The Greens-hating bitter bile of Christian Kerr is back (yesterday, item 7). It had been days without him slagging us off
– and we had been missing it!

But let’s have a more dispassionate look at the weekend
results. The Greens scored 16.2% of the vote in Tasmania – that means one in
six Tasmanians voted Green.
Although this is a small swing of 1.9% away from the 2002 vote (which was
an all time high), it is LESS than Saturday’s swing away from Labor of
2.3%.

We have definitely won three seats and, despite extensive reports to the
contrary, we have an excellent chance of holding all four seats. The Greens vote
was slightly less than the polls predicted but to call a vote of 16% for a minor
party a “flop” is plain stupid. And the result was achieved in spite of the
saturation scare campaign from big business and the Exclusive Brethren during
the week leading up to the election.

Meanwhile Greens leader in Tasmania, Peg Putt, got 3,000 more votes
than any other individual candidate – Labor or Liberal – in the seat of
Denison.

Christian Kerr has no evidence to back up his silly lines about
limits to growth – indeed the overall trend in Greens votes is quite the
opposite.

In South Australia, the Greens have broken through for the first time
with the likely election of our first upper house MP – Mark Parnell – despite a
bad preference deal.

In the SA Lower House, the Greens vote doubled to a record of 6.3% in
a tight struggle with Family First who secured 5.8%. This looks like it is shaping up for the
next big minor party battle Australia wide – the fight for Senate
seats in 2007.