Research Paper no. 8 2008–09
The rise of the Australian Greens
Scott
Bennett
Politics and Public Administration Section
22 September 2008
Contents
Executive Summary
The first Australian candidates to contest an
election on a clearly-espoused environmental policy were members of
the United Tasmania Group in the 1972 Tasmanian election.
Concerns for the environment saw the emergence
in the 1980s of a number of environmental groups, some contested
elections, with successes in Western Australia and Tasmania.
An important development was the emergence in
the next decade of the Australian Greens as a unified political
force, with Franklin Dam activist and Tasmanian MP, Bob Brown, as
its nationally-recognised leader.
The 2004 and 2007 Commonwealth elections have
resulted in five Australian Green Senators in the 42nd
Parliament, the best return to date.
This paper discusses the electoral support
that Australian Greens candidates have developed, including:
- the emergence of environmental politics is placed in its
historical context
- the rise of voter support for environmental candidates
- an analysis of Australian Greens voters who they are, where
they live and the motivations they have for casting their votes for
this party
- an analysis of the difficulties such a party has in winning
lower house seats in Australia, which is especially related to the
use of Preferential Voting for most elections
- the strategic problems that the Australian Greens and any third
force have in the Australian political setting
- the decline of the Australian Democrats that has aided the
Australian Greens upsurge and
- the question whether the Australian Greens will ever be more
than an important third force in Australian politics.
|
AG Australian Greens
ALP Australian Labor Party
Democrats Australian Democrats
DLP Democratic Labor Party
Lib Liberal Party
Nat, Nationals The Nationals
ON One Nation
UTG United Tasmania Group
Introduction
The first Australian parliamentary candidates
to contest an election on a clearly-enunciated environmental policy
were members of the United Tasmania Group who nominated for the
1972 Tasmanian election. For most of the years since there has been
an environmental presence in Australian elections and a number of
Commonwealth, state and territory parliamentary seats have been won
by candidates espousing environmental policies. Despite this,
environmental politics has been seen as positioned on the edge of
the main political contest. The emerging environmental interest
has, until quite recently, been unable to push past the Australian
Democrats (Democrats), a party established in 1977 and popular
enough to win Senate seats in every election between 1977 and 2001.
Over the years the successes of the Democrats, together with the
dominant Liberal, Labor and National parties, left little room for
a party strongly identified with the environmental interest.
During the 1990s the political landscape began
to change. On the one hand, the major parties hold over their
long-term supporters appeared to weaken. In 1998, for example, the
major party House of Representatives vote, which had been slowly
declining since the 1950s, fell below 80 per cent for the first
time since the 1943 election. Meanwhile, support for the Democrats
also fell. That there seemed to be an undercurrent of voter
unhappiness with the political scene was highlighted by the
emergence of two very different political movements. Very briefly,
the Pauline Hanson/One Nation (ON) phenomenon flashed across the
political landscape, winning seats in various legislatures, as well
as securing a 1998 House of Representatives nationwide vote of 8.4
per cent. At the same time, the various state environmental parties
began to see an opportunity to become part of a political force of
greater permanence and significance, with their electoral returns
becoming much more substantial as the decade progressed. It is this
latter development that is the subject of this study.
The paper begins by putting into an historical
context the emergence of the Australian Greens. It then looks at
the voters who support the party who they are, where they live and
the motivations they have for casting their votes for this party.
It discusses the difficulties such a party has in winning lower
house seats in Australia and it refers to some of the strategic
problems that they and any third force have in the Australian
political setting. It also discusses the decline of the Democrats
that has aided the Australian Greens advance.
Stirrings in Tasmania the United Tasmania Group
From the early 1960s it gradually became clear
that Tasmania s Hydro-Electric Commission was developing plans for
the flooding of Lake Pedder in the state s south-west. For decades
the importance of hydro-electric power for Tasmania s future had
been unchallenged in the island state and when conservationists
attempted to persuade the state government not to flood the lake,
they made little headway. Despite the activity of the
locally-formed Lake Pedder Action Committee, the lake was duly
flooded. In response, the Committee called a public meeting that
was held on 23 March 1972 in Hobart, less than four weeks before a
Tasmanian House of Assembly election. The meeting agreed:
In order that there is maximum usage of a
unique political opportunity to save Lake Pedder, now an issue of
national and global concern, and to implement a national,
well-researched conservation plan for the State of Tasmania, there
be formed a single Independent Coalition of primarily
conservation-oriented candidates and their supporters.[1]
Thus was formed the United Tasmania Group
(UTG), a body that is today regarded as the world s first Green
party.
In the Tasmanian state election of that year
the UTG nominated 12 candidates in four of Tasmania s five
multi-member House of Assembly electorates. It probably surprised
many observers by securing a vote of 4.9 per cent in the four
electorates it contested, with its three Franklin candidates
gaining a total of 8 per cent. Its statewide vote was 3.9 per cent.
Although the UTG vote in Denison was only 6.9 per cent, it came
close to winning a seat when one of its candidates was the last to
be eliminated from the count. In an indication that the
environmental issue could disturb long-term party loyalties, Ron
Brown, former Labor MLC for Huon (1948 66), led the UTG Franklin
ticket with a personal vote of 5.4 per cent.
The
Franklin Dam
While the Lake Pedder issue was important for
bringing environmental issues to the fore in Tasmania, it was a
political battle which probably made little impact north of Bass
Strait. The Franklin Dam issue, which became an important factor in
the 1983 Commonwealth election, was different. The policy of
opposing the Tasmanian Liberal Government s plans for the
construction of a hydro-electric power scheme on the Gordon or
Franklin Rivers in south-west Tasmania was adopted by the national
Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1982. The ALP then sought to
persuade Coalition voters to switch parties on this issue. Although
Labor s vote fell markedly in Tasmania (-5.8 per cent), the
Tasmanian Wilderness Society s campaign in 13 mainland marginal
Liberal seats was believed by some in the Coalition parties to have
helped Labor s return to power.[2]
National Party Leader, Doug Anthony, was quite
certain about the importance of the Franklin Dam issue: Clearly the
[Fraser] Government has suffered particularly in Victoria from the
campaign against the dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania. Like
many other politicians including some in the ALP Anthony was
concerned about what this development meant for the future of
Australian politics: I am still convinced, despite my own
opposition to the dam, that the approach by the Labor Party is
doomed to bring enormous divisions to this country. [3] One defeated Liberal MP
probably expressed the views of many politicians uncomfortable with
the idea of single-issue politics: It seems extraordinary that a
group of people with one thing on their minds should try to turn
out a democratically elected government. [4]
Since 1983 most Australian elections have
included discussion of environmental questions and controversies
and, increasingly, activity by the environmental interest has been
important in the analysis of final election results.
Early environmental activism was complicated
by the fact that in 1984 the anti-nuclear networks of the
environmental movement created the Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP).
Western Australian NDP Senator, Jo Vallentine, elected in 1984,
spoke of her party possibly developing into a Greens type of
party.[5] Although
the NDP soon foundered, its emergence indicated the presence of a
progressive, environmentally-aware third force in Australian
politics. The UTG might have been the first state
Australian environmental party, but the NDP was the first
national party, winning 7.2 per cent of Senate votes in
the 1984 election.[6]
The Democrats were also part of these early
environmental political developments. The emergence of what was
labelled new politics in the 1970s and 1980s included the creation
of the Democrats. In its early years, there was a marked degree of
cooperation between the party and environmental interests the
Democrats have been described as by Nick Economou of Monash
University as a willing ally of environmental groups at that time.
For their part, environmental groups supported the Democrats,
especially in the Commonwealth elections of 1983, 1987 and 1990 the
vote for the environment .[7] After the 1990 Commonwealth election, Tasmanian Greens
MHA Bob Brown (1983 93) claimed that the combined UTG and Democrats
result in Tasmania showed a marked swing to the green movement in
that State: Our vote is up 5 per cent if you include the Democrats
This represents the continued growth of the Green vote in Tasmania.
