Just when I’d convinced myself to stop thinking about the meaning of Cunningham and the rise of the Greens, on Saturday the Herald’s Mick Millett broke the story of a groundbreaking CSIRO report on how we’ll have to change how we live, consume energy and use water to stay afloat with a population of 25 million, let alone 50 million. On the same day, The Australian scored a scoop on what Australia’s top scientists will tell the government we need to do to handle our water crisis.
Both stories stress the need for national planning, visionary policies, mass education and extensive carrots and sticks to change behaviour. They’re talking LONG TERM PLANNING – you know, that dreadful socialist concept that economic rationalism proved was bunkum, that we should all do our own thing for our own self-interest, the government should slash taxes so we can get on with it, and all will be well.
Both stories vindicate the slog of a green movement of activists and scientists who have read, thought, planned and fought for the mainstream realisation of this necessity for decades, and now, when it is almost too late, have forced themselves inside the political tent at a local and federal level and threaten to do so at the Victorian and NSW elections. The majors threw them tit-bit promises, usually broken, when they needed their preferences. The Greens are on a roll now, and that’s because because the public want change, real change, and the majors weren’t listening. They are now.
Here’s two quotes which say a lot about how seriously our mainstream takes this stuff. Last week, in his pitch for the environmental vote post Cunningham, Bob Carr said:
“When I became Premier in March 1995 every part of the debate over our natural resources was contested – protests over forestry, water allocations and land clearing. Today there is a link between almost all of the key players. It’s not just the “green movement” that now embraces this idea. Many farmers and businesses now recognise that only sustainability can guarantee their future as well as the environment’s.
“There is, of course, much to be done to define what is meant by sustainability. It’s fair to say there’s no consensus on what it precisely means in practice. There is, however, a consensus on the fundamental point: that sustainability must be our collective goal.”
What he’s saying is that sustainability is a buzzword, behind which there is still no agreement. To claim this as an achievement is breathtaking. One example of the reality behind the rhetoric. On March 16, 1995, Bob Carr made this written promise to the Greens to help Labor get Green preferences: “We will end export woodchipping by the year 2000 or earlier (Carr’s emphasis) if regional circumstances permit.” NSW is still exporting woodchips from old growth forest logs, not waste, to Japan. Bob Carr’s government still issues mining permits and logging permits in water catchment areas without investigation of the effect on our water supply.
Yes, Bob, “sustainability” is a cool word that everyone nods at. Developers even put “eco” in front of their development application s these days. Little else has changed.
The Australian Financial Review’s anti-Green editorial last week (reproduced in Labor’s new crime: Civil disobedience (webdiary)is in similar vein: “Most of us accept we have to do things better, especially in agriculture and water use, but not that we should risk everything in a headlong rush to sustainability, especially while there is still little consensus on what it means.”
Heh, editorial writer, what about what we risk if we don’t get a move on towards sustainability? We’re already facing costs of billions of dollars trying to repair a river system in enormous distress and in fighting a losing battle against a salinity crisis laying once-productive land to waste.
All of a sudden, the Greens idea of co-operation, not competition, and of working with the land, not against it, sounds pretty good. The environment movement’s volunteers have been willing – for the sake of our children – to beat their heads against a brick wall of indifference, short termism and greed to get this message across. Now, politicians and editorial writers say everything’s fine because we all agree sustainability is a cool word?
Enough of my ideas. A correction, then over to you. I wrote last week that Yarra in inner city Melbourne – where the Greens-v-Labor action will be in the Victorian election – had produced the first Green mayor in Australia. Dinesh Mathew, the Greens Candidate for Prahran, advises: “The Greens only ended up winning 4 of the 9 seats on Yarra council. We missed out on the 5th to an independent by a 185 votes or so. The Greens have not got the mayor in Yarra.”
GREEN POLITICS, BY WEBDIARISTS
1. James Goodman and Karen Jackson on protests
2. David Davis reflects on how volatile we are these days
3. Webdiarist Keith Conley and I exchange views, and Max Phillips says he’s Green, and ready to argue Green policy on the merits any time.
4. Merill Pye and Peter Ekstein on the history of environmental politics.
5. Ben Oquist and Guido Tresoldi on the green hotspots in the Victorian election.
6. Noel Hadjimichael, Joseph Davis and Pierre du Parte on the NSW election
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1. The right to protest
James Goodman in Sydney
I’m organising the civil disobedience forum to be held this Friday 8 Nov at NSW Parliament House. It was quite a relief to read Labor’s new crime: Civil disobedience after all the negative coverage in the Daily Telegraph. Many many thanks. I have written a rather academic response to the police minister Michael Costa’s comments at indymedia.
