtain my ballot papers, I felt so proud, excited and powerful to be able to vote this morning before work.
I enjoy election day and the uniquely Australian cultural event – the community spirit with a sausage sizzle (esp if voting at a school). Election days, primarily Federal, are enjoyable events for me as it reminds me of when I was a little girl and I held my grandmother’s hand and went with her and my grandfather when they voted. My grandparents instilled in me that people before me have fought for me, as a woman, to be able to stand in that booth (or a cubicle at work in this year’s case) and be a part of the biggest democratic right I have. My grandmother also taught me that if I don’t vote (ie tick my name off the roll), then I can’t whinge about the bloody government for the next however many years to come!
My grandmother has passed away and my grandfather is in a nursing home and has dementia so it was very poignant for me to be able to vote this year after the stress and concern that I may have been disenfranchised.