[8] His view was
echoed by the Tasmanian President of the Democrats and
newly-elected Senator, Robert Bell.
The UTG was gradually followed by similar
environmental , conservation or green groups in other states,
though by the end of the 1980s there were still only a relatively
small number nominating for elections outside Tasmania. This
changed as the different state environmental groups began to see
the propaganda benefits of contesting parliamentary elections. The
winning of a few Tasmanian House of Assembly and Western Australian
Senate seats in the early 1980s probably gave an added incentive to
do so. Encouragement also came from the overseas example of the
German Greens, who first gained members of the Bundestag in 1983
and whose 1987 vote reached 8.3 per cent of the German national
vote.
The number of environmental parties and their
candidates gradually increased. Among the early electoral
contestants were Victorian Environment (Senate, Vic., 1974), People
s Environmental Action Co-operative Enterprise (NSW, 1981), The
Independents (Tas., 1989), Western Australia Green Party (HR,
Senate, WA, 1990), Illawarra Greens (HR, NSW, 1990), the ACT Greens
(HR, ACT, 1996) and liberals for forests (WA, 2001).
The following table gives an indication of the
increase in environmental candidates for lower house seats over the
last 20 years (Table 1):
Table 1: The increase in
environmental candidates 1997 2007 (lower houses)
|
Election
|
Year
|
Seats
|
Green candidates
|
Year
|
Seats
|
Environmental candidates
|
|
Commonwealth
|
1987
|
148
|
4
|
2007
|
150
|
150
|
|
NSW
|
1991
|
99
|
8
|
2007
|
93
|
93
|
|
Vic.
|
1992
|
88
|
1
|
2006
|
88
|
84
|
|
Qld
|
1989
|
89
|
6
|
2006
|
89
|
75
|
|
WA
|
1989
|
57
|
2
|
2005
|
57
|
57
|
|
SA
|
1993
|
47
|
3
|
2006
|
47
|
47
|
|
Tas.
|
1986
|
35
|
4
|
2006
|
25
|
25
|
|
NT
|
1987
|
25
|
0
|
2005
|
25
|
11
|
|
ACT
|
1989
|
17
|
0*
|
2004
|
17
|
7
|
* A number of candidates from different groups
focussed their campaigning on environmental matters, though no
single group was regarded as green .
Sources: Australian Electoral Commission, NSW
Electoral Commission, Victorian Electoral Commission, Queensland
Electoral Commission, Western Australian Electoral Commission,
Electoral Office of South Australia, Tasmanian Electoral Office,
Northern Territory Electoral Commission, Elections ACT.
Since the early 1980s some of the political
importance that environmental candidates have enjoyed has been a
consequence of the increasing importance of how their voters
allocate their preferences at election time. One of the first
significant occasions was the 1990 Commonwealth election when it
was later established that the Labor Party gained many more
environmental voter preferences than did the Coalition.[9] This has continued in the
elections since.
In the 2004 Commonwealth election, for
example, Australian Greens preferences helped elect ALP MPs in at
least 21 electorates, including the New South Wales electorates of
Banks and Lowe, the Victorian electorates of Ballarat, Bendigo,
Isaacs and Melbourne Ports, and the Western Australian electorates
of Cowan and Swan. The Coalition lost four electorates in which the
net preference flows from the Australian Greens to the ALP was
greater than the two-party preferred winning margin. These were the
New South Wales electorates of Parramatta and Richmond and the
South Australian electorates of Adelaide and Hindmarsh.
Although the Australian Greens 2007 House of
Representatives vote was lower than the party had hoped for, it
played a significant role due to the relatively low vote achieved
by Labor (43.4 per cent). Across the nation, 79.7 per cent of
Australian Greens preferences went to Labor (the highest being 82.9
per cent in Victoria) These votes were important in pushing the ALP
national two-party preferred vote to 52.7 per cent, its highest
figure since 1993. In electorates such as Richmond (NSW),
Leichhardt (Qld) and Franklin (Tas.), it was the final parcel of
preferences from the Australian Greens that confirmed the Labor
candidate s first preference lead enjoyed from the first count. In
other electorates, however, the Labor candidate was trailing the
Coalition candidate after the penultimate count, and it was
Australian Greens preferences that finally secured these
electorates for Labor. Such electorates included Prime Minister
Howard s Bennelong, as well as Page and Robertson (all NSW),
Corangamite and Deakin (Vic.), Hasluck (WA) and Bass and Braddon
(both Tas.). In Bass, Labor s Jodie Campbell saw her party s first
preference share fall by 2 per cent to 37.2 per cent, and she was
still 6 per cent behind the sitting member with only the Australian
Greens preferences to be distributed. Ultimately, 74.1 per cent of
these preferences pushed her to 51 per cent of the two-party
preferred vote. Although the ALP would have won the national
election without such a generous allocation of preferences, the
fact that they received them made their final seat tally healthier
than it probably would otherwise have been.
As mentioned earlier, for some years the
Democrats tended to be regarded (and regarded themselves) as the
parliamentary standard-bearers for the environmental interest. At
its peak, the party was able to win 11.3 per cent of the national
House of Representatives vote in 1990 and occupy nine of the 76
Senate seats between 1999 and 2002. During the second half of the
1990s, however, the relative importance of the Democrats and the
environmental parties shifted, for a number of reasons.
On the one hand, the Democrats electoral
support began to weaken, with two factors particularly significant.
As environmental candidates became more common in elections across
the country, voters concerned about such matters began to abandon
the Democrats, apparently due to a belief that they were not green
enough. One important event may well have been the replacement of
Janet Powell as Australian Democrats Leader. Tasmanian Greens MPs
had been speaking with Powell about forming a Green Democrats
party, but neither of her successors, John Coulter or Cheryl
Kernot, showed any interest in continuing the discussions, to the
frustration of the environmental parties.[10] As more such candidates stepped
forward at election time, so those Australian Democrats voters who
put environmental issues at the top of their issue list had
somewhere else they could place their vote. Many would probably
have seen the new parties as purer on environmental issues than the
Democrats. One might also speculate that Kernot s replacement as
Australian Democrats Leader, Meg Lees, may well have antagonised
environmental/Democrats voters with her eventual support for the
Howard Government s goods and services tax (GST) legislation.
Certainly this was the view of many in the media.[11]
While this was occurring, support for the
general environmental movement seemed to be on the rise. In the
Senate, the Greens (WA) had won Western Australian seats in 1990
and 1993, occupying a strategic position from July 1993. Elsewhere,
environmental politicians had held the balance of power in
Tasmania, most notably in the Labor-Green Accord of 1989 92; and
two were elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly in February 1995.
The Greens had performed creditably in the 1995 New South Wales
election, Queensland Greens preferences played an important role in
the Queensland Labor Government s near-defeat in 1995, and the 12.9
per cent ACT Green vote in the House of Representatives Canberra
by-election of March 1995 helped produce a surprise Labor defeat.
The future looked promising for the environmental forces.
Despite preaching a common message, for some
time the environmental parties were essentially independent state
organisations with no national focus. Although the Western
Australian Senators, Jo Vallentine (1985 82), Dee Margetts (1993
99) and Christabel Chamarette (1992 96), were positioned to give
the movement a national voice, none seemed to gain much recognition
as a national leader. In fact, Margetts and Chamarette earned a
great deal of ridicule as the gumnut twins , with the clear
implication that their views were only marginal to the national
interest.[12]
In 1992 an important development was the
organisation of the different state-based parties as a reasonably
unified force. Representatives from different states met in Sydney,
where the New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmanian Greens agreed
to the formation of the Australian Greens , with support from
Victorian, Western Australian and ACT representatives. It was later
noted, ruefully, that no member of the media attended the press
conference announcing this important union, due to its clashing
with the opening of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.[13] The Greens (WA) were the
hold-out branch of the new party, reflecting their NDP origins
which gave the party of the west a far stronger anti-war
orientation than its eastern Australian colleagues with their
strong conservation mind-set. Although the Greens (WA) maintained a
separate status for some time, henceforth there was greater
uniformity in the message and policies being pushed at different
elections by Greens candidates. In addition, Bob Brown s move to
the Senate in 1996 gave the new arrangement a recognisable
leadership focus.
