BY GRAHAM MATTHEWS
MELBOURNE — "Victorian economy surges past NSW" announced the November 14 Age. Heralding the growth of the Victorian economy, the article praised the state government. Photos of a serious looking Premier Steve Bracks and treasurer John Brumby appeared below the article.
In further good news for the Bracks government, the Liberal Party was embarrassed by the failure of its shadow treasurer Robert Dean to correctly enrol to vote — he will not now be able to stand as a candidate. Dean was sacked by Liberal leader Robert Doyle, whose chances of defeating Bracks on November 30 look increasingly shaky. Dean may face electoral fraud charges for making a false declaration of his place of enrolment.
Doyle has also openly attacked the Victorian construction unions, threatening to accept federal government anti-union conditions attached to federal funding to help redevelop the MCG in the lead-up to the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The Liberals have attempted to gain ground on Labor by insinuating that the ALP is soft on the militant construction unions, alluding to criticisms from the royal commission into the building industry.
The Labor Party has also taken blows to its campaign, however. Long-term Melbourne city Councillor Kevin Chamberlain resigned from the Labor Party and will be contesting Melbourne district as an independent, preferencing the Greens ahead of Labor.
Jane Calvert, secretary of the Forestry division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has also resigned from Labor, but in protest at Bracks' "restrictions" on logging.
Long-time community legal activist Amanda George will contest the seat of Kororoit — against the minister for prisons Andre Haermeyer. One of George's campaign managers is progressive lawyer Rob Starry, who publicly resigned from the Labor Party in opposition to its "Texas cowboy" approach to law and order.
The Victorian Greens continue to campaign largely around environmental issues, although some Greens candidates including Pamela Curr, who is contesting Brunswick, were involved in a women-only protest against war at the Shrine of Remembrance on November 11. The Greens have also publicly campaigned for the return of conductors to trams and for the right of women to choose a midwife during childbirth.
As of November 15, Greens candidates in marginal seats were refusing to direct preferences. Having clarified they will not direct votes to the Liberals, the candidates are considering a split-ticket preference option that privileges neither Labor nor Liberal.
The Socialist Alliance continues to campaign strongly against war, with alliance candidates in Melbourne, Northcote and Footscray involved in organising community rallies against the threat of war on Iraq on November 23. Socialist Alliance candidates have also offered support to unionists under attack, most notably 350 workers threatened with redundancy at car component manufacturer National Forge in west Footscray.
The vast majority of Victorian voters have been unimpressed with a campaign where both major parties have tried to out-do the other in their failure to offer any real alternative. ABC commentators Brian Dawe and John Clarke summed-up the mood well in their satire at the end of The 7.30 report on November 14. "So are you going to reverse the privatisation of the roads, electricity, gas and public transport that Kennett carried through?" Dawe's character asks Clarke (as "Jeff" Bracks). "No," says Clarke. "But we are against everything that they stood for. That's why we won the last election."
From Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2002.
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