There has been much to amuse in the Labor Right’s attack on the Greens over the last week, culminating in a flurry of attacks over the weekend: Paul Howes lambasting the Greens for advocating such pastimes as dancing over competitive sports for kids, thereby presumably at a stroke alienating the entire ballroom dancing competition community; John Robertson (remember him?) joining in, apparently forgetting the Greens were more diligent in supporting his head-in-the-sand stance on electricity privatisation than most of his own party; the febrile comparison by Sam Dastyari — general secretary of that politically deft outfit, NSW Labor — to One Nation.
The participation of union leaders like Howes and Tony Maher, who joined in on Twitter, was intriguing, given the Greens are far more protectionist than the parliamentary wing of Howes and Maher. In April, for example, the Greens not merely supported the government handing out yet more wasteful assistance to the automotive industry, but wanted to explore ways to prevent a future Coalition government from removing it. For a leader like Howes, who prides himself on advocating measures to protect jobs, having a crack at the Greens looked a little perverse.
Howes complained of the Greens “cannibalising the progressive vote”. Putting aside that under preferential voting, cannibalising votes is very tricky to achieve, it’s worth taking a proper look at how realistic the Labor Right is being in demonising the Greens.
The problem with the thesis that Greens voters are just Labor left-wingers lured to the Greens by the Siren-like singing of Kumbaya is that it has at best only been true for the last couple of years. The state-by-state picture varies, but the rise of the Greens from a nonentity party garnering 2-3% of the Senate vote in 1998 to the balance of power party now was primarily because of the decline of the Democrats. In state after state, Senate votes show that the self-immolation of the Democrats was accompanied by the rise of the Greens: whether disgruntled Democrats voters shifted directly to the Greens or not, the Greens have replaced the Democrats as the home for third-party voters.
In South Australia, the Democrats stayed higher for longer, because of the party’s historical strength there and, likely, the popularity of Natasha Stott-Despoja. That kept the Greens vote lower there for longer. In Tasmania, where the Greens have been much stronger for longer, the Democrats had already declined by the late 1990s, but Brian Harradine attracted a stronger third-party vote than the Greens. It was only his absence from the ballot in 2001 that saw the Greens vote surge into double figures. Elsewhere, the decline of the Democrats in the Senate vote mirrors the rise of the Greens.
Same in the House of Representatives in NSW. In 2001, the Greens were only slightly ahead of the Democrats across NSW, but both were below 5%. In 2004, the Greens nearly doubled to 8% and the Democrats practically vanished. In Anthony Albanese’s seat of Grayndler, the Greens shot to over 20% of the vote in 2001, increasing their vote by about the same margin as the Democrat vote fell. Ditto in Tanya Plibersek’s seat of Sydney. In Victoria in the House, the Democrats were slightly ahead of the Greens in 2001 but were on around 6% of the vote each. The Democrats have since becomes asterisks while the Greens vote has doubled.
The electoral establishment of the Greens was built on the wreckage of the Democrats, not by siphoning off left-wing voters from Labor.
That only really applies to 2010, when the Greens rose to levels of support beyond those achieved by the Democrats. In NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, the 2007 election saw the Greens basically matching, or only slightly bettering, the levels of support achieved by the Democrats in 1998 in the Senate. But in 2010 they burst through into double figures, even in South Australia.
According to Essential Research, which consistently gives a lower voting intention to the Greens than Newspoll, the Greens have sat on 10-11% since the 2010 election, unaffected by the carbon price, asylum seekers or Bob Brown’s departure. If maintained, it’s the electoral basis for an ongoing presence in the Senate of 10-12 senators. If for nothing else, Labor will have to get used to dealing with the Greens in the Senate, regardless of who’s in government.
What halts the Greens are strong swings against governments. The Greens’ federal vote went backwards in NSW in 2007 in the House of Representatives. It only rose by 0.7 percentage points in Victoria. The NSW and Queensland state elections show that the Greens struggle when the electorate is gunning for the incumbent. To amend the cliché, when the swing’s on, it’s on against minor parties. On that score, maybe the Labor Right will achieve its goal of halting the Greens momentum at the next election by handing Tony Abbott a landslide.