The last decade has seen Australian Greens
(AG) win seats in many Australian legislative bodies. The 2002
Cunningham by-election produced the first Greens MHR, while Bob
Brown has been joined in the Senate by Kerry Nettle (NSW 2002 8),
Rachel Siewert (WA 2005), Christine Milne (Tas 2005), Sarah
Hanson-Young (SA 2008) and Scott Ludlam (WA 2008). Members of state
Legislative Councils have been elected in New South Wales, Western
Australia, South Australia and Victoria. Three ACT Legislative
Assembly members have been elected. In Tasmania, AG candidates have
achieved election in every House of Assembly election since 1986,
with four of the 25 House of Assembly seats won in the 2002 and
2006 elections.
Like other minor party candidates, AG
flag-bearers have been both helped and hindered by the voting
methods in use in Australian parliamentary elections.[14] Proportional
Representation (PR) is used in elections for the Senate, all
mainland Legislative Councils, the Tasmanian House of Assembly, and
the ACT Legislative Assembly. As the name implies, PR was devised
in the hope that it would produce results in which candidates
gained parliamentary seats in proportion to the number of votes
they received. Today, the use of this voting system means that a
minor party with a reasonable following has a fair chance of
winning a seat. The vote needed depends on the number of seats
being contested. A vote of just 4.5 per cent (of first and later
preferences) will win one of 21 New South Wales Legislative Council
seats, 14.3 per cent will secure one of the six seats contested in
a half-Senate election in one of the States, while 16.7 per cent
will win a seat in a five-member Tasmanian House of Assembly
electorate. Parliamentary seats are far easier to win in a PR
election than in a Preferential Voting election where 50 per cent
(plus a single vote) is required (for a discussion of Preferential
Voting, see below pp. 10 16). Since 1990, minor
parties and independents have won enough seats in PR elections to
have been politically significant, a development that has
presumably encouraged voters to further support them. Not
surprisingly, therefore, minor parties often put more effort into
winning seats in PR elections than in those where Preferential
Voting is the voting method.[15]
As a measure of the impact of voting methods
on AG candidates efforts it is informative to study the electoral
battles of Bob Brown, currently a Senator for Tasmania, but an MHA
in the Tasmanian Parliament between 1983 and 1993. Between 1982 and
1992 Brown contested four Tasmanian House of Assembly elections,
winning a seat on three occasions and defeated on the other when he
came fourth on first preferences, but was denied a seat by an
insufficient number of preferences. He then contested Denison in
the 1993 House of Representatives election, where Preferential
Voting was the electoral system, but his impressive vote of 14.2
per cent was still well behind the Labor (51.3 per cent) and
Liberal (31.4 per cent) tallies as was to be expected. Since then
Brown has contested three Senate elections, winning a seat on each
occasion with state-wide AG votes of 8.7 per cent (1996), 13.8 per
cent (2001) and 18.1 per cent (2007), the latter of which gave him
a seat on the first count. A major factor in Brown s electoral
record has clearly been the voting method in use in each
election.
The use of PR for some elections is therefore
an important factor in the winning of seats in Australian
legislatures. There is an important rider to this, however. The
more seats being contested in the single PR electorate, the lower
the quota of votes needed and the greater the chance of a
significant minor party winning a seat. The fewer the seats being
contested, however, the larger the quota of votes needed to win a
seat and the more difficult it is for a minor party to win seats.
In four ACT Legislative Assembly elections (1995 2004) the AG have
returned an MLA in the seven-member electorate of Molonglo in each
election. By contrast it has returned only one in five-member
Ginninderra and has yet to return an MLA in the five-member
Brindabella electorate.
This also can be seen in ACT and Northern
Territory Senate elections. In such contests where two seats only
are being contested the quota is 33.3 per cent, much larger than
the half-Senate election quota of 14.3 per cent needed to win a
State Senate seat. To date, the two seats in each territory have
been shared by the Coalition and Labor in every election since
1975, the first such election. The impact of this could be seen in
2004 and 2007 when the AG ticket for the ACT Senate contest was
headed by former popular three-term Legislative Assembly member
Kerrie Tucker (1995 2004). Despite returning a 2004 vote of 16.4
per cent which was over three per cent higher than the party s
Senate vote in Tasmania Tucker fell well short of winning a seat.
The ALP (41.1 per cent) and the Liberal Party (37.9 per cent)
comfortably retained their seats on first preferences. Three years
later the Save Our Senate campaign in the ACT was effectively a
call for voters to support Tucker again, but despite her party
lifting its vote to 21.5 per cent still three per cent better than
the AG in Tasmania both seats again were won by the major parties
on the first count.[16]
Writing in 2002, Shaun Wilson of the
Australian National University described AG voters as representing
a constituency that was concerned with more than environmental
questions. He claimed that many were Labor supporters,
disillusioned with their party s diminished commitment to full
employment and economic redistribution. Many saw Labor as following
the economic agenda set by the political right, with the
consequence that the long-standing and traditional gap between the
major parties had necessarily disappeared . By squeezing out the
Democrats who were mortally wounded by internal division and,
Wilson argues, through their ill-advised support for the GST, the
AG appeared: to have opened up the political space to the left of
Labor, and proven themselves to be attractive to a more diverse
constituency than might be anticipated for green politics. [17]
Since then the AG have determinedly painted a
picture of a party on the rise with a momentum that will not be
stopped. Bob Brown has long claimed the inevitability of the party
s (and the movement s) rise in popularity with voters: We re
destined to grow because the problems we have, of deforestation, of
global warming, are not going away. [18] With a claim that up to 40 per cent
of voters were available to add their support to the smaller
parties and to independent candidates, he has asserted:
I just think it is inevitable that we are
seeing the demise of the two-party system ... We are in a pluralist
world. People are better informed, better educated and they want
choice. The party system has to yield to that new
democracy.[19]
Shortly after the 2007 Commonwealth election
result was known, Brown used the AG website to describe the party
as: gradually, inexorably, unrelentingly, bit by bit, solidly,
indefatigably and reasonably going up in the polls .[20]
Not all observers are as certain as Bob Brown
that the AG will become a major part of the Australian political
landscape. In defence of their view, they make several points about
probable limits that might bring AG growth to a halt, sooner rather
than later.
The
problem
Preferential Voting is used in House of
Representatives elections, as well as lower house elections in each
mainland state and the Northern Territory. The requirement for a
candidate to achieve one vote more than half of all preferences is
integral to what has been described as the anti-minor party bias in
the preferential voting system .[21] To have any chance of winning, a candidate
probably should have at least 35 per cent of the first preference
vote, though most candidates with votes in the 35 39 per cent range
will not win the contest. For AG House of Representatives
candidates this hurdle has proved to be difficult to clear. So far,
on only six occasions have the party s candidates managed 20 per
cent in a House of Representatives contest: Cunningham 23.0 per
cent (2002 by-election), Melbourne 22.8 per cent (2007), Sydney
21.6 per cent (2004), Mayo 21.3 per cent (2008 by-election), Sydney
20.7 per cent (2007), Cunningham 20.1 per cent (2004). Of these
six, the earlier Cunningham and the Mayo contests were atypical,
for the AG vote was undoubtedly pushed over the 20 per cent mark by
the fact that the party had only one major party rival. The Liberal
Party did not contest Cunningham in 2002, nor did Labor contest
Mayo in 2008. In the other contests, the AG candidate was unable to
achieve second place on first preferences, finishing behind both
major party candidates. To put this in some historical perspective,
since the introduction of Preferential Voting for House of
Representatives elections, only 49 of 4069 contested elections and
by-elections (1.2 per cent) have been won with a first preference
vote below 30 per cent.
