NSW elections: who are you really voting for?
By Peter Boyle
SYDNEY — So you've decided to vote against the Liberal-Labor establishment in the March 27 NSW elections and you want to support green and left parties. With a Legislative Council ballot paper with 264 candidates, you have to vote "above the line" if you don't want to spend the whole day in the polling booth. But do you know where your vote is really going?
Here is how preferences are being directed by some of the green and left parties:
Greens
The Greens have directed their early preferences to the recently formed and registered Stop Banks Exploiting Australians Group, then to the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), the Tenants Have Rights Group, the Democratic Socialists and (Godfrey Bigot) People Before Party Politics.
Greens' preferences then flow to a string of single-issue parties, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), Australian Democrats before Labor and Liberal/Nationals. Anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott's newly formed Our Common Future is preferenced after the CPA but before the Democrats.
Democratic Socialists
The Democratic Socialists, who are endorsed by Resistance, the youth group which led last year's high school protests against racism, are directing their preferences first to the CPA, then the Greens, Our Common Future and the Progressive Labour Party. After a string of progressive single-issue parties, the Democratic Socialists' preferences flow to Labor, then Unity and the Democrats before the Coalition. One Nation is last.
The Democratic Socialists say that the Democrats are another economic rationalist party, as shown by their pro-GST policy, and that Unity cannot be trusted to oppose privatisation and anti-union laws.
Communist Party of Australia
The CPA (formerly the pro-Moscow Socialist Party of Australia) directs its preferences to the PLP, the Greens, the Independent Community Network (a group of progressive local council independents), the No Privatisation People's Party, Our Common Future, A Better Future for Our Children and the Democratic Socialists. They preference the Australian Democrats before Labor and place the Coalition second last and One Nation last.
Our Common Future Party
Helen Caldicott ran as an independent in the 1990 federal election and once hoped to run as an Australian Democrat. She has lodged a curious ticket, preferencing several small right-wing parties like the Natural Law Party, Earthsave, Kevin Ryan's Drug Reform and ex-Democrat Richard Jones' Small Business Party before the Greens. She does not direct preferences to any left party and places the Democrats ahead of Labor.
Progressive Labour Party
The PLP directs its early preferences to the Greens, the Independent Community Network, A Better Future for Our Children, Our Common Future, Godfrey Bigot and the Australian Democrats.
The PLP hopes to initiate a grand alliance of progressive and green parties. It exposes its sectarianism towards the biggest party on the left, the Democratic Socialists, by preferencing it after Labor and some right-wing groups like the Natural Law Party.
Unity
The Unity Party was formed in a hurry before last year's federal election as a "pro-multicultural" party opposed to Pauline Hanson's One Nation. There was some suspicion that it was a Labor front, especially because its Senate preferences went straight to the ALP. However, recent developments throw doubt on this.
Unity has exploded over arguments about preferences. Jason Yat-Sen Li, a Unity founder with a high media profile, has resigned, as has Unity vice-president Adriana Hassapis and at least one lower house candidate. They have accused the party of doing preference deals with right-wing and possibly racist "micro-parties".
Some Unity lower house candidates are swapping preferences with the Coalition and other conservatives. Unity's upper house ticket gives its early preferences to a grab bag of newly registered parties, some with very dubious politics. These include conservative "green" parties such as the Timbarra Clean Water Party and Earthsave.
The chief beneficiary of Unity preferences is expected to be the much-publicised Glenn Druery. A conservative populist, Druery has tied up preference deals with scores of candidates with little chance of winning many votes in their own right.
Other parties
There are a string of progressive-sounding parties that should be treated with extreme caution by the green-left voter. These include the Wilderness Party, Earthsave, Women's Party/Save the Forests, Gay and Lesbian Party, Animal Liberation Party and Marine Environment Conservation Party. All these parties funnel votes to Druery.
Other progressive-sounding parties, which receive preferences of some green and left parties, have lodged strange upper house tickets. The No Privatisation People's Party lodged two tickets with direct preferences to a strange mix of right-wing and single-issue tickets before going to the fourth person on the Labor ticket. No green or left parties get No Privatisation's preferences, not even the CPA, which puts the party high in its preferences.
Stop Banks Exploiting Australians, which tops the Greens' preferences, directs preferences to a handful of single-issue candidates, the Democrats, Greens, the eighth candidate on the Labor ticket and John Tingle's Shooters Party.