I never went to journalism school, but it strikes me that one of the first things they should teach you there is to shy away from words attributing mental states. Take this example from the front page of yesterday’s Age: “Labor believes that, in return, the Greens will distribute ‘open’ how-to-vote cards in key ALP-held marginal seats …”
Is there any evidence for this? That’s what Labor sources have told the reporter that they believe, but why should we think they really do? Yet journalists do this all the time, taking at face value politicians’ assertions as to their beliefs, fears and intentions — even when the circumstances would seem to demand a measure of scepticism.
In this case, if Labor’s negotiators really thought that Victoria’s Greens and Liberals were going to get together, I doubt they would be carrying on the way they are now. It looks much more like an attempt to bully the Greens into signing on to a deal with Labor.
For the Greens it must all seem depressingly familiar. In 2006, they gave Labor almost everything it wanted: preferences across the board in the upper house, and in all but two marginal Labor seats in the lower house. Yet Labor still professed outrage at not getting even more, and attacked the Greens as pawns of the Liberal Party.
This year, ALP state secretary Nick Reece says “Labor had told the Greens it would preference them ahead of the Liberals in all 88 lower house seats, and had asked the Greens to preference the ALP ahead of the Coalition.” But that’s hardly much of an offer, since there’s only one of those lower house seats (Prahran) where there’s any chance of the Greens benefiting from it.
What the Greens really want is Labor preferences in the upper house, where last time Labor preferenced a variety of minor parties ahead of the Greens, resulting in the election of the DLP for the last spot in Western Victoria. That could easily happen again, either there or in Northern Metropolitan. Dead silence from the Labor sources on that issue, apparently.
No doubt the impression is being cultivated by the media, but it really seems as if Labor just can’t leave this issue alone. Instead of going to the outer suburbs where they might actually win some votes, its campaigners are dressing up in koala suits to harass Bob Brown. The obsession with the Greens is focusing its attention on the parts of the state that, in terms of retaining government, matter the least.
It’s also probably not helping its ostensible goal, of getting Green preferences. Labor’s bullying just reminds the Greens that, whatever they do, Labor is going to attack them regardless. If they’re going to be smeared as crypto-Liberals anyway, why not at least try to get some benefit from the Liberals in return?
And the more Labor tells voters that Greens and Liberals are in bed together, the fewer qualms Greens voters in the suburbs will feel about giving preferences to the Liberals, and the less it will be able to count on the support of Greens members in the lower house if it really needs them.
Thankyou
I read this rubbish and thought – here we go again..
As for directing preferences- Greens voters are the least likely to follow direction.
To opt out of the mainstream mania for the two major parties they have had to THINK.
This generally leads to an independant voter selecting their own preferences irrespective of the hot to vote.
One thing unmentioned by Charles and missed by some normally acute commentators is that they may be quite unfair to Ted Baillieu in criticising his failure to impose Liberal preferences for the Greens on some of the rabid maddies in his party. Certainly it is obvious that the Liberal interest is in anyone defeating innner city Labor MPs, including especially ministers, so giving preferences to Greens must follow.
However, delaying the decision while some Liberals rant against it has the big advantage that Greens, both the party and its independently minded voters like Pamela, will think through what is in the Greens interest. In the end, especially as part of a preference swap deal with the Liberals, they should direct their preferences to defeating every Labor candidate.
Why? Worst case is Coalition wins a majority in its own right. Still, the Greens become established as a major player with ownership of most of the left and the balance of power in the Legislative Council. By contrast,Labor, which would probably be crippled by the infighting and despondency which often follows a loss of government, would no longer have the resources of government to use in competition with the Greens. Every other outcome is outstandingly good for the Greens, not least forcing Labor into minority government or coalition with the Greens.
The silliness of Labor’s vilification of the Greens strategy is that, whilst it may slightly harm the Greens primary vote, it is just as likely to lead to a lot of everyday Greens voters – especially some of the many who will be voting Greens for the first time at this election – be less enthusiastic about giving their second preference to Labor on their ballot paper.
For all the endless reports about which party is ‘giving’ preferences to another, the simple fact is that – particularly in Lower House seats – it is the voter who decides for themselves where their preferences go. What the various parties decide to recommend on their how to vote cards handed out on polling day certainly has some influence, but most research suggests people who decide to vote 1 for the Greens are less influenced by how to vote cards than those who decide to vote 1 for Labor of Liberal. (The same applied in years gone by for people who decided to vote 1 for the Democrats)
All of which means I think Labor and Liberal would be better off trying to directly encourage the people who are voting 1 Greens to give their number 2 vote towards them, rather than just slagging off about what the Greens might put on their how to vote cards.
Whoever advises the Labor machine on how to run an election, should be sacked. They blew it federally, (how could they not focus on their success at keeping Australia out of the world financial recession? Really… what dill decided to down play that in their adds?). And they are blowing it in the state of Victoria with nonesense like this about preferences.
Maybe the Libs have somehow got people into the “machinery” of the Labor election campaign planning committees?! Maybe the Libs are actually orchastrating their strategy?!
ALP…. A.nother L.iberal P.arty? ….. 🙂
“What the Greens really want is Labor preferences in the upper house, where last time Labor preferenced a variety of minor parties ahead of the Greens, resulting in the election of the DLP for the last spot in Western Victoria. That could easily happen again, either there or in Northern Metropolitan. Dead silence from the Labor sources on that issue, apparently.”
Yeah, that strategy worked well before, didn’t it? Labor stopped a Green getting in in Victoria and instead got Steven Fielding, whose vote was critical in helping stymie the Rudd government. Is Vic Labor so thick, so obsessed with stopping the Greens, that they’d rather have right-wing independents in the Senate who can derail their legislative program rather than Greens they might at least be able to negotiate with?