There’s just one inaccuracy in your report that stems from Costa’s response in Parliament. The Forum is not organised by Greens’ upper house member Lee Rhiannon, it is hosted by her. The Forum is organised by the Research Initiative on International Activism from the University of technology Sydney, of which I am a member – see www.international.acti=vism.uts.edu.au
This is important for me: the Chancellor of the University, Gerard Brennan, is apparently concerned that a University research group does not align itself with a political party. I am concerned about that also: the Research Initiative is not party-political.
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Karen Jackson in Gympie, Queensland
Disclosure: I’m (still) a member of the Australian Democrats (despite much provocation).
I find it endlessly frustrating that the media, when reporting protests against the World Trade Organisation, fails to make clear why the protest is actually taking place. People don’t risk their safety against police batons just for a nice day out.
In the case of the coming protests in November, the objective will be to denounce the Global Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This insidious agreement aims to open all government services to private tender, including water, health and education. It ultimately will result in the removal of government control over basic necessities, and allow the lowest bidder to conduct the business. To use an example, it could possibly allow an Indonesian company to run the NSW police service, provided that company was able to run it for the least amount of money.
For a better explanation of what GATS means, I recommend this link: globalissues
To put it bluntly, GATS is another step in dismantling government and placing power into the hands of multinational business.
Negotiations on GATS have been occurring for the past couple of years. The agreement will be discussed at the trade ministers meeting this month. If Australia signs the agreement, it will have an enormous effecton the way Australians live. However, if you were to ask the average Australian what GATS is, they probably wouldn’t know. (MARGO: It’s predecessor was the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, pulled from the negotiating table after protests from left wingers around the world: In Australia Pauline Hanson told the public about the secret negotiations – which Treasury even refused to brief other government departments about.)
And they don’t know because the media has been conspicuously silent on this topic. It rarely receives a mention in mainstream dailies or on commercial news broadcasts. And the government is certainly doing its best to refrain from mentioning the topic, at least in the media.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website has various papers outlining Australia’s stance on GATS, mostly supportive. Every page speaks glowingly of the benefit to Australian exporters, but little mention is made of the effect on the Australian public. dfat
So I want to ask: what is the reason behind the media’s silence on GATS? Is it because its boring? Is it because its better news to simply show riots and violence at protests? Or is it because the media companies have something to gain from the ignorance of the general public?
During the 2001 election I was part of a joint media interview with the local Greens candidate denouncing GATS. Interestingly, the One Nation and Independent candidates also spoke out against it during the campaign. Trade and globalisation were issues on which we all seemed to agree. Actually, in the end it felt as though the ideological contest was between the combined small parties and the Libs.
There is a great deal of awareness about GATS in my home town of Gympie, which is One Nation heartland. Indeed, if Sydney weren’t so far away you’d get plenty of rednecks manning the barricades alongside the dreadlocked hippies.
I live in a very interesting place.
Margo: Quite a few people have sent me info on GATs, but with lots to think about these days, it always goes to the bottom of the pile. So COMPLICATED! I think that’s one reason why the media doesn’t go for it. We like things simple.
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2. Constant changing
David Davis in Switzerland
It seems like ancient history but there was a time when John Howard confronted difficult by elections. Who will ever forget Ryan? The earth moved when the electorate I grew up in, always Liberal, turned Labor, just last year. Then it swapped back again. All in the same year. Talk about a mad, fickle electorate! I knew there was something I liked about Ryan.
Remember Aston? You should because you went down there and checked it out for yourself. This is in the dim, distant past of 2001, when it seemed John Howard was doomed. I recall that transport and the built environment were key issues in Aston. I think the Liberals managed to just barely hold onto that one. A turning point perhaps. A turning point in a terrible, tumultuous year.
You have to be pretty good to read the political tea leaves these days. There are regional, state and national trends but the best way to understand it is to look at it at the micro level. Case studies are great. Data and analysis are great.
I just read your piece in ‘Labor’s New Crime’ and was wondering why on earth you were including the editorial from the Fin Review regarding the rise of the Greens in NSW. To me the editorial was lucidly and accurately tearing apart any possible reason one may have to vote Green. I thought you sort of liked the Greens. Then you brought in the Hanson principle. How right you are about that. It sort of becomes an asymmetric argument where one side argues the logic of how bad it would be if the extremist party policies were implemented. The other side (ie the pissed off electorate) is engaged in a different debate. They’ve had a gutful of the current situation and they are going to be heard. That’s their logic…….and of course it works. As you pointed out in the Hanson case, the policies of the government did take a slant in her direction. It was the same wolf but this time in sheeps clothing.
