Charles Richardson writes:


The New South Wales
ALP yesterday endorsed Carmel Tebbutt unopposed as its candidate for the
Marrickville by-election (story here).
No doubt they’re right to think that she represents their best chance of
holding the seat. But whether or not she gets a clear run into the lower
house will depend on what the Liberals do.

At this stage the
indications are that the Liberal Party won’t run a candidate. That’s not as
bad for the Greens as what they did in 2003, which was run but not direct
preferences, but it still amounts to wimping out. If they want to beat
Tebbutt, their best strategy would be to run and direct preferences to the
Greens.

There’s a popular perception that it helps the Greens for
the Liberals not to run, since that was how the Greens won the Cunningham
by-election in 2002. But the two cases are very different: the problem in
Cunningham was that if the Liberals ran they might have finished ahead of
the Greens (as they had in 2001). There is no risk of that in
Marrickville, where last time the Greens beat the Liberals 2 to
1.

Liberal voters generally follow the how-to-vote card pretty
tightly, so running and directing preferences would deliver a big swag of
votes to the Greens. Without a Liberal candidate, they will be left to fend
for themselves, and most of their votes will probably end up
either exhausting or flowing to Labor.

Maybe John Brogden
feels that, in the face of anti-Green hysteria from Alan Jones and The Daily
Telegraph, not running in Marrickville is the best he can get away with. But
if he lets them dictate his decision-making already, what does that say about
his credibility as an alternative premier?