BY
ALISON DELLIT
The Greens scored a whopping 9.2% of the vote across Victoria in the November 30 state election. This was just the latest in a string of successes that began with a better than expected result in the Western Australian elections in early 2001. Since then, the Greens have won 570,000 votes in the 2001 federal election and won their first federal lower-house seat in the Cunningham by-election.
Green Left Weekly spoke to Stephen Luntz, a Greens election analyst in Victoria, Gemma Pinnell, who won 27% of the vote as a Greens candidate for the seat of Richmond in the November 30 election, and Sylvia Hale, who is second on the Greens upper-house ticket for the March NSW elections.
The Greens' success has come on the back of an increasing political convergence between the ALP and Liberals, at a state and federal level.
On the key issues, the [Victorian] government had failed to perform, Pinnell said. There has been disappointment with the ALP, its failure to invest in health and education, its closeness to big business, letting developments go ahead, such that there's almost no difference [with the Coalition].
Hale also cited the ALP's shift to the right as a factor in growing support for the Greens. There is huge dissatisfaction, with the Liberals obviously, but possibly more with the ALP, and its stance on war in Iraq, refugees and other things, she said.
Pinnell believes that the profile that the party has built, in large part since the August 2001 Tampa incident, as a party of principles has opened up more space for the Greens.
We campaigned strongly on public education, health and environmental, particularly forest, issues but it's broader than that, Pinnell explained. Lots of people raised [our support for] refugees and [opposition to] war. Our broader political positions drew people to us.
Both Pinnell and Hale believe that the Greens' campaigns around planning issues, in particular opposition to intensive development in inner-city areas, also won them support.
Hale told GLW that there was a relationship between local issues and the broader national questions: People are conscious of the difference between state and federal issues. The national profile of the party has made people more aware that we are not just a lot of tree huggers, but have significant social justice policies. Planning issues are part of this.
People are now seeing the Greens as a viable alternative government, Pinnell agreed.
According to Luntz, the increased votes for the Greens is not coming from a different demographic than their previous support base. It's the same sort of people, he said, just more of them. Greens voters share two main characteristics, Luntz noted: they are young and have completed at least one year of tertiary education.
Based on his Luntz' analysis of previous election results and the distribution of the 2002 votes, in the November 30 elections around 40% of tertiary-educated voters under 35 voted Green statewide, 9-10% of those who were either under 35 or tertiary educated voted Green and only a tiny proportion of others did.
In the four main priority seats, where the Greens beat the Liberals to score the second-highest primary vote, Luntz estimates that more than 50% of young people voted Green.
According to Luntz, Greens' membership is now five times what it was two years ago. Interestingly, both Luntz and Pinnell said that the Greens' growing membership was slightly older than its voting base. In the main four seats alone, the Greens mobilised around 700 people to staff the booths for the day.
Pinnell described the new Greens voters as young people, first time voters and rusted-on ALP voters. There's also people very concerned about environmental issues, who come from both the Liberal and Labor parties.
There has been a shift to the left in the electorate, Hale argued. Liberal voters are moving to Labor, Labor's left is moving to the Greens.
Asked about the tension in the Greens between those coming from a environmental campaigning backgrounds and those more concerned with social justice issues, Pinnell was candid: People come to the Greens with different sorts of backgrounds environmental campaigning, social justice campaigning, even union campaigning. The challenge for us is to merge them together, working within grassroots structures. There is debate along those lines, but that's a good thing.
NSW's Labor premier, Bob Carr, has attempted to exploit some of these tensions, arguing that he deserved Greens preferences because of his government's campaign to reduce migration to Sydney. Carr's war on migrants has involved ethnic profiling and police attacks on Muslims.
Asked about the Greens position of urban immigration and population, Pinnell said: The Greens are very involved in campaigns to [reduce housing] density. We think cities need better planning. We also support increasing immigration, particularly the refugee intake, and ensuring our communities embrace diversity.
Luntz pointed out that of the four main Greens candidates, three had no involvement in environmental campaigning before they joined the Greens, and the fourth was also involved in social justice campaigns. Pinnell, an ex-student union official, is now working for the National Tertiary Education Industry Union.
These various backgrounds may explain the different campaigning style of Greens candidates. In different seats, Greens candidates make their own decisions about fundamental questions such as the allocation of preferences.
Pinnell and Hale expect that Greens' support will continue to grow, challenging the two-party, pro-business consensus. In the next federal election, we expect to get a [Victorian] senator elected and we'll be going for lower-house seats, Pinnell said. We are consolidating ourselves as the third party. Of course, the Greens have always been about struggle outside the parliamentary arena as well.
Hale argued that the Greens' victory in the NSW federal seat of Cunningham indicates that in the March NSW election, our primary vote will be much better, in double digits. We could get two or three MPs elected in the upper house, and will be pushing the ALP in a few lower-house seats, especially Port Jackson, Marrickville and Keira.
Success breeds success and we expect to do very well.
From Green Left Weekly, December 11, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.