On the Civil Disobedience thing, imagine if Sydney hadn’t had the green bans of the 1970s? All traces of charm or history would have been eliminated. Just as well we had that piece of civil disobedience.
3. Email exchange
Keith Conley in Canberra
Why do you care what Labor does or doesn’t do? I’m a little perplexed about your motives for criticising the ALP. You seem to be trying to shame the ALP into change, but to what end, when your political support clearly lies elsewhere? (I’ve given up on the antique and naive notion that journos ought to be independent, when the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary).
The Greens offer a legitimate democratic alternative which you appear to vigorously endorse. I would like to see a Webdiary debate surrounding their policies and the same intense scrutiny applied to their organisation and policies as you ceaselessly dedicate to the hapless ALP. If they are the future of Australian politics, as you bravely insist, then let’s see where we are going. It will require you to step out of the circus tent for a while, but I think it is long overdue.
Let me start the ball rolling. I think it hilarious that you cited the Greens deal to deliver government to the National Party in Queensland at the expense of a Goss Labor Government as evidence of the good and powerful work of this political movement. The Queensland Nationals of course being the type of government you would want to run a green agenda. To the surprise of no one, except perhaps some very green greens, the Nats promptly ignored whatever political commitments they had made to deliver them the Treasury benches and continued on their merry destructive way, doing more environmental harm I’m sure than any Goss government could or would have done. Maybe Goss wasn’t delivering everything the Greens wanted, but I still get white hot angry thinking about the stupidity of that decision. I had a good go at Shane Rattenbury about that one once, jeez it felt good.
I’ll give you another instance of Green idiocy that got me steaming. Am I the only one who was spewing when Bob Brown led a walkout on Colin Powell’s address at the Environment summit in Johannesburg? The most powerful black man on earth, in a job that would test a couple of the better saints, self-made from a working class immigrant background, being shunned and heckled by a middle-class white man in the home of a country that gave us the moral extremities of apartheid and Mandela. The symbolism was appalling, but I guess the world has a very short memory and Bob’s sensitivities to other stories aren’t that well honed. I noticed his behaviour though and it deepened my suspicions about what drives this man.
You have to ask, who really is the enemy here? If it is not Labor, then how do you forge a workable political alliance that delivers the sort of changes you wish to see? If you don’t think the Greens will ever win government in their own right, then how does crippling the ALP do anything to advance your cause? Or are you happy to be one of the spoilers, so famously derided by Keating (although originally intended for Australian Tories, it applies equally well to its far left)?
For all Labor’s faults, I would suggest stitch-ups like Cunningham may not be all that smart a start.
You could also be a little more explicit about why you support the Greens. What’s the vision? So far, it’s apparently whatever Bob Brown says it is. That’s not the sort of broad grassroots voice you claim it to be, it sounds more like the Liberals under Howard. At some stage the Greens have to stop being a protest/anti-everything movement, and start being a political party with a raft of policies that can convince a large section of the electorate that they can be implemented and sustained.
So, convince me Margo. Failing that, and sorry for preempting your powers of persuasion, but how does an alliance between the Greens and the Liberals/Nats, which you keep flirting with, get you any closer to political nirvana? It sounds pretty dirty and familiar politics to me.
Margo to Keith
Whatever I’m not, I AM independent! Dunno if you read my last entry, the civil disobedience one, but at the end I run the fin review editorial saying the greens would be hopeless on big picture policy etc. My reaction – look at what the people are trying to tell the majors, and let the majors adjust their priorities accordingly or explain why they can’t.
I see the Greens’ momentum as a good chance for the former, and the recent CSIRO report on how we need to alter our behaviour to stay a rich country, and the Wentworth groups proposals to preserve our water are good examples of how the Greens can help. After all, they’ve been doing the science on this stuff for years, and arguing the case. On the inside of politics, with a seat at the table of power, maybe some real thinking and good decisions will be possible.
Re advising Labor, I’m confident I would have no influence whatever on them, so what’s the downside? As for the Libs, whether or not they have changed their spots, being in the competition on overdevelopment is enough to change the priorities anyway, at least in perception terms – one can only pray for the reality to bite. Still, as I argued last week, John Howard, bless his soul, looks like he’s picked this new agenda through his support for a national water policy.