Limited
successes
To date, there have been only three occasions
when environmental candidates have won contests where Preferential
Voting has been in use. All three cases were unusual and unlikely
to be often repeated and, in two cases the winning candidate s
opponents have included a candidate from a registered environmental
party. Two electorates have been involved.
In the 2001 Western Australian state election
the controversial Liberal Minister for Fair Trading, Doug Shave,
had strong opposition from various candidates in his south
metropolitan seat of Alfred Cove. Janet Woollard represented the
liberals for forests , though she was listed as an independent on
the ballot paper. Crucially, the Labor Party did not nominate a
candidate. Shave s vote fell to less than one-third of first
preferences, with Woollard 12 per cent behind on the first count.
However, by gaining well over half of other candidates preferences
she won comfortably.[22] It is arguable that had Labor nominated a candidate in
this general election in which it won office, it might have won the
seat.
Four years later, the Alfred Cove line-up of
candidates included an ALP candidate. Woollard gained 24 per cent
of first preferences, 13.9 per cent behind the Liberal candidate.
Crucially, she was narrowly ahead of Labor on the penultimate
count. Labor and Greens (WA) preferences saw her re-elected.
In the 2002 Commonwealth by-election in
Cunningham (NSW) referred to above, the AG candidate Michael Organ
won, despite finishing 15.1 per cent behind the Labor candidate on
first preferences. In managing to pick up 75.2 per cent of all
preferences distributed, Organ gained a comfortable victory by 2996
votes (4.4 per cent). In a reminder of the 2001 Alfred Cove
contest, Organ was helped immeasurably by the decision of a major
party (the Liberals) not to nominate a candidate. Had the Liberal
Party nominated, this would have almost certainly seen the party
winning sufficient votes to keep its candidate ahead of Organ whose
preferences would have given the seat to the Labor Party.[23]
Despite these three successes, the current
level of popular support for environmental candidates remains well
below the level needed for the AG to have much chance of winning
many electorates where Preferential Voting is used. In the 2007
Commonwealth election, for instance, in only 12 electorates did the
AG candidate manage to reach 14 per cent of first preferences, and
only in Melbourne and Sydney was 20 per cent reached. In no seat
did the AG candidate lead either major party opponent after the
count of first preferences (Table 2).
Table 2: Highest Australian Greens
House of Representatives votes, 2007 election (%)
| Rank |
Electorate |
AG vote |
ALP vote |
Coalition vote |
|
1
|
Melbourne |
22.8 |
49.5 |
23.5 |
|
2
|
Sydney |
20.7 |
49.0 |
26.7 |
|
3
|
Grayndler |
18.7 |
55.5 |
20.9 |
|
4
|
Denison |
18.6 |
48.5 |
29.7 |
|
5
|
Batman |
17.2 |
57.2 |
20.6 |
|
6
|
Bass |
15.3 |
37.2 |
43.5 |
|
7
|
Melbourne Ports |
15.0 |
42.5 |
39.7 |
|
8
|
Wentworth |
15.0 |
30.5 |
50.4 |
|
9
|
Richmond |
14.9 |
43.8 |
37.0 |
|
10
|
Cunningham |
14.6 |
53.2 |
26.6 |
|
11
|
Fremantle |
14.6 |
45.2 |
35.1 |
|
12
|
Franklin |
14.4 |
41.4 |
41.0 |
Source: Australian Electoral Commission.
Winning a House of Representatives
seat. A mirage? A distraction?
In the last three Commonwealth elections the
AG have contested every House of Representatives seat, no doubt
motivated by the need to maximise their Senate vote. There is,
however, a subtext which describes the party as moving to join the
major players at the top of the party league table. Illustrating
this claimed change in status after the 2007 election, the AG
pointed to the marginalisation of the seat of Melbourne, where the
Liberals were pushed back to third place in the distribution of
preferences. In the Senate, the AG were said to have shown their
dominance over the Nationals by the size of their vote and their
largest-ever haul of Senate seats. Even the local government
elections in the Northern Territory in April 2008, where AG
candidates won three seats, were cited as more evidence of the
inevitable achievement of major party status.[24] The logic of this suggests that
the AG will, inevitably, win House of Representatives seats. How
likely is this?
Former Labor senator, John Black, now of
Australian Development Strategies, believes this scenario to be
quite likely. He sees the seats of Melbourne, Sydney, Grayndler,
Batman, Denison and Wentworth as all possible victories for the AG.
He describes these seats as intellectually dominated by well-to-do
professionals who are concerned about global warming as well as
other environmental problems. They are intellectually liberated;
the gays among them are resentful of the failure of governments to
legislate for full marriage rights for this urban subgroup. Black
sees these seats as effectively marginal, with the AG at the next
House of Representatives election needing only to gain about one
per cent from the Liberal Party and about five per cent from Labor
to win any of them.[25] Such a view lends support to Bob Brown s claim
concerning the inevitable growth of his party.
Not all would agree with Black s analysis. The
excitement may well be genuine and the achievement of winning a
House of Representatives seat in a general election would be the
occasion of party celebration. However, others believe that the
reality is that Preferential Voting will make it very unlikely that
the AG will achieve such an outcome. To illustrate this view, the
electorates listed in Table 2 are examined.
First of all, it is of obvious importance that
no major party candidate should gain more than half of the vote in
any electorate because this would make the size of any other
candidate s tally irrelevant. In 2007, Labor won Batman (57.2 per
cent), Grayndler (55.5 per cent) and Cunningham (53.2 per cent) on
first preferences, as did the Liberal Party in Wentworth (50.4 per
cent). Of course, it is not just a rival party s achievement of
half the vote on first preferences that would stop an AG candidate.
It is inconceivable that if either the Labor or Liberal parties
were to secure the level of vote, such as that achieved by Labor in
Melbourne (49.5 per cent), Sydney (49 per cent) or Denison (48.5
per cent), they would fail to reach 50 per cent on preferences.
Seats such as these are virtually impossible for a rival major
party to win on preferences, let alone a minor party such as the
AG.
Most obviously, there must be a reasonably
healthy AG vote, with a first preference total of 20 per cent
seemingly the bare minimum for success. Since 1918, only two House
of Representatives contests have been won with less than 20 per
cent of first preferences and only seven more with votes in the
range of 20 25 per cent.[26] It is also crucial that the AG candidate finishes ahead
of the Coalition candidate because, if the Green is behind, it is
quite unlikely that the candidate will pass the Coalition candidate
before being eliminated from the count.
The ideal position for the AG would be for
some electorates to have relatively low Labor and Coalition
support, with the AG vote well in excess of 20 per cent. Based on
the 2007 figures, the closest to the ideal appear to be Melbourne
Ports, Fremantle and the two Tasmanian electorates of Bass and
Franklin. To say that they offer a path for AG success, however,
would be an overstatement. In all four, the Greens vote is only
moderate and quite a deal below the type of level that might push a
Greens candidate into second place on the second-last count.
A key aim for the AG is to reduce the size of
the Labor vote, so it would help the party if the Rudd Government
were to lose some support by the time of the next election. At the
same time, the party does not want too great a surge in the Liberal
vote, for it is crucial for an AG candidate to be ahead of the
Liberal tally by the last count. If such a candidate can achieve
this, he or she would benefit more from Liberal preferences than
would the Labor candidate always assuming that the AG candidates
are put ahead of Labor candidates on Liberal how-to-vote cards.
Black has noted that in Melbourne in 2007, 82.6 per cent of Liberal
preferences flowed to the AG candidate.[27]
A problem for the AG is that the major parties
remain popular, with voters who shift from one overwhelmingly
likely to vote for the other (see below, p. 23). In the 21
elections since the emergence of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP)
in 1955, the combined first preferences of the major parties have
averaged 89.0 per cent of the House of Representatives vote. In
1955 the figure was 92.2 per cent and in 2007 it was still as high
as 85.5 per cent. The consequence is that the vote of minor party
candidates rarely reaches 20 per cent in any electorate. The
Australian Democrats achieved this on just three occasions (in 1990
and 1998) and the AG have done so on only five occasions to date.
