With the rise of the Greens and a state election looming in Victoria, it’s time for more angst about preferences.
The Greens’ hopes of winning seats from Labor next month depend on getting Liberal Party preferences — just as they did to win the federal seat of Melbourne, and to get within range in Grayndler and Batman. The Liberals, realising that they have something valuable to trade, are now concerned about whether they should continue to help the Greens, and if so, what they should ask in return. Christian Kerr raises the issue in yesterday’s Australian.
The important thing to remember about preference debates is that what appear on the surface to be arguments about tactics are usually something deeper. People who seem to be talking about what is best for their party’s interests are actually reflecting more fundamental ideas about what their party stands for.
This is fraught territory for a major party such as the Liberals, because their preferences have usually had only symbolic importance: for most of its history, Liberal Party preferences have hardly ever been distributed, so Liberals are really not used to the idea that they determine who gets into parliament.
The major exception to that was the debate over preferencing One Nation back in 1998-2001. Most Liberals were careful to couch the debate in pragmatic terms — was it in their immediate political interest to deal with One Nation? — but it was clear that it actually separated those who felt a degree of philosophical kinship with the Hansonites from those who did not.
And so it is with the Greens. Some Liberals take it as almost self-evident that the Greens are philosophically further removed from them than the ALP is. Others find this view deeply mysterious, while still others see it as true but irrelevant.
The debate is chaotic because the Liberals are a diverse bunch, with no single agreed vision of what the party is for. Are they primarily a class-based party, representing the interests of the property-owning classes (as their origins clearly suggest), or are they a more ideological party — and if the latter, what ideology do they stand for?
Whether the Liberals are a middle-class interest group or a vehicle for liberalism, either way they should feel more comfortable with the Greens than the ALP. And if (as sometimes seems the case) they have no animating principle at all except the quest for power, then it makes sense to assist the Greens at the expense of their main opponent. Only if they see themselves as a specifically conservative or right-wing ideological party should they feel closer to Labor.
That, however, is the position of most of Ted Baillieu’s opponents in the Liberal Party (and, incidentally, of The Australian as well), and they are putting their case forcefully. In the pragmatic terms in which it’s put, the argument makes sense: the Liberals should be trying to get a quid pro quo from the Greens that might help them in marginal seats. (Although they shouldn’t gild the lily, as Kerr’s sources did in claiming that an open Greens ticket would have won them Corangamite and La Trobe: Possum Comitatus on Monday showed why that isn’t true.)
But the pragmatic argument is in constant tension with the ideological one. At the end of the day, the anti-Baillieu forces don’t actually want to deal with the Greens — they want to destroy them. And since the Greens can be equally intransigent, their search for common ground is going to be quite an interesting exercise.
When the Liberals preferenced the Greens ahead of Labor in Melbourne in the recent federal eleciton, they did so without any deal with the Greens. They did it to stick it to Labor. One less seat for Labor if the Greens take it. (And every single seat was predicted to be – and was indeed – critical for who formed government). So the numbers became 73:72 (Coalition: Labor). If Labor had won Melbourne it would have been 73:73. And the Liberals hollow cries that they somehow “deserved” power would not have been so loud.
But it is going to be that close in the state election? Probably not. Will the Liberals help the Greens without a deal, here?
If they do preference the Greens, I will put money on it that it wont be because of a deal. It will be for the same reasons as we have just seen: to stick it in Labor. No need to talk to the Greens about that goal.
And what would the Greens really expect to get out of a “deal” with the Liberals? No more logging old growth forests? Protecting the environment? Not building another coal station? Not building the desal plant? Better water conservation? Yeah… like that would happen.
My gut feeling says that the Liberals will actually preference Labor ahead of the Greens in Victoria. Their supporters might get disgruntled if they help a couple of Greens get elected to the state lower house.
I hope that prediction is wrong of course! (Go the Greens!)
But Jim it was 72 all as Crook isn’t in the COALition party room but is supporting them the same as Bandt with Labor.
The Libs are moving further to the right and further away from reason so I fully expect them not to preference the Greens.
Wobbly is quite right about the 72 all if you don’t count Crook in WA. And indeed, he kept saying “I will sit on the cross benches” and yet despite that no body listened and kept including him in the tally of 73.
In that case of course, the 72:72 outcome made it even less convincing that the Liberals automatically “deserved” power. The rules have not changed: its the first side to just over half. In 2010 that meant the first to 76 and clearly the labor party pulled that off.
The shift of the Liberals to further right is evident (especially as labor has moved to right of centre: the libs need to distinguish themselves from labor and so have gone further right still). It probably will be a reason why they wont preference the Greens. (Though… they did in Melbourne with Bandt… for short term political gain…. ).