Sam Wainwright, Perth
In the February 26 Western Australian election, the Greens’ representation in the Legislative Council (the upper house) dropped from five to two seats, while Labor increased its seats from 13 to 16. The Coalition also increased its numbers from 13 to 16 at the expense of the three former One Nation members. Despite their losses, the Greens still hold the balance of power in the new Legislative Council.
Green Left Weekly spoke to Greens MLC Giz Watson, as well as progressive candidates Ian Jamieson from the Socialist Alliance and Andrew Sullivan, a leading member of the Coogee Coastal Action Coalition (CCAC), about the results.
Explaining the Greens’ loss of seats despite their vote remaining stable, Watson said: “The Labor Party polled very strongly with very little quota left over to flow on to us. It’s the problem of being reliant on preferences. If the major parties get full quotas in their own right with little left over to flow on to us then we don’t get those seats, even though our primary vote has not decreased.”
Given the decreasing popularity of Premier Geoff Gallop’s state Labor government, Watson had hoped the Greens would win more primary votes away from Labor. However, she believes the nature of the election campaign in its final weeks, which was dominated by Coalition leader Colin Barnett’s unpopular canal proposal in response to WA’s water crisis, had an impact. According to Watson, this “tended to polarise things, especially among people who don’t understand preferences. I think they felt they had to vote Labor to make sure they didn’t get Colin Barnett.”
“Now that might sound like we’re saying it wasn’t our fault, but I do think that a lot of people still don’t understand that they can still vote Green and keep the Liberals out”, Watson said. “The other thing was that it was hard to get much traction on pure environmental issues such as sustainability, energy and uranium mining. It was hard to get oxygen for such issues where we might have got some media coverage.”
However Watson was happy with the Greens’ campaign. “It was very well resourced and supported ... Perhaps we could have made some clearer points about solutions to the water shortage issue, but again the climate was the most difficult I’ve ever experienced in terms of trying to get the West Australian to actually show any interest. A lot of people in our campaign team have had the same feedback. I know it’s dangerous to blame that newspaper for not covering us but it was virtually impossible to break into their stories.”
Watson is relieved by the overall election result. “The balance of power in the Legislative Council will still be held by the Greens and this was looking very uncertain before the final count came through. So in one respect it will be the same as before but I’m hopeful that the result will send a message to the government that some of the progressive stuff they have done such as gay law reform is supported. Our challenge is to press the government on economic sustainability issues. That’s where the government has to be pushed to differentiate itself from Liberal Party policies.”
Gallop’s anti-worker agenda
Jamieson, the Socialist Alliance candidate for South Metropolitan Region, said he is “glad that the Coalition did not get in as this would have opened the door even further for the attack on workers’ rights planned by the federal Coalition government”.
But according to Jamieson, “the Gallop Labor government also has an anti-worker agenda. The proof of this is that the bosses’ mouthpieces, the West Australian and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, threw their support behind Labor at the last minute. They felt that Barnett’s decision to build the Kimberly canal and his pay deal with the nurses showed he would be reckless with the budget. Let’s not forget, when the bosses talk about responsible economic management they mean cutting social spending to fund subsidies and tax breaks for big business.”
“A factor affecting minor parties during this election was that many people feared the prospect of a state Coalition government in the context of a federal Coalition government that controls both houses of parliament. The fact the Greens’ vote did not increase probably highlights this factor but it also shows that they have not increased their base beyond their traditional supporters.
“The Gallop government has been very aggressive towards public sector workers, such as teachers and nurses, and there have also been a number of high profile industrial disputes in the private sector involving the blue collar unions. The Greens could have used their position in parliament to really champion these workers’ struggles and broaden their appeal. Instead they given little active public support. What’s worse is that they supported the government’s workers’ compensation legislation, despite strong opposition from the MUA [Maritime Union of Australia], CFMEU [Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union] and ANF [Australian Nursing Federation].”
Jamieson received less than 1% of the vote. “It’s still pretty rare for a socialist candidate to get over 1 or 2% at the federal or state level”, he explained. “Furthermore, we do not have state registration, meaning the name of our party did not appear on the ballot paper. Inevitably many of our supporters can not find us on the ballot or don’t realise we are running. State registration requires 500 members.”
According to Jamieson, the Socialist Alliance “joined and involved members through the course of the campaign, so this election was one of the stepping stones towards state registration. The elections also gave us a chance to put our policies on the public record. In particular, we were proud to be the only party to oppose the government’s attack on workers’ compensation and to support the nurses’ wage campaign.”
Coastal campaigners
CCAC joined with two other local groups opposed to marina and high-rise coastal development to run three lower house candidates as “Coastal Independents”. They averaged nearly 5% and in these same seats the Greens and Labor primary vote dropped.
Sullivan said that is was a “hard decision” to contest the election. “We felt that we’d pretty well come to the end of the line in terms of any meaningful lobbying or dialogue with the state government. They’d pretty well shut the door on us from day one ... Politics was one way for us to get our message through to the state government and to the opposition as well. We wanted to give the core supporters of our issues an opportunity to have a protest, make a statement and send a message.”
Sullivan is pleased with the outcome. “We thought that 5% would be an excellent result. Across the board we almost got there. It’s a good demonstration of community support.”
Sullivan explained that the Coastal Independents felt it necessary to reach a broader audience than those who usually vote Green. “The Greens are the only party that has voted in parliament for our concerns and naturally we were concerned that we might take votes away from them”, however, “our campaign was targeted at people who ordinarily vote Liberal or Labor. We’ve looked at the figures and we don’t think we took votes from the Greens and in any case our preferences went to the Greens.”
Sullivan said that while “we weren’t banking on a change of government as being the event that would change our fortunes”, such a change “might have been a catalyst for further conversation”.
CCAC is currently awaiting a decision on its case by the full bench of the Supreme Court. “If we’re successful then it will be a useful circuit breaker. If not, we’re not sure what more we can do or say. We’ve had 4000 people down on the beach for a rally, more than 6000 sign a petition and 12,000 letters and submissions over the course of the campaign and still we’ve had no meaningful response from the planning authorities. Beyond chaining ourselves to the ocean, which is a hard task, we’re not sure what we can do from here. But we’ll think of something and we certainly won’t go down without a fight.”
Watson also had a message for supporters who may have been disappointed by the reduction in Greens seats: “Please don’t give up, the struggle is vital and we will still be able to be an effective voice in parliament. The challenge really is for the community to reinvigorate campaigns at the grassroots level. We have to build up that primary vote to a point where we won’t be so reliant on preferences.
“Over the next four years we will be focussing on ... transforming the way business is done in WA to seriously put in place targets for sustainability in areas such as energy, land degradation and water.”
Jamesion explained that the Socialist Alliance’s priorities now will be the “same as they were before the election: building the movement to end the blood-soaked occupation of Iraq, convincing the community that we can and must defeat [PM John] Howard’s industrial relations agenda by whatever means possible, exposing this country’s shocking treatment of asylum seekers and trying the best with our small resources to support many other campaigns as well.”
From Green Left Weekly, March 23, 2005.
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