All of which is a reminder of how well the DLP performed in the
party s heyday. In the five elections between 1955 and 1966, DLP
candidates topped 20 per cent on 20 occasions, with a high of 30.7
per cent in Scullin in 1955. Only in Tasmania did it fail to
achieve this level of vote in any electorate. Despite this, the DLP
never won a House of Representatives seat. Although Bob Brown talks
of their vote rising gradually, inexorably, unrelentingly , their
three best Commonwealth elections have not yet matched the best
three DLP efforts (Table 3).[28] In fact, their best-ever result of 7.8 per cent,
gained in 2007, did not match the 11.3 per cent achieved by the
Democrats in 1990 or One Nation s 8.4 per cent in 1998.
Table 3: National DLP and AG House
of Representatives highest votes (%)
|
Democratic Labor Party
|
Australian Greens
|
|
Election
|
Vote
|
Election
|
Vote
|
|
1958
|
9.4
|
2007
|
7.8
|
|
1961
|
8.7
|
2004
|
7.2
|
|
1963
|
7.4
|
2001
|
5.0
|
Sources: Gerard Newman, Federal election
results 1949 2004 , Research Brief, no. 11, Parliamentary
Library, Canberra, 2004 05; Australian Electoral Commission
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rb/2004-05/05rb11.htm,
accessed 4 August 2008.
The AG failure so far to achieve the results
of either the DLP or the Democrats is very clear. The best result
for each party in each state illustrates this. Only in Tasmania has
the best AG vote topped the highest DLP and Democrats votes (Table
4):
Table 4: State-level DLP, Democrats
and AG House of Representatives highest votes (%)
|
State
|
DLP
|
Democrats
|
AG
|
|
NSW
|
5.6
(1958)
|
10.2
(1990)
|
7.9
(2007)
|
|
Vic.
|
15.8
(1955)
|
12.4
(1990)
|
8.2
(2007)
|
|
Qld
|
11.1
(1958)
|
11.6
(1990)
|
5.6
(2007)
|
|
WA
|
10.5
(1958)
|
11.2
(1977)
|
8.9
(2007)
|
|
SA
|
9.1
(1963)
|
15.2
(1990)
|
7.0
(2007)
|
|
Tas.
|
7.9
(1958)
|
8.6
(1990)
|
13.5
(2007)
|
Sources: Gerard Newman, Federal election
results 1949 2004 , Research Brief, no. 11, Parliamentary
Library, Canberra, 2004 05, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rb/2004-05/05rb11.htm,
accessed 4 August 2008; Australian Electoral Commission
It would seem that for an AG (or any other)
candidate to succeed in a House of Representatives election, the
candidate should gain at least 20 per cent of first preferences 25
per cent would be preferable and 30 per cent almost essential.
However, the candidate should also note that Jim Cremean (ALP
Anti-Communist[29])
in Scullin in 1955 (30.7 per cent), Janine Haines (Democrats) in
Kingston in 1990 (26.4 per cent) and Pauline Hanson (ON) in Blair
in 1998 (36 per cent), all failed to gain enough preferences from
other candidates to win their contests.
Although the major parties have long addressed
environmental issues, there is no doubt that for many years these
were not the major foci of their policies nor were they completely
convincing in their efforts to bring environmental voters onside.
However, in recent years the major parties have been pushing much
harder on environmental questions at both the national and regional
level, in a manner suggesting that they have begun to realise the
urgent need for them to do so. As early as 2001 the Western
Australian Liberal Leader, frustrated by the growth of the Greens
(WA) and the emergence of the liberals for forests, was warning
Prime Minister Howard of the need to make his support for
environmental questions more obvious.[30] In the following year the AG hope of
winning at least one Victorian Legislative Assembly seat in the
state election was said to have been blocked by Labor s possession
of a popular leader and enough pro-environment policies to win all
inner-city seats.[31] Recent examples of important major party environmental
issues are many: the desalination promise by the Labor Party in the
2007 Commonwealth election, the Howard Government s concern to push
through a long-term resolution of the Murray-Darling water issue,
the Western Australian Liberal Party s proposal to pipe water south
from the Kimberley and the Beattie Government s water pipeline
proposal made in the 2007 Queensland election. The impact of global
warming, the future of the Great Barrier Reef or, what the
Nationals have called a national plan for water security, are now
fully appreciated by all parties.
As a consequence, there is evidence to suggest
that voters concerned about the environment are more prepared to
accept that the major parties those which can actually achieve
change may be worth supporting on their approach to environmental
issues. In 2006, in regard to the issue of the environment, people
were asked by Newspoll: who did they see as best able to handle
this policy area. Their options were the Coalition, the ALP and
Someone else . Remarkably, the three options achieved a near triple
dead-heat in support (Table 5). If it is assumed that for most
respondents the Someone else was probably Bob Brown and the AG, the
striking feature of this finding was the relative enthusiasm of
respondents to what the party was saying on environmental matters.
Their 26 per cent poll result was well behind the combined major
party figure, but it was still impressive. However, two months
after the accession of Kevin Rudd to the Labor leadership, the
Coalition vote had moved little, but the ALP figure had jumped to
41 per cent. Much of this extra support presumably came from the
Someone else (AG?) tally which had tumbled to only 15 per cent. By
the time of the November 2007 election the figures were little
changed. On the issue of water planning, the February and October
2007 Newspoll figures indicated that the AG rated even less
favourably than on the environment question.
Table 5: Party best able to handle
environmental policies (%)
|
Policy area
|
Party
|
June 2006
|
February 2007
|
Oct 2007
|
|
Environment
|
Coalition
|
28
|
24
|
25
|
|
|
ALP
|
28
|
41
|
39
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
26
|
15
|
19
|
|
Water planning
|
Coalition
|
Not
asked
|
33
|
31
|
|
|
ALP
|
Not
asked
|
34
|
35
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
Not
asked
|
9
|
10
|
Source: Newspoll, http://www.newspoll.com.au/,
accessed 4 August 2008.
The environment findings from these polls
probably reflected, in part, the resurgence of Labor, combined with
the decline in support for the Howard Government. What must have
given the AG much disappointment, however, was the disappearance of
much of their earlier support and the fact that nearly two-thirds
of respondents believed that a major party would best handle an
area of policy that is central to the AG very existence. In
addition, they might have expected more support in relation to
water planning than the poll suggested they had. Lohrey has noted
that the problem for the AG may well be that increasingly every
aspect of politics is filtered through what she has called a green
prism by the major parties as well as by the AG.[32] As a former Howard Government
environment minister has noted: Everyone now is an environmentalist
.[33]
Having established in
a June 2007 Newspoll that water planning (75 per cent) and the
environment (66 per cent) were the second and fourth issues in
regard to the respondent s vote in a Commonwealth election, to have
the AG scoring so poorly in the election would have been a comfort
to the major parties. Environment writer for the
Australian, Matthew Warren, has noted the irony:
Twenty years ago, the environment movement was flat-out trying to
get anyone to come to the party. Today it s hard for it to get a
word in. [34]
In addition to these two policy areas, the AG
have developed a range of policies on such important issues as the
provision of social services, the treatment of asylum seekers, the
protection of the nation, education and health care.[35] Despite this, it seems
clear that most of these other AG policies are barely on the radar
of most voters, with an academic claiming that such policies are
mostly unknown to the national electorate .[36] In noting this, Bob Brown has
expressed his frustration with journalists, complaining that they
typically ignore the fact that his party s platform is not limited
to environmental questions.[37] The Newspoll research cited above in relation to
green-friendly policies, indicated this lack of public awareness
quite clearly in relation to specific non-environmental policy
areas. In this poll, the Someone else category invariably received
a level of support well behind the major parties (Table 6).