So I’m obsessing about this stuff a bit like I obsessed about Hansonism – it MEANS something, and I’m trying to get my head around what, and by throwing out ideas I’m hoping it sparks better minds than mine to have a go at it. Protest votes can be seen as positives for the political process if they’re assessed proactively, rather than reactively.
Re why I’m keen on the Greens ‘vision’, well, it’s a VISION!
Keith to Margo
So this is all about giving the ‘majors’ a scare? Sorry, but I think that is cynical. You either believe this stuff and give it your all – ie a Green government. Or you join a ‘major’ and get cracking. The nature of institutions is a reflection of their membership. A local council made up of real estate agents and engineers is going to have a certain view of the world. The same goes for political parties. Denigrate them enough, and who would want to join one? All you get is a party of thick skinned political junkies.
Water policy? Who started the Murray Darling Basin Commission that has done all the research that got Howard to treat this issue seriously? The ALP. You throw away hard and intelligent work done over years by good Labor governments too lightly.
Short memory, must have a ….
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Max Phillips
Disclaimer: I am a member of The Greens
Wow, I had to do a double-take. Could it be that the media is actually reviewing the Greens’ policies? It seems that Post-Cunningham they are having to work harder to discredit the Greens than just uttering the word “protest” (nothing to see here, move along!).
I’m not sure how successful this new patronising approach actually will be at discrediting the Greens’ policies. Sure AFR reading business types might be horrified at the prospect of: “a four-day working week based on a seven- to eight-hour working day”) and reimpose controls on trade and foreign investment (only socially useful and environmentally benign proposals please).” But AFR business types probably vote Liberal anyway. For ordinary folk, the permanent long weekend is a dream! Why shouldn’t we work toward it?
If the Greens’ policies were to be reviewed in the media, I think many ALP members and voters would be surprised that they are in agreement with many of these policies. My Dad, for instance, would probably agree to just about every point of Greens policy, but is “sticking with the ALP to try and help change it from within” (although he’s now questioning the effectiveness of this strategy).
Perhaps it only the size of the ALP’s shift to the right which makes the Greens seem so “radical”? Perhaps the abandoned ideals which were once the heart of the ALP (equality, social justice, public services etc) now reside with the Greens and people aren’t just lodging a protest but voting for a genuine alternative?
Webdiary certainly spent enough time debating the vacuous “Third Way”. I’d love to see a substantial debate about the merits of the Greens’ policies, such as working toward the implementation of a 4-day working week?
The Greens’ policies can be found here: nswgreens
Margo to Max: Thanks Max. In my defence, I did run Kerry Nettle’s maiden speech.
Max to Margo
Yup, but you’re the exception Margo 🙂 I was very impressed you ran Nettle’s Speech, but even you seem to combine the words ‘protest’ and ‘The Greens’ together too often for my liking! It is a pet hate of mine. Do people vote Labor to protest the Liberals? Do people vote Liberal to protest Labor? No, we assume they vote for them because they prefer their policies and politics, yet the Greens are always the ‘protest’ party. It seems to me a device to stop people taking their policies and politics seriously. And I’m strongly of the belief that if we don’t start taking sustainable, human oriented alternatives seriously then it will be too late and there will be catastrophic environmental problems as well as social warfare and a permanent climate of fear for both the North and South.
There is a window of opportunity to try and fix things up, but it won’t last forever and it worries me greatly. For me the Greens aren’t ‘protest’, they are a real ‘alternative’. Unlike the ‘Third Way’ which is just the status quo with a shiny wrapping.
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4. Oh yeah, the environment
Merrill Pye in Sydney
The Australian Financial Review’s editorial, Red alert over Greens threat, included the laughable-if-not-so-treacherous ‘weasel’ phrase, “a headlong rush to sustainability”.
We are currently commemorating the 40th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring (it took me, barely in primary school, a few years to work out which of the possible meanings that title meant). There were earlier discussions of the problems being caused by the kinds of things happening around humans, but this work caused a major public reaction where the others tended to be among specialists and particularly interested groups.
It is nearly 30 years since “The Limits to Growth” report from the Club of Rome was disseminated.
A lot of good work has been done since then, but the ‘headlong rush’ has in general been in the opposite direction to sustainability. Many statistics demonstrate this. Reports from even simple things like satellite images demonstrating the magnitude of human effects have been released in the last year.
