Greens challenge ALP hold in inner city

September 21, 2005
Issue 

Pip Hinman, Sydney

Labor won all three NSW parliamentary by-elections on September 17, but with swings against new Premier Morris Iemma's government of 4-12%. In Marrickville, the Greens scored their highest vote ever for a lower house seat, gaining a primary vote of 38% and reaching 41.7% after preferences. This was a clear message that people are fed up with Labor's neoliberal course.

In Maroubra, Labor recorded a 3.6% swing against it, standing Michael Daly (a former staffer of Gough Whitlam). The Greens' Anne Gardiner scored a high 26.4%.

Macquarie Fields, the western Sydney suburb where riots erupted last year after a youth was killed in a high-speed police car chase, was the only seat contested by the Liberals. High unemployment, especially among youth, and a severe lack of services ensured a 12.4% swing against Labor's Steve Chaytor, who won 52.3% of the vote, compared to the whistle-blower nurse Nola Fraser, who ran for the Liberal Party and gained 41.7%.

Labor's Carmel Tebbutt, who is also the NSW education minister, vacated her upper house seat to contest former deputy premier Andrew Refshauge's safe seat of Marrickville. A swing of 7% against Labor indicated just how angry people are at Labor's cuts to TAFE, programs for children with special needs, disability services and public transport.

The Greens' campaign concentrated on the need for better public services — transport, education and housing in particular. Greens candidate Sam Byrne, deputy mayor for Marrickville, was pleased with the results, saying "it's a good bellweather for the next state election", due in 2007.

The Socialist Alliance, which only contested the seat of Marrickville, scored 1.58% (494 votes). Communist League candidate Alisdair Macdonald, standing as an independent and refusing to direct preferences to any other party, received 0.39%.

The alliance's campaign highlighted a call on the Iemma government to refuse to cooperate with the new federal IR laws, arguing that if all the state Labor governments did that, the proposed federal workplace laws would be unworkable. It also raised the call for free public transport, arguing that the social and environmental benefits from such a step may even save money over time. In addition, the Socialist Alliance called on the Iemma government not to cooperate with the Howard government's moves to strengthen "anti-terror" legislation, saying the new measures will only undermine the right to free speech.

The ALP machine pulled out all stops for the campaign in Marrickville. The Tebbutt campaign spent huge amounts of money — the exact figure she would not reveal — on multiple mail-outs and leaflets to every household. This seemed to backfire though, as people complained about the deluge of ALP election propaganda. Obviously worried about the Greens, the leaderships of several unions, including the Public Service Association, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Electrical Trades Union, sent letters to their members in Marrickville urging a vote for Tebbutt. Prominent ALP women, including ACTU leader Sharan Burrow, author Anne Summers and NSW MP Linda Burney, also sent a letter to every household asking for women to vote for Tebbutt.

ALP strategists assert that the disclosure of the Latham diaries would have had an impact on the election. But many people had probably already made up their minds about NSW Labor before then.

[Pip Hinman was the Socialist Alliance candidate in the Marrickville by-election.]

From Green Left Weekly, September 21, 2005.
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