This open letter was sent from the Melbourne west branch of the Socialist Alliance to the Melbourne inner west branch of the Victorian Greens on September 30.
We write to communicate our disappointment and surprise at the decision of the inner west Greens to preference the Labor Party (ALP) and the Democrats before the Socialist Alliance (SA) in the seat of Gellibrand.
Preference order is a public statement about the degree of political difference you see amongst the various parties. By placing us after the ALP, you are saying that you think the ALP — and the Democrats — are politically closer to the Greens than SA is. We do not agree.
The four founding principles of the Greens internationally are grassroots democracy; ecological sustainability; economic and social justice; and peace and nonviolence.
Around the country, members of the Greens and members of the Socialist Alliance work closely together on many issues related to these principles. Many members of SA have previously been members of the Greens, and many Greens are socialists. Local Green and SA branches jointly sponsor a wide range of campaigns.
The issues that the Greens and the Socialist Alliance have collaborated on include campaigns against the occupation of Iraq; for refugees' rights; against export woodchipping; for same-sex marriage; against racism in Redfern and Footscray; for the defence and extension of Medicare; for the release of Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib from Guantanamo Bay; against the GST; and for the rights of the Timorese to profits from their own oil.
We look forward to continuing collaboration on all these issues and more, both during and after the election campaign. Therefore we ask why you have preferenced parties before us who are opposed to these campaigns?
To take just two examples, the ALP does not support gay marriage, and the Democrats do support the GST. Certainly there are progressive people in the ALP, and perhaps the Democrats, who do support these campaigns, but the official positions of these parties, and their actions in parliament, are definitely not supportive. They are usually explicitly opposed to these campaigns.
So far as we know, in every other seat where we are standing the local SA and Greens branches have each preferenced the other before the ALP and the Democrats. What is so different
about Gellibrand?
We will continue to campaign for these principles and we look forward to continuing to work with the Greens on these issues beyond the election campaign. We will also continue to preference the Greens before the ALP and the Democrats. It's a matter of political principle.
In both the electoral arena and the social movements it is vital that progressive formations stand together to oppose the reactionary agenda of other political parties. We hope you reconsider your preference decision, or at least let us know your reasoning. Succumbing to wedge politics only benefits the conservatives. United we stand, divided we fall.
From Green Left Weekly, October 6, 2004.
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