The Fin Review also quibbles that ‘sustainability’ is poorly defined. Contemplate other poorly defined concepts such as ‘life’, ‘death’, ‘love’, ‘money’, ‘good’, ‘evil’ or ‘human’. Somehow, despite sometimes violent disagreements about them, humanity has agreed that they have considerable importance. Many people and societies have come to ways of dealing with the majority of incidences of these of importance in most peoples lives, while conceding that there are ‘hard cases’ in all of them which fortunately occur less frequently than the others.
Consider perhaps some ideas opposite to ‘sustainability’. Concepts like ‘greed’, ‘selfishness’, ‘short-term vision’, ‘stupidity’ (in the sense of failing to learn from repeated previous examples and/or failing to grasp clear logical connections), ‘unviability’ and particularly ‘destructiveness’. Can the Fin Rev manage to support these in any kind of thinking way?
I hope this makes some sort of sense. I tend to get up to white heat very quickly when I see this kind of argument about issues close to my core philosophy – one reason that I’ve steered away from involvement in political parties despite requests.
Peter Ekstein
I first heard reference to your weblog on Late Night Live, and your analysis of Labor’s malaise is by and large on the money. Strange isn’t it – the original environmentalists were leafy lower northshore constituents of the 20s and 30s (small ‘l’ liberals) … might have romped with Norman Lindsay and the Bohemians around Kings Cross in the 40s and 50s … Labor co-opted the Green vote in the 70s with Green bans/Victoria St/ Jack Mundey and Builders Labourers Federation … the Total Environment Centre (after Jeff Angel dealt with Dunphy) was co-opted by Labor …
Of course the central problematic is Labor’s rump constituency – workers and the dispossessed, stuck in dirty, unsafe jobs – a form of structural murder – so Labor cannot be too tough on industry even though it is killing those who grow up and work in its catchment area – they need those jobs to pay for food, mortgage etc…and so it goes
In many ways Labor is doomed- it’s left with the McDonalds demographic while better educated,left or higher socio-economic groups look to alternatives.
To the medical industrial complex the poor and unwashed eat Maccers as a rational response to lowest cost bulk /no time to prepare/fast food, guaranteeing them as future candidates for an already overwhelmed health care system. Of course they are kept, for the time being at least, in check by the social opiate of Lotto (you can win what’s never been won) and the warrantor of state revenues – smoking, other forms of gambling and alcohol…
As you have said in different words, they are f…….d and very far from home.
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5. Victoria Green
Bob Brown’s adviser Ben Oquist says the Greens are targetting Brunswick, Melbourne district, Northcote and Richmond in the lower house, and Melbourne Province in the Upper house at the Victorian election. He also suggests the outer and rural Melbourne seats seats of Macedon and Monbulk are worth watching: “We have good candidates and are putting in a fair few resources – remember we polled over 10% in Ballarat at the federal election and there is a huge forest protest vote going on.”
Inner Melbourne voters aren’t happy with Victorian Labor’s decision to build the Commonwealth Games athletes village in a public park. Kennett started the parks’ scam when he put the grand prix circuit in Albert Park, and NSW Labor can’t keep it’s hands off public land either. Here’s a recent Greens’ press release, so you get the gist of the play.
Australian Greens candidates for Melbourne and Brunswick have called the decision by the State Government to build a Commonwealth Games Village in Royal Park an outrageous move that will anger many inner Melbourne residents.
“This is typical of Labor’s approach to the environment – they will have to bulldoze hectares of inner city parkland but they still have the audacity to call it an ecologically sustainable development,” said Greens candidate for Melbourne, Dr Richard Di Natale.
“The Sydney Olympic Village was built on an abandoned quarry site where derelict land was brought back to life but the Commonwealth Games Village will do the exact opposite.
“I would have thought Cunningham would have sent a strong message to all of the ALP, including Premier Bracks, that people are sick and tired of the selling off of our dwindling open spaces.
Australian Greens candidate for Brunswick, Ms Pamela Curr said “within hours of the Greens claiming victory in the Cunningham by-election, we saw NSW Premier Bob Carr back down from a controversial development in a much-loved public parkland in Sydney, Callan Park.
“The battle to save Callan Park in NSW, like Royal Park in Victoria, took place in Labor heartland in the seat of Leichhardt where polling has revealed the Greens candidate Jamie Parker poses a serious threat to a NSW State Minister, Sandra Nori.
“This is almost a mirror image of the situation here in Labor’s heartland electorates of Brunswick and Melbourne, where many disillusioned Labor voters are turning to the Greens.
