Labor’s sour grapes over Greens preferences

Nothing was out of place come election morning at the local primary school. Zealous Liberal, Labor and Greens supporters distributing fliers? Tick. Soon to be voters ducking the onslaught of political paraphernalia? Tick. NSW Greens recommending preferences to Labor? Not this year.

The Greens made no mention of Labor or any progressive party on their Legislative how-to-vote handout, leading Labor MP Luke Foley to later accuse the Greens of increasing former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s success in the Upper House. Green’s third candidate Jeremy Buckingham still managed to creep ahead of Hanson in the battle for the last seat by 0.04 per cent of the quota. Jamie Parker also claimed victory in Balmain.

Tim Anderson, senior lecturer of political economy at Sydney University, believes by laying blame on the Greens, Foley is attempting to distract from the Labor party’s own failures.

“What might happen is that if a number of Greens’ votes ‘exhaust’, that is, have no preferences after the last partial Greens’ quota is eliminated and redistributed, the final candidate might get elected with the highest partial quota,” Mr Anderson said. “If this came down to a Labor-Hanson contest, then Labor might cry that they did not get some Greens’ preferences. But the same could be said about any other exhausted or informal votes. Labor seems to think that the Greens and the left owes them a living.”

However, Maire Sheehan, who ran as an independent candidate for Balmain, believes the Greens did run the risk of giving ultra conservatives such as Ms Hanson and the Christian Democrat’s leader Fred Nile an upper hand.

“People are polarising,” she said. “You would think that those not voting for Labor would go for the Greens, but now those votes are going to the Liberals.”

She also views a decision by the Greens controlled Marrickville council to join the Global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel as contributing to the party’s losses.

Socialist Alliance candidate Pip Hinman disagrees, labelling the focus of the media and major parties on the council’s decision in the run up to the state election a “vicious smear campaign” which implied the Greens were anti-Semitic.

The final results of the state election will not emerge until approximately April 12.