Table 6: Party best able to handle
selected non-environmental policies (%)
|
Policy area
|
Party
|
June 2006
|
February 2007
|
Oct 2007
|
|
Health & Medicare
|
Coalition
|
34
|
33
|
33
|
|
|
ALP
|
41
|
45
|
47
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
6
|
3
|
3
|
|
Education
|
Coalition
|
35
|
27
|
30
|
|
|
ALP
|
39
|
49
|
50
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
7
|
3
|
3
|
|
The economy
|
Coalition
|
61
|
51
|
53
|
|
|
ALP
|
20
|
29
|
29
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
|
Welfare/social issues
|
Coalition
|
34
|
28
|
28
|
|
|
ALP
|
45
|
51
|
51
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
6
|
4
|
5
|
|
National security
|
Coalition
|
56
|
44
|
49
|
|
|
ALP
|
21
|
31
|
26
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
5
|
4
|
4
|
|
Industrial relations
|
Coalition
|
29
|
27
|
34
|
|
|
ALP
|
48
|
51
|
47
|
|
|
Someone
else
|
6
|
4
|
3
|
Source: Newspoll, http://www.newspoll.com.au/,
accessed August 2008.
The combined impact of the figures in Tables 5
and 6 suggest that the AG are seen overwhelmingly as a one-interest
party, and hence are judged by voters not to be in the running for
government. The AG nomination of candidates in every House of
Representatives electorate makes sense in terms of ensuring their
how-to-vote cards are handed out to prospective Senate voters, but
it is essentially irrelevant to AGs hopes in winning House of
Representatives seats.
Painted with the extremist
brush
Since their earliest days, when they
infuriated Tasmanian politicians with their opposition to the
activities of the Hydro-Electric Commission, the AG have long been
painted as out of step with Australian life and politics. Their
danger to Australian society has been illustrated by many
opponents, primarily, but not exclusively, from the political
right. Over 20 years ago the Liberals Alexander Downer warned
during the 1987 election that environmentalists were uncompromising
zealots , who had been highjacked by left-wing political activists
.[38] Cheryl Kernot
(Democrats) spoke of feral obstructionists who were more concerned
to wreck than to attempt to build.[39] More recently, during the 2004
campaign the AG were vilified by the political right, as well as by
business, farmers, loggers, church groups and the media. Liberal
Senator Nick Minchin, for instance, warned of their dangerous
policies which included abolition of the defence force, the
introduction of inheritance taxes and the granting of the vote to
murderers and rapists.[40] Minchin s fellow Liberal, Senator George Brandis, spoke
of the AGs crypto-fascist politics, whose methods bore frightening
similarity to the methods and values of the Nazis ,[41] while Deputy Prime
Minister John Anderson (Nat) described them as akin to old-style
communists.[42] The
Family First Party ran tough advertisements describing party
members as extremists who sought to legalise the use of heroin and
ecstasy: They re giving my kids easy access to marijuana. [43] In the 2007 campaign
less seemed to be heard from such critics, though Family First s
Senator Steve Fielding described the AG as anti-family and
anti-small business , warning that they sought to open drug
shooting galleries , give free heroin to addicts and remove all
criminal sanctions for drug users.[44] The critics making such extreme
claims choose to ignore the fact that the AG were able to work
with, and support, the minority Tasmanian governments of Michael
Field (ALP, 1989 92) and Tony Rundle (Lib, 1996 98).
Clearly, the AG would not be in a position to
make such legislative changes by themselves. An old claim, though,
is that the environmental party would be simply a front for the ALP
this was a confident Coalition assertion in the 1990 election
campaign which was the first major campaign to feature
environmental issues.[45] In 2004 a Queensland Family First Senate candidate sent
a letter to Queensland church ministers warning voters against
electing a Labor government, which would be beholden to the AG
holding the balance of power in the Senate. If this eventuated,
Australia would see: the decriminalisation of the use of cannabis
and ecstasy, sex changes to be funded under Medicare and the
removal of the Lord s Prayer from the Parliament . In addition gay
marriage would be allowed and same-sex couples would be given full
access to fertility and surrogacy services.[46] In 2007 Senator Minchin warned that a
preference deal between the AG and Labor would impose a frightening
reality on a Labor Government. Inevitably, Labor would be held to
ransom so as to implement what Minchin described as the AG
dangerous policy agenda : This is the first time in Australian
history that a radical left-wing party like the Greens have been
poised to gain such an unprecedented level of power in the Senate.
[47]
Apart from attacks such as these, sections of
the Australian media either have been prone to ignore the AGs
non-environmental policies, or else have weighed in with criticism
a great deal harsher than that made of the major parties policies
and actions. In the 2001 election the Business Review
Weekly, for instance, attacked the Green menace whose members
saw the environment as the foundation for a vision of global
revolution .[48]
Three years later the Melbourne Herald Sun described the
party s radical manifesto as a combination of political correctness
and loopy Left run riot .[49] One might suppose that such claims make it difficult
for the AG to build their vote to a level as to be able to
challenge the major parties.
The relationship with
Labor
Ironically, despite Coalition claims about the
closeness of Labor and the AG, the relationship between the two
parties has been far from harmonious; this may also have affected
voting behaviour. It certainly has added uncertainty at times to
the future of the smaller party. The strained relationship is
particularly obvious during inter-party pre-election negotiations
over preferences, but it can also be seen in the reaction of Labor
spokespeople to the AGs determination to act at arm s length from
the ALP between elections.
A typical scenario in recent years has been
the party s leader attempting to push Labor into a preference-swap
at a Commonwealth or state election. While this is being given
publicity in the media, Labor spokespeople will proclaim their
determination not to be rushed into any hasty settlement. Prior to
the 2007 Commonwealth election there was Labor frustration with AG
threats to abandon preference agreements with the ALP if it did not
hasten to a deal. Labor s Alan Griffin stated that his party s
objective was to ensure we maximise the chances of defeating John
Howard, not electing Greens senators. [50] At such times it seems that the
advantage has primarily been with the larger party, limiting the
development of the smaller. Labor views seem to be influenced by an
attitude that there is no other realistic option for AG voters but
to give them their second preferences. Negotiations at times seem
superfluous.[51]
It must also be said that negotiations are
sometimes seen as occasions of betrayal. Great was the AG annoyance
in 2004 when Labor preferences elected a Family First senator in
Victoria, causing them to fail to win a seat they believed would
have been theirs had they been preferenced ahead of Family First. A
similar deal almost saw the failure of Christine Milne to win a
Tasmanian seat, even though her party had won 13.3 per cent of
first preferences.[52] Labor, therefore, has a perennial resentment of the AG
assumption that preferences between the two parties always should
be exchanged, especially as there is some research to suggest that
having a formal exchange of preferences adds relatively little to
the size of the Labor vote.[53]
The difficult Labor-AG relationship also can
be illustrated by reference to examples of ill-feeling between the
two parties. These are often a result of the AGs determination to
remain independent between elections, Labor s feeling of betrayal
from a party that it seemingly assumes will prefer itself to the
Coalition parties or the determination of Labor to rid itself of
this continual nuisance. A not-unusual example of Labor criticism
was former Labor Leader Mark Latham s claim that if the AG won the
Cunningham by-election in 2002, the Port Kembla steelworks would
close because the radical party wanted Australia to sign the Kyoto
Treaty.[54] Former
Labor Finance Minister Peter Walsh similarly warned that fanatics
cannot be appeased , pointing to what he claimed was the AGs
sabotage of the timber industry in Western Australia.[55] In Tasmania the party
frustrated Labor by assisting the Rundle Liberal Government to
survive, while more recently the Brumby Government has expressed
resentment of the AG often supporting the Opposition in the
Victorian Legislative Council.[56] Federal Labor front-bencher, Lindsay Tanner,
asserted during the 2007 election that the AG were on about
knocking over Labor rather than working to defeat the Howard
Government.[57] One
of the most determined acts by Labor to rid itself of the AG came
with the Bacon Government s reduction in the size of the Tasmanian
Parliament, which had the particular aim of limiting the AGs
membership of the House of Assembly.[58] All of this is a reminder of the
words of Professor John Warhurst of the Australian National
University, who has described the relationship between the ALP and
the AG as a combustible mix .[59] It is likely to remain so.
