By Hall Greenland
In the days that followed the election
perfect strangers were constantly bailing me up to express their congratulations
and commiserations. They were aware our vote in the seat of Grayndler had
dropped compared to our 2010 result - three percentage points as it turned out
- and were disappointed (and wary of the Abbott victory) but they were not
despondent.
They were right. The drop in Grayndler was
nowhere near as large as the overall fall in the Greens vote across the country
(see the accompanying table at the end). And if we take a longer view, the
Greens vote in Grayndler is up 20% on our 2007 vote (from 19 to 23 per cent). Undoubtedly
also injecting some optimism into the reaction was the magnificent victory in the
seat of Melbourne, the re-election of Senators Scott Ludlum and Sarah
Hanson-Young and the extra senator (Janet Rice) in Victoria.
The local reaction reflects the certainty
that we won the political debate during the campaign. There was, after all, no
convincing Labor answer to the criticisms of their punitive refugee policy, or
the cuts to single parent pensions, or the slashing of university funding, or
the promotion of coal exports, or the approval of fracking, or the failure to
protect iconic wilderness areas and farmland.
The positive vibe also had much to do with
our campaign. We definitely won a few
rounds during the run-up, including the Meet-the-Candidates debate in
Marrickville Town Hall. It is little wonder that the sitting member Anthony
Albanese refused our challenge for debates during the campaign.
The wins during the campaign were important
because at the beginning of this year the Greens in Grayndler were in the
doldrums after the setbacks in the local elections last year. In all the municipalities
within Grayndler, the Green vote went backwards – in some cases by as much as
25%.
Early in the campaign we were buoyed by
exaggerated hopes (based on 2010 figures) of actually winning the seat. However
that close-run thing in 2010 was the result of receiving Coalition preferences
and five weeks out from this election Tony Abbott announced that Labor not the
Greens would be getting Coalition preferences this time. It was testament to
the strength of our campaign team – and our campaign coordinator Lesa de Leau -
that we did not falter.
Our media people, to cite one example, were
terrific. We received a number of front pages in the local press and our social
media and internet presence could not have been better. The campaign videos
were also consistently interesting and garnered positive feedback.
This local and social media presence was
important because Anthony Albanese received a charmed ride from the liberal
mainstream media. The ABC and SBS rallied to Albanese’s defence with soft treatment
on everything from Radio National to the Hamster Wheel to the Observer Effect.
The Grayndler Greens campaign was well-funded
compared to other Greens lower house campaigns in NSW. But to put it into
perspective, we only had about one-tenth of the resources of the Greens in Melbourne
and less than half the resources committed to the key seats in the last state
election.
Why then didn’t these strengths translate
into more votes? The short answer is we should not underestimate either the
strength of our Labor opponents or the mood of our electorate. We were pitted
against the deputy prime minister and long-term incumbent, who had
comparatively huge party, union and media networks to draw on as well as solid
vote banks in the local ethnic and sporting communities.
As for the mood, the most common reaction I
encountered from sympathetic voters when I was doorknocking was, “Yes, I like
the Greens but the important thing is to stop Tony Abbott, so I’m voting
Labor”. This defensive, fear-of-Abbott mood largely explains the continued
strength of the Labor vote in Grayndler which was relatively impervious to
reminders of how right-wing Labor had become, or to explanations of how
preferences worked, or to assurances that the Greens would never support an
Abbott government. It completely overwhelmed any impact the Greens official campaign messages might have had.
Yet it is important not to miss the first
part of that doorstep declaration – “Yes, I like the Greens…” It is that which
is also a source of our measured but upbeat reaction. There is much goodwill
towards us in the ranks of Labor voters, which is no surprise as most of us are
former Labor voters.
This raises the strategic question of how
the Greens relate to Labor now. The experience of the
past three years is instructive. There was no real alternative to guaranteeing
confidence and supply to the minority Labor government after the August 2010
elections. It was the best government that was available in the prevailing
circumstances. It was also right to secure concessions from the minority
government. What went wrong – and the work of Tad Tietze & Elizabeth
Humphrys and Tony Harris is pretty valid on this subject - was to get cosy and
close to that government and to oversell the concessions. Any unpopularity of
that government was also sure to rub off on us.
We needed to keep in the front of our
minds that the minority Labor government was committed to an unsustainable
model of capitalism, its policies were neoliberal to the core and it was a
toady of Washington in foreign affairs. Fortunately the party room in Canberra
has now reclaimed its freedom of manoeuvre.
While a dynamic, critical, alternative
approach to the Canberra consensus is always in order, there is no guarantee
that it would have produced better results in the political circumstances of a
general shift to the right among voters. The magnitude of this shift is being
overlooked in too many quarters: the combined Greens-Labor vote in 2007 was
52%, 50% in 2010 and 43% in 2013.
This problem of relations with Labor
remains a real political dilemma for us as we will need to attempt some kind of
cooperation with Labor in resisting the Abbott government’s bid to reverse climate
change action, undo environmental safeguards, turn the screw on refugees and accelerate
redistribution upwards.
The dilemma is thrown into sharper relief
by the current Labor leadership ballot. We in Grayndler know how fake or
limited Albanese “progressivism” is – given his support for the imprisonment of
refugees, promotion of coal exports, privatisations of public enterprises,
local Council alliances with the Liberals etc – but his victory can make resistance
to Abbott stronger in that it could revivify the long-suffering Labor base who
will almost certainly vote overwhelmingly for Albanese as the most
“progressive” candidate.
We are now entering a new period. It is to
our advantage that Senator Lee Rhiannon has kicked off the discussion amongst
us about how we proceed after the election setbacks. Left Flank and Antony Loewenstein are weighing in
as well. The virtue of the Greens party room’s present position is that the Greens
can regain their freedom of political independence and initiative. What the
issue or issues will be that arouse important parts of the citizenry to action
is yet to be determined but already climate change has joined refugees as
causes around which people – and certainly the Grayndler Greens - are willing
to act.
14 September 2013
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My initial response to election result https://www.facebook.com/greensforgrayndler
The Greens’ percentage of the vote: House of
Representative/Senate
2007 election
|
2010 election
|
2013 election
|
|
National
|
7.79 / 9.04
|
11.76 / 13.11
|
8.33 / 8.58
|
NSW
|
7.88 / 8.43
|
10.24 / 10.69
|
7.76 / 7.57
|
Victoria
|
8.17 / 10.08
|
12.66/ 14.64
|
10.32 / 10.70
|
Tasmania
|
13.5 / 18.13
|
16.82 / 20.27
|
8.08 / 11.37
|
South Australia
|
6.95 / 6.49
|
11.98 / 13.30
|
7.99 / 7.03
|
Western Australia
|
8.93 / 9.30
|
13.13 / 13.96
|
9.54 / 9.78
|
Queensland
|
5.63 / 7.32
|
10.92 /12.76
|
6.03 / 6.09
|