That of course points to Labor’s real problem: if there’s been any “cannibalising” of the progressive vote by the Greens, it’s now been replaced by a massive shift of Labor’s vote to the Coalition. The Labor Right may lament Labor voters who’ve shifted to the Greens, but even if Labor won all of them back, plus all of the third-party voters who moved to the Greens with the demise of the Democrats, it won’t save the party from annihilation; it’s the much larger number of former Labor voters who are now parked firmly with the Liberals that are the problem.
And Labor, as Sarah Hanson-Young pointed out in a succinct summary of the problem yesterday, is the odd one out of the major parties and the Greens. There is no lack of clarity about what either the Greens or the Liberals stand for, and little gap between the parties’ bases and the parliamentary parties’ policies (this is one of the reasons why neither is moving on asylum seekers). But there is little clarity about what Labor stands for. There’s plenty of talk about “fairness” and “working Australians” but no visceral feel about what the party’s core values are, the sort of values that mean voters don’t even have to think when they wonder about what a party stands for.
Lecturing both third-party voters and disaffected former Labor supporters about how stupid they’re being supporting the Greens probably isn’t the smartest way to attract their votes. But doing it when they don’t have a clear idea what Labor values are guarantees failure.
The whole thing is an exercise in appealing to middle australia to return to labor. The proposed motion for the conference is to not ‘automatically put Greens first in preference negotiations’ which they never did anyway.
They would never hand the coalition more Senate seats, maybe one day but not in 2013. They will continue to preference Greens in the Senate, but maybe not in the house (until a Greens candidate gets close enough to knock off a liberal member).
Good luck to em.
How has a massive shift of Labor’s vote to the Coalition occurred?
Howard pulled a three card trick to confuse the ra_cists and get their vote.
First he demonised boat people and by doing so he pretended to be hard on immigration but his government allowed in more immigrants than any other government.
The refugee issue is too hard to be solved but the Labor party need to do a Howard. Let them in and show how hard they are by decreasing the number of official immigrants by a fraction more than the number of refugees that we take.
The debate has become quite Orwellian but don’t be confused. What our political parties are doing is seeking the ra_cist vote. I don’t like immigration much anyway as it takes opportunities from younger Australians. If we need a worker, train up our own young and if there is no one willing, try the tried and true method of upping wages and conditions. It will always work. Be hard on immigration – point at howards numbers and hey presto you have your support back. But Labor are fighting a losing battle by pretending that it is concern for refugees and not racism that is driving voters. They should wake up and get with the real world on this. It will be a game changer if they can.
I don’t have time to search for the data now – but having seen it first hand while scrutineering – the other problem with the “Greens stealing the left” hypothesis is that the Greens have a significant preference flow the liberals. More to the ALP, to be sure, but not as much as it used to be. A surprisingly large number of people vote 1 Green 2 Liberal.
If they were siphoning off far left votes the preference flow to the ALP would be stronger. If they are taking democrat votes, like Mr Keane suggests, the preferences would be more evenly split – like they are
Does Paul Howes believe he has not done enough to damage the Labor party in the last 25 months, is this why he’s hellbent on being more divisive?
What are “Labor values”?
Both major parties and the media love to say that Labor are left or centre left, the other side of politics (to the Liberals), etc.
But if we compare what Labor have done, continue to support, and want to do, with all the other OECD countries, on pretty much all counts Labor is seen to be a party of the right.
Perhaps the most important measure is taxation. Australia is already well below the OECD average for percentage of GDP raised by tax. Labor are proud that with their last budget taxation as a percentage of GDP will be the lowest for 20 years. Lower taxes result in less spent on government services.
So Labor is a successful party of the right.
Social issues paint the same picture. How many other OECD countries had a government that was working towards banning all x-rated content from the internet? How many other OECD countries have their ‘progressive’ party against gay marriage?
Labor has also failed miserably on climate change. How many other OECD countries are still funding freeways instead of public transport, taxing petrol as little as Australia, maintaing huge fuel subsidies for companies, not keeping up with worlds-best-practice for efficiency standards (cars, housing, etc).
Part of the campaign over the last weekend has been to paint the Greens as extremists. But comparing Labor to other OECD countries shows that Labor are the extremists, and much of what the Greens want is close to the OEC average.
I wish the Greens would campaign more on these real differences. Labor and the Greens are very different. Lets make these differences clear and let the voters decide.