A frustration for the AG is the voting
behaviour of the great mass of Australians. Some, but far from
enough, are prepared to support the party. There are various
factors involved, including the fear of the possible consequences
of voting for the AG and the ongoing prickly relationship with the
ALP, both referred to above. Other factors include a preference for
the major parties, the narrow social base of support, the existence
of regional attitudes, and a desire of some to vote
strategically.
Voter loyalty to the major
parties
The problem for minor party and independent
candidates is that the major parties usually garner a sufficiently
large proportion of the vote between them in each contest to leave
few votes for other candidates. In the 2007 Commonwealth election,
for instance, the Coalition vote was 42.1 per cent and the ALP vote
was 43.4 per cent 85.5 per cent in total. The highest AG first
preference return of 22.8 per cent in Melbourne was still
overshadowed by the combined Labor-Liberal vote of 73 per cent in
the inner-city electorate. AG candidates contesting elections where
Preferential Voting is in use thus have to undermine the voter
support that the major parties have held for so long. There has
been a decline in major party votes since 1949, but even in 1990
when the Democrats gained a remarkable 11.3 per cent of the House
of Representatives vote, the major parties still garnered a vote of
82.9 per cent. It is therefore clear that the obvious problem for
the AG (and the DLP and Democrats before them) is that a large
proportion of voters who shift their vote from a major party simply
vote for another major party, rather than for one of the minors.
The eternal conundrum is how to devise a means of enticing voters
away from the Coalition and the ALP and holding them.
Who
supports the Australian Greens?
What type of voter has supported the AG to
date? Is there is a typical voter? Do different factors impact upon
different voters? Is there a difference between long-term and
occasional supporters of AG candidates? To a large degree this is a
matter of guesswork, because there are many factors which
individually impact upon voters choices when they enter the polling
booth. While acknowledging the difficulties, analysts suggest that
there are some patterns that emerge from survey research undertaken
in recent years. Some of this is based on research focusing on
responses of individuals; some focuses on those parts of the
country where the AG vote is strongest or weakest.
Using the data from the Australian Electoral
Study, academics Clive Bean of the Queensland University of
Technology and Ian McAllister of the Australian National University
have drawn the following picture of AG voters (Table 7).
Table 7: Australian Greens voters
social structure and voting behaviour (%)
|
Characteristic
|
2001 election
|
2004 election
|
|
Male
|
4
|
7
|
|
Female
|
7
|
9
|
|
Under
25
|
8
|
18
|
|
25
44
|
8
|
10
|
|
45
64
|
4
|
7
|
|
65+
|
3
|
4
|
|
Rural
|
4
|
6
|
|
Urban
|
6
|
9
|
|
Catholic
|
5
|
5
|
|
Anglican
|
3
|
6
|
|
Uniting
|
6
|
4
|
|
Other
|
5
|
7
|
|
No
religion
|
10
|
18
|
|
No
post-school qualification
|
3
|
4
|
|
Non-degree qualification
|
4
|
6
|
|
University degree
|
12
|
18
|
|
Manual
|
3
|
7
|
|
Non-manual
|
4
|
6
|
|
Self-employed
|
7
|
6
|
|
Government employed
|
5
|
9
|
|
Union
|
7
|
10
|
|
Non-union
|
5
|
8
|
Sources: Clive Bean and Ian McAllister, From
impossibility to certainty: Explaining the Coalition s victory in
2001 , in John Warhurst and Marian Simms (eds), 2001: The
Centenary Election, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia
Qld, 2002, ch. 27; Clive Bean and Ian McAllister, Voting Behaviour:
Not an Election of Interest (Rates) , in Marian Simms and John
Warhurst (eds), Mortgage Nation: 2004 Australian Election,
API Network, Perth, 2005, ch. 27.
According to these and other findings, AG
sympathisers are most likely to be young (especially under 25),
female, university-educated and residents of towns and cities. They
are likely to be religious non-believers and, if employed, holders
of public service jobs. A Morgan poll taken in 2007 confirmed the
city-country split, but found no difference based on gender. The 18
24 and 25 34 cohorts (12.5 per cent) showed a significantly higher
level of support than the 35 49 (8.5 per cent) or 50+ (5.5 per
cent) cohorts.[60]
For academics Nick Economou and Margaret Reynolds, the particularly
striking socio-economic characteristic in the AG vote in the 2002
Victorian State election was obvious in electorates that had a
higher rate of concentration of voters with tertiary educational
qualifications.[61]
A different slant on this question came from academic Paul Williams
analysis of the Queensland electorate at the time of the 2004
Queensland State election. His findings suggested that AG support
was highest in the inner Brisbane suburbs, particularly those with
a higher proportion of younger voters, a lower proportion of older
voters, a larger share of multicultural residents and a significant
number of transient voters. A higher proportion of these Queensland
voters had previously supported the ALP rather than the Coalition
parties. Conversely, the AG had to struggle to win votes in rural
and provincial electorates, which had larger numbers of older
voters and fewer younger voters, than in urban electorates. Such
electorates contained more settled communities, with less internal
migration. Relatively few residents had immigrant
backgrounds.[62]
As far as issues are concerned, AG voters are
seen as relatively uninterested in industrial relations, taxation,
interest rates and terrorism issues, but very concerned about the
environment and education matters.[63] They have been described as the most
social-democratic section of society, strongly believing in the
importance of social spending rather than the cutting of taxes, and
claiming that the gap between rich and poor is something that
should be addressed by governments.[64] Other findings have suggested that AG
supporters believe that big business have too much power in
contrast with trade unions, and that they are particularly
untrusting of governments.[65] Unsurprisingly, AG identifiers have higher than average
rates of political participation.[66]
To list such characteristics is to omit many
others that are relevant to the Australian voting population. Few
AG voters are farmers or rural workers, while Australians who work
in labouring, retail or hospitality jobs are more likely to vote
for a major party. Poorer families and those who are unemployed do
not look for help from an environmental party; nor do most migrant
families. It used to be a truism of Australian politics that the
party preference of many voters was that of the voter s parents.
This influence has declined in importance, but it would be wrong to
assume that it has disappeared. All of which works against any
substantial increase in voter support for the AG.
Regional attitudes
Not surprisingly, then, there are clear
regional patterns to the AG s support, or lack of it. In the 2004
Commonwealth election the Senate state votes ranged from 13.3 per
cent in Tasmania to only 5.4 per cent in Queensland. In the
following election the Tasmanian vote had climbed to 18.1 per cent,
but the South Australian vote was only 6.5 per cent. When House of
Representatives seats are classified according to Australian
Electoral Commission classifications, the regional nature of the AG
vote becomes more obvious (Table 8).
Table 8: Australian Greens House of
Representatives vote 2004, 2007 regional figures (%)
|
Classification
|
AG vote 2004
|
AG vote 2007
|
|
Inner
metropolitan
|
10.0
|
10.8
|
|
Outer
metropolitan
|
6.3
|
6.5
|
|
Total
metropolitan
|
8.0
|
8.5
|
|
Provincial
|
7.4
|
7.5
|
|
Rural
|
5.5
|
6.4
|
|
Total
non-metro
|
6.0
|
6.8
|
Source: Australian Electoral Commission.
This can be seen further across the states and
territories (Table 9).
