Try to hold these two thoughts simultaneously: (i) Greens voters all come from the ALP, not the Liberals; (ii) Greens voters are so uncommitted to the left that they’re likely to preference against Labor because of the mining tax.
What, you can’t do it? You think that if they’re ex-Labor voters, then they’re mostly from the hard left and likely to be against the mining companies — or conversely, that if they’re that worried about the mining tax, then probably a fair few of them used to be Liberal voters?
Then you evidently don’t have the mental flexibility of former Labor senator and now pundit John Black, who in Saturday’s Australian argues both propositions, apparently oblivious to the contradiction between them. He might almost have been taking lessons from the White Queen, who boasted of the ability to believe “as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Black is quite correct in identifying the relatively high socio-economic status of Greens voters, which means that their economic interests cut against high-tax policies. Not everyone votes their economic interests, and Greens voters especially would be among the least likely to do so, but it’s not unreasonable to think that might have some effect on their preference flow.
But this only represents a gain to the Coalition if the Greens voters are all (or almost all) coming from Labor in the first place, so this is what Black argues: “The Greens vote is now moving former Labor voters across to the Liberals in the same way that the old Democratic Labor Party moved Catholics into the mainstream Liberal ranks 50 years ago.”
Nor does he think this is a recent phenomenon; he claims that in 2007, “the Greens took more primary votes from Labor candidates than they gave back in second preferences”.
Is there any evidence for this? Well, no. The only thing Black has is the fact that the drop in Labor’s primary vote since the last election is roughly equal to the rise in the Greens vote (according to the latest Newspoll, confirmed by this morning’s Nielsen poll).
But is it not equally plausible to think that, in addition to some movement from Labor to Greens, there are also groups of people moving from Labor to Coalition, and from Coalition to Greens?
I’m at a loss to explain how Black missed this simple point. It could be part of the broad Labor campaign to denigrate the Greens, painting them as both extreme left-wing splitters and pawns of the Liberals, or it could be just carelessness.
Many people on both sides seem to have a lot invested in the idea that Greens voters come from Labor, not from the Coalition. No doubt the majority do, but both their geographical distribution and their socio-economic profile (as far as we know – remember it’s based on survey data) suggest that a significant and probably increasing number are ex-Coalition voters. The fact that Nielsen finds an increased preference flow to the Coalition corroborates that.
Both polls show a large drop in Labor’s primary vote (8% in Newspoll, 10% in Nielsen); it simply defies belief to think that almost none of that is going to the Coalition. Much more likely that Labor is leaking to both Coalition and Greens, and that the Greens are also picking up some of the Coalition vote.
To play a role analogous to the DLP of the 1950s and ’60s, a party has to harvest voters from one side and deliver them to the other side as preferences. It’s not impossible that the Greens will do that, but it’s not intuitively plausible and there’s no actual evidence of it happening.
Good, clear article, Charles – thanks.
I hadn’t even heard of John Black before – should I have?
Charles, being a Mexican, you have missed the other inexplicable defection of Labor voters for Green or Coalition: Queenslanders. I believe a poll showed something like 65% against the new tax. Talk about turkeys voting for Xmas! I suppose, to adopt Mungo’s argument in his article today about Rudd’s advisors from the NSW hard-right, one can kind of see how Rudd has completely lost the plot in failing to explain the RSPT. Of course it may defy anyone to explain something that requires a few minutes of sustained concentration to Queenslanders but this had to be the single most important state (given that WA was already a lost cause) both politically and with those pesky miners like Xstrata and Clive Palmer. Being a Queenslander he should have known but Rudd’s extended interview on ABC-AM today was pretty bad. Out of control cliche and he seemingly deliberately stayed away from the one issue he needs to desperately get on top of, the miners tax. Of course then there are people like me, not Mexicans or ex-Mexicans but complete Aliens (having lived o/s for half their lives) in inner-city seats like Brisbane where the Greens candidate, re-born ex-Democrats Andrew Bartlett, is attractive.
I don’t know what Mr. Richardson’s background is but gosh he writes some very perceptive stuff. It is very interesting that Andrew Bartlett is standing for the Greens in Qld since it suggests that people might see the Greens as an alternative for the Democrats whose demise has left a serious gap for disaffected liberal voters. It certainly is a fact that here in Tasmania Greens voters are just as likely to preference the Liberals as they are Labor and I can happily accept that this is more wide spread as Richardson suggests. With both Labor and Liberal parties going further and further to the right, where do liberals go?
Very clear piece. Just thought I’d comment on the income issue. I think the observation of high incomes amongst Greens voters is misleading. While I think the average Green voter is slightly better off than the average voter this is largely because of other factors, mainly that Green voters are younger and better educated. In addition, they do well in seats with very high female participation rates. That means no pensioners, and lots of double income households. Having done a little analysis of this, once you factor in age and education you find a negative correlation with income – that is given their education levels Greens are actually likely to be poorer than other (educated) voters. I think this helps explain the ‘left’ alignment of the Greens and the high preference flows to Labor. It also interesting that Labor gets the highest proportion of preferences where the Greens vote is highest (inner-city Sydney and Melbourne), suggesting that as the vote grows the relationship strengthens. That’s not to say there isn’t leakage (there is) or that Liberals don’t switch to Greens (they do), but in much smaller numbers. The Greens represent an electoral base that is closely aligned to Labor and very hostile to (particularly Abbott) Coalition. Unlike the other parties, the Greens are still expanding their base, rather than appealing to unaligned swing voters (at least outside Tasmania). The politics of expanding a base vote are different (I think) to appealing to the centre.
Does anyone really believe voters are jumping from the coalition to the greens? The coalition support base is made up of four groups; the social conservatives (religious, elderly), the economic rationalists (business), farmers (nationals) and the ultra right (ex-one nation guys, conspiracy theorists). Do you see any of those groups going to the greens? Social conservatives won’t as they believe the greens are dope smoking hippies. Economic Rationalists won’t as they believe the greens are anti-businesss. Farmers think about killing kangeroos, not saving them. The ultra right aren’t fans either. No chance. All these groups would vote Labor before Greens (except the ultra right who would probably donkey vote)
Preferences are explained by the “Anyone but Labor” protest vote. I think the support for the Greens is very soft and a lot less than the polls indicate. Its just a backlash from the left wing of the Labor party for abandoning two major issues; climate change and refugees.