“We will be fighting a very strong, public campaign on this issue, alongside residents and community groups, in the electorates of Melbourne and Brunswick in the lead up to the state election,” said Ms Curr.
Dr Di Natale and Ms Curr, along with concerned residents, will be at the proposed site, which is at the old Psychiatric Hospital at Royal Park, at 12.30pm today.
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Guido Tresoldi in Brunswick, Melbourne
I always enjoy reading your columns, although between you on the left and the Piers Akermans/Andrew Bolts of this world on the right Labor is really friendless as far commentators go!
Anyway, as you requested I state my allegiances. I have been an ALP members for the last 20 years, and I also have been just a rank and file member never been elected as a delegate or anything like that. I also live in Brunswick, one of the seats that the Greens are targetting for the next election.
It seems to me that you are translating what has happened in Cunningham into a variety of other areas, but I think that may prove to be misleading. There is no doubt that the Greens will increase their vote and I believe that they will do well at the next state election. I particularly think this will be so in the seat of Melbourne. This seat mainly because it has lots of the voter that is attracted to the Greens (had the highest proportion of pro-republic votes in Australia and had a huge increase of Green votes at the last Federal election). There is also the issue of the construction of the Commonwealth Games village which may have some influence.
However Brunswick is a different matter. First of all there is the local member, the Italian boy made good, Carlo Carli. While Carli is part of the ALP ‘structure’ he is not a Cunningham type candidate dropped from high. He is a local boy with strong having lived in the seat all of his life and has established lots of local connections, especially with the ethnic communities over many years.
The seat (especially in the southern regions nearest the CBD) has had an influx of more affluent, tertiary educated people in recent years, which may be more willing to vote green. However Brunswick still has a strong migrant/working/lower middle class that may still be willing to stick with Labor.
For these voters (unfortunately) lots of green issues such as forests do not resonate strongly. Therefore while an increase in the green vote will occur, I would be surprised if Carlo will needs even their preferences to win the seat.
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6. NSW
Noel Hadjimichael in Camden, Western Sydney
A thought about the post-Cunningham situation: If the Greens and other “progressives” want to leverage the maximum from the ALP, they might take a leaf from P Hanson. When One Nation punished the conservative parties, it forced those parties to consider policy shifts and other action to re-connect with the “pissed off” right of centre voters.
If the NSW and Victorian Greens were to punish Labor at the next State Elections – Vote 1 Green and maybe 2 Liberal, or at least exhaust in NSW – the shock of losing marginals and not so marginal seats might give the ALP the necessary reason to re-connect with the “left”.
There is little chance the Greens will win seats in Sydney’s west, except maybe Camden in a good campaign, and no prospect of winning seats in the Sutherland Shire. However, losses amongst the Labor marginals and some hitherto safe seats would pull the ALP into line. However, aggression in the inner city would see 2-3 Green seats where Lib voters would get Greens up over the ALP.
An interesting analogy is the punishment the Greens gave to the SPD in Germany during the Kohl period. Now the red/green coalition is on a mature footing.
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Joseph Davis
I’ve followed your commentary for a long while now – probably back from when ou and Phillip Adams were always nattering on Late Night Live about One Nation and Pauline. I wrongly (I hope) guessed that you were a bit loopy then.
But you seem, at the moment, to be one of the very few columnists who is picking it right in the post Cunning Hammond Organ analysis. It does keep coming back to an on-the-nose local ALP which supported Stockland (the developer) at Sandon Point and all sorts of other horrendous local “urban consolidation” development.
It annoys the long term locals like myself and all the newly resident refugees from Sydney as well.
ALP member David Campbell is in big trouble in Keira (even if the Liberals run this time) particularly if the same preference deal can be stitched up as in Cunningham.
The interesting thing is I don’t think the ALP is going to let us win on Sandon Point like they have let the locals win on Callan Park and I can’t for the life of me work out why.
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Pierre du Parte in Worrigee, NSW
It’s Sunday and I’m in no mood to be thinking too hard, so this is straight off the top. First, Labor doesn’t need to demand I go Green – I did that before the last Federal election.
Second- so the Fin Review reckons I’ll (we’ll) be screwed if the Greens get the balance of power. But hang on, Labor’s already screwed me and the Coalition is doing a fine job of screwing me (you don’t really need details, do you? Yes? Start with Health, Education, Super, Tax, Lies etc).
If the Greens want to screw me too, go for it I say. It’s likely to be the most enjoyable screwing I’ve had in a long time.