Table 9: Australian Greens vote House
of Representatives 2007 regional figures (%)
|
Area
|
Inner metro
|
Outer metro
|
Provincial
|
Rural
|
|
Australia
|
10.8
(+0.8)
|
6.5
(+0.2)
|
7.6
(+0.2)
|
6.4
(+0.9)
|
|
New
South Wales
|
9.7
(-0.5)
|
5.7
(-0.9)
|
9.2
(-1.1)
|
6.8
(+0.8)
|
|
Victoria
|
13.3
(+1.2)
|
6.5
(+0.3)
|
7.3
(+0.5)
|
6.3
(+1.2)
|
|
Queensland
|
8.5
(+1.8)
|
5.9
(+0.3)
|
4.8
(+0.5)
|
5.2
(+0.6)
|
|
Western
Australia
|
10.9
(+1.5)
|
7.7
(+1.2)
|
8.6
(+3.8)
|
7.1
(-0.1)
|
|
South
Australia
|
8.0
(+1.8)
|
6.7
(+1.3)
|
na
|
6.1
(+1.3)
|
|
Tasmania
|
18.6
(+4.0)
|
14.4
(+3.2)
|
15.3
(+7.2)
|
9.7
(+1.9)
|
|
ACT
|
13.2
(+2.4)
|
na
|
na
|
na
|
|
Northern
Territory
|
9.1
(+2.3)
|
na
|
na
|
6.9
(+1.3)
|
Source: Scott Bennett, Gerard Newman and
Andrew Kopras, Commonwealth Election 2004 , Research
Brief, no. 13, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2004 05; Scott
Bennett and Stephen Barber, Commonwealth Election 2007,
Research Paper, no. 30, Parliamentary Library, Canberra,
2007 08
In 2004, of the five electorates with the
highest AG vote, four (Sydney, Grayndler, Melbourne, Bennelong)
were inner metropolitan seats, and one (Cunningham) was a
provincial seat. Of the five smallest AG votes, four were in rural
seats (Maranoa, Calare, Blair and Murray) and one (Capricornia) was
a provincial seat. Three years later the five highest AG votes were
all in inner metropolitan electorates (Melbourne, Sydney,
Grayndler, Denison, Batman). Of the five lowest votes, four were in
rural electorates (Flynn, Calare, Murray, Parkes) and the
provincial electorate of Capricornia once again featured. An
indication of the difficulty the party has in substantially
increasing its vote, was the fact that the five highest votes in
the 2004 election averaged a first preference vote of 19.6 per cent
three years later the figure had not altered. The lowest five votes
produced an average vote of 2.4 per cent in 2004, but this climbed
just 0.4 per cent in 2007. In both elections the party s votes
tended to be highest in Labor electorates and lowest in electorates
won by the Nationals.
These figures are a reminder of the point made
earlier about social structure and voting behaviour. In the last
two Commonwealth elections, for example, the AG gained about one
vote in every 10 cast by those of high socio-economic status,
whereas they received only about one in 20 from those in the lowest
socio-economic group.[67] The four inner metropolitan seats referred to here are
among the electorates with the highest salary-earners ($1500 per
week) and high proportions of tertiary-educated voters, whereas the
four rural seats all are among the seats which have the highest
proportion of people earning less than $500 per week and the
highest proportion of tradespeople and labourers. The electorates
least keen on the AG were also among those with the highest
proportion of people employed in the agricultural sector. The Mayo
and Lyne by-elections held on the same day in September 2008
illustrate these points. In both contests there was no Labor
candidate. The two are non-metropolitan electorates, but the
near-Adelaide Mayo returned a 21.3 per cent AG vote, while in the
New South Wales north coast electorate the party s candidate
received just 7.1 per cent. All of which makes it difficult for the
Greens to achieve a uniformly healthy regional vote, or see any
worthwhile increase in its level.
House and
Senate votes
An interesting development in Australian
voting behaviour since 1955, has been the preparedness of a
significant number of voters to vote differently in House of
Representatives and Senate elections. A sign that many voters are
politically aware enough to seek to maximise the impact of their
vote, the change has paralleled the histories of the three most
significant minor parties the DLP, the Democrats and the AG.
Clearly many voters understand the impact of the use of different
electoral systems. It can be claimed that to vote for a significant
minor party in Senate elections is as rational as voting for a
major party in House of Representatives. From the perspective of
the minor party, however, it is frustrating because any claim to be
a major player must surely rest on the health of the party s vote
in lower house elections. Typically, when Australian voters are
required on the same day to cast a Preferential Voting ballot in a
lower house election and a PR ballot in an upper house election, a
greater number of voters will support minor parties in the
Proportional Representation election. This has led to the
commonly-heard view that there is a perception among voters that
voting for an AG candidate in a Preferential Voting lower house
election is a wasted vote.[68] The gap between Preferential Voting and PR votes cast
on the same day can be seen in the seven Commonwealth elections
held between 1990 and 2007. The minor party vote in Senate contests
averaged 4.3 per cent higher than for the House (Table 10).
Table 10: Combined minor party
votes 1990 2004 (%)
|
Election
|
House of Representatives
|
Senate
|
Senate-HR margin
|
|
1990
|
17.1
|
19.7
|
2.6
|
|
1993
|
10.8
|
13.5
|
2.7
|
|
1996
|
13.9
|
19.8
|
5.9
|
|
1998
|
20.4
|
25.0
|
4.6
|
|
2001
|
19.2
|
23.9
|
4.7
|
|
2004
|
15.7
|
19.9
|
4.2
|
|
2007
|
14.5
|
19.8
|
5.3
|
| |
|
|
4.3
average
|
As far as the AG have been concerned, in most
Commonwealth elections since 1990 they have had a higher vote in
Senate elections than in those for the House of Representatives
(2001 being the exception). In 2007 the party s Senate vote was 1.4
per cent higher this represented 176,970 votes. If the AG are to
achieve major party status, these votes, and many more besides,
have to appear in both their Senate and House of Representatives
tallies.
What of the future for the Australian
Greens?
When Bob Brown referred to the demise of the
two-party system (see above, p. 10), he was speaking after the AG
upset win in the Cunningham by-election of October 2002, a success
that was not repeated in the 2004 general election when Michael
Organ was opposed by both major parties. In fact, for the 2004 AG
national vote to rise only 2.2 per cent in the House of
Representatives election and 2.7 per cent in the Senate election
was a poor result, considering that the bottom fell out of the
Democrats vote. As we have seen, in 2007 the AG national vote
barely moved, increasing by less than one per cent in the House of
Representatives and only 1.4 per cent in the Senate. As mentioned
earlier in this paper, this is still behind the heady days enjoyed
by the Australian Democrats in 1990 and by One Nation eight years
later.
This is perhaps not as surprising as it might
appear. Haydon Manning of Flinders University has made the point
that the AG ideological beliefs probably appeal to a relatively
small part of the Australian community. This is a view that is in
accord with that of Green activist, Drew Hutton, who has stated
that he is not super-confident of building a constituency beyond
the 5 7 per cent . Hutton also spoke of a core environmental
constituency of probably 3 per cent .[69] Nick Economou has speculated that the
party is probably always likely to pick up votes from voters
disillusioned with their first party choice, but that this support
is always likely to be fickle. Major parties policies and leaders
change and many voters return to where they are most comfortable.
If that is the case, the core AG constituency is likely to remain
small barring an explosion that knocks out one of the major
players. Even were such to occur, however, it would be likely that
a replacement middle-of-the-road party would emerge from the ashes.
Economou notes that it s not easy being Green .[70]
With the continuing ability of the Coalition
and Labor parties to gain around 80 per cent of the Australian
vote, it must be wondered if the AG will manage to make any greater
inroad into mainstream politics than the DLP of long ago or the
Australian Democrats. It seems clear that a great many voters see
the AG as basically concerned with environmental matters and little
else. Their name may well give them an indentifiable brand, but it
may also be a factor that limits their future growth. It must also
be wondered if the departure of Bob Brown from the leadership will
limit the party s future hopes the Tasmanian Senator will be 69 at
the expiry of his current Senate term on 30 June 2014.
The AG may well remain a significant political
force thanks to continued victories in Proportional Representation
elections, and especially those for the Senate, though they may
never really able to challenge the major parties. Were Australian
parliaments to remove Proportional Representation from their voting
arrangements and replace it with Preferential Voting, the AG main
political impact would be very much more restricted to pressure
group activity rather than to parliamentary work.
In conclusion it may be relevant to quote
Australian journalist, Mike Steketee, who asserted in 2002
that the Australian Greens were unlikely to be storming the
bastions just yet .[71] Relatively little has changed since he wrote those
words.
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