BY
LISA MACDONALD
SYDNEY Ask anyone on the street in NSW when the date of the state election is and the odds are you'll get a blank look. This isn't a reflection of people's disinterest in politics after all, just three weeks ago 500,000 Sydneysiders rallied against the Australian government's support for a war on Iraq.
Rather, the general disinterest in the March 22 election reflects the population's deep cynicism about business as usual politics in NSW, the apparent stranglehold of the Premier Bob Carr's Labor Party on parliamentary politics and the lack of any significant difference between the major parties.
The Coalition and Labor parties are quite aware of the growing disillusionment of voters. The ALP has spent millions of dollars on a TV advertising campaign, baffling establishment commentators who point out that the Coalition has little chance of winning government, despite running its most energetic campaign in eight years (a recent poll indicated that more than 60% of voters still don't know the name of the opposition leader John Brogden).
The real threat to Labor's support base is the Greens. If there is a spark of public interest in this election, it is because a new and progressive player is set to make further gains in NSW. The Greens won their first federal House of Representatives seat in the Cunningham by-election in NSW just a few months ago and they won a second Senate seat, again in NSW, in the last federal election.
With two NSW Legislative Council (upper house) members already Ian Cohen and Lee Rhiannon the Greens seem to be on a roll. This momentum, together with the decline of the Australian Democrats, and most recently the Green MPs consistent and high profile opposition to the US war on Iraq, has reinforced the party's position as the real opposition in parliamentary politics.
The Greens in NSW are campaigning hard not only to get Cohen re-elected, but to win at least one more upper house seat (Sylvia Hale). More significantly, the Greens are aiming to win their first seat in the Legislative Assembly (lower house). In the seat of Port Jackson, the Greens are standing Leichhardt deputy mayor Jamie Parker against the extremely unpopular ALP incumbent Sandra Nori. The most optimistic Greens members think they have a strong chance of also winning the seat of Keira (in Wollongong) and even Marrickville, in inner-Sydney.
The passage in 2000 of amendments to the NSW electoral act, which make it extremely difficult for small, resource-poor organisations to contest state elections has done its job. The list of candidates for the upper house election 15 registered parties above the line, and seven unregistered groups/individuals below the line is the smallest since 1991.
While most of the small right-wing parties, backed by establishment money, made it onto the above-the-line upper house ballot (Shooters, Australians Against Further Immigration, Fishing, Horseriding and Four-Wheel Drive parties, One Nation and Pauline Hanson's group), the Socialist Alliance and the Greens are the only left-wing organisations whose party name will appear on the ballot paper.
Noticeably absent are the Communist Party of Australia, which is not standing candidates, and the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), which is standing three candidates as independents in the Newcastle area. The tiny Communist League is standing Robert Aiken as an independent in the Sydney seat of Lakemba.
In the spirit of left unity, the Socialist Alliance offered a non-aggression pact with the PLP and decided to contest the seat of Charlestown, rather than Newcastle, where the PLP's Harry Williams is standing, so as not to split the socialist votes. However, the PLP went ahead and nominated Kate Ferguson for Charlestown. It is standing Di Gibson in Wallsend.
Other generally progressive candidates in the upper house include Peter Breen MLC's Reform the Legal System, which is also contesting some lower house seats and, despite having little grassroots involvement in the anti-war movement, has made strong statements against the war on Iraq and the attacks on the Australian Muslim and Arab communities. The strictly single-issue No Privatisation People's Party, a very small group, is contesting the upper house only and says it wants to get elected to put more pressure on the major parties.
Save Our Suburbs (SOS), a newly registered party in NSW, was, according to the March 22 issue of its broadsheet Suburban Advocate, established primarily to campaign for all private developer donations to all political parties to be banned. It presents itself as a political voice for community activists protecting neighbourhood character, environment and heritage values.
While SOS grew out of important local campaigns against the loss of green spaces and profiteering by private developers, such as at the former Australian Defence Industries site in Sydney's outer-west, the group's broadsheet reveals its right-wing trajectory. It laments the ever-increasing population of Australia and advocates incentives for immigrants to settle in areas capable of accepting population growth.
Under the NSW's new optional preferential voting system, individuals may vote for just one candidate or party, or for more than one (that is, they can distribute preferences to as many other candidates as they wish). Parties' how-to-vote cards simply indicate to voters where the party would prefer preferences to be allocated. Unlike in federal elections, parties' how-to-vote cards do not indicate where each vote for them will automatically flow if the party concerned is knocked out of the count. Only when the individual voter votes for more than one candidate/party will their vote flow on to their second, third etc. preference.
There has been no visible effort by the state government to educate the public about the voting system and State Electoral Office staff say that they expect a high proportion of informal votes as a result of the confusion that will be created.
The Coalition and Labor parties are, in most seats, calling for a vote for themselves only, aiming to minimise the number of votes that flow to competing parties. The Greens have attempted to use their preference recommendations to pressure the ALP in certain areas, recommending preferences to Labor in most seats, but not recommending preferences to either Labor or the Coalition in 12 key seats where they say the ALP government has not performed around the issues of public education, developer donations, land clearing, GE crops and old-growth forest protection. The question of whether the Coalition would perform any better is left open.
In the upper house, the Greens are recommending preferences flow first to SOS, then to the Socialist Alliance. In those lower house seats being contested by both the Greens and Socialist Alliance, each is recommending that voters preference for the other.
The Socialist Alliance is recommending that its preferences flow first to the Greens and then the ALP in both the upper house and most lower house seats it is contesting. In Charlestown, the alliance is recommending preferences flow to the PLP candidate before the ALP.
In recommending preferences flow to the ALP, the Socialist Alliance is making clear its opposition to the election of a Coalition government. In those seats it is not contesting, the Socialist Alliance is recommending a vote for the Greens.
With the prospect of an utterly unjust war against the people of Iraq now looming large, the Socialist Alliance, supported by the Greens, is also calling on all voters to transform polling day into a people's referendum by writing the words No war along the top of both ballot papers.
[Lisa Macdonald in the lead candidate on the Socialist Alliance's upper house ticket.]
From Green Left Weekly, March 19, 2003.
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