The immature Greens

IN more than 20 years as a political journalist and four as a political staffer, reporting on and observing seven State elections, as many federal elections and countless Legislative Council and local government elections, I have not witnessed a worse performance than Greens Leader Peg Putt’s Tally room speech on Saturday night.

She takes no responsibility for her party’s electoral performance and can’t see any mistakes that the Greens made in the campaign.

Everyone else was to blame. There are conspiracies at every turn. Shadowy figures stalk Tasmania. Everyone except the Greens are corrupt. It was the grubbiest campaign ever.

There is an old saying in politics — given the choice between a conspiracy and a stuff-up, back the stuff-up.

You can put that speech down as the first mistake of the next campaign.

If it was designed to rally the Green troops it probably did the reverse. Ms Putt managed to make what was really quite a good overall result for the Greens — 16% — feel like a defeat.

Instead of hearing an inspirational speech from the Greens, people around Australia heard vitriol and nastiness.

By contrast Liberal Leader Rene Hidding looked statesmanlike in congratulating the Labor Party and thanking Liberal supporters while Premier Paul Lennon used his speech to launch the new Government with strong social policy statements about Aboriginal reconciliation and protection of children.

The band of yellow-triangle wielding supporters who pushed their way through the public crowd at the tally room made the Greens look more like a protest group than a political party.

They booed Rene Hidding and Paul Lennon but got angry when people did the same to Peg Putt. When Peg called it a dirty campaign one young bloke in the crowd behind me called out “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. He was immediately berated by Green supporters who told him to shut up. That only made him louder. He pointed out that it was a free world and the Greens were the ones who were always on about freedom of speech.

The tally room dais might be a soapbox for politicians, but the floor belongs to the public.

Peg did have a point about it being a dirty campaign but the public isn’t stupid. The young bloke in the crowd also had a point. He might have said “let he who is without sin cast the first stone …”.

Paul Lennon bore the brunt of the most personal of attacks during this campaign. The media may have fired the shots but the Greens, by their own admission, made the bullets. In fact, Lennon arguably has been the target of a long campaign to demonise him over the past eight years.

Just before the election got underway another Labor candidate in Denison, Louise Sullivan, copped a big bucketful of dirt … guilt by association with a convicted rapist.

The Greens biggest beef was against the advertising by a group who labelled itself Tasmanians for a Better Future and a campaign by an outfit called Exclusive Brethren.

Just like the Wilderness Society and other third party groups like unions who advertised or lobbied during the campaign both these groups have a right to express their point of view and campaign for a particular outcome. In my view, ideally the people behind these sorts of campaigns ought to identify themselves, but what they did was not illegal.

I don’t know much about the Exclusive Brethren but, really, do many people pay any attention to them?

It is also arguable who got hurt most by the Tasmanians for the Better Future campaign — the Liberals or the Greens? I thought John Gay’s early foray into the political campaign to threaten he would take the pulp mill offshore if there was a minority government might actually have harmed Labor more than anyone. It certainly wasn’t helpful at a time when the whole campaign focused on whether or not Paul Lennon was too close to big business.

Because Peg and her advisers can’t think of any mistakes the Greens made the following list might help:

Talking up expectations

Saying they would win six seats set the bar too high and was a mistake because:

(a) it scared people who don’t mind the Greens being a steadying hand on the shoulder of government, but don’t want them running the show;
(b) it may have led people to think they could afford not to vote Green because many other people were going to do so;
(c) it sounded cocky and lacked credibility — a bit like a cheap, honed down version of the “Go, Go Green Government” slogan from the mid-1990s that created such mirth.

Changing Policies on the eve of the election

Changing long-held policies on the eve of the election was a mistake because:

(a) it showed they were embarrassed to have those policies;
(b) it caused people to focus on them (people like the Exclusive Brethren);
(c) it showed the Greens are as politically expedient as the next party.

Staking a claim for a Coalition and the Deputy Premiership

As many people have already pointed out, this was one of the biggest mistakes of all because:

(a) it showed the Greens were hungry for power;
(b) as the Greens had attacked Lennon for eight years and the Liberals had ruled out minority government under any circumstances it was farcical to say they now wanted to form a coalition and for Peg to be the loyal deputy;
(c) even if the media never asked the question, the Greens didn’t explain how it would work (would Peg support Cabinet decisions for example).
(d) it only served to highlight how a minority government might be unstable.

Saying she would use the power to block the budget to get the other parties to agree to Green policies

This was a big mistake and reinforced the error of the above mistake because:

(a) the Greens failed to make it clear that manoeuvring on the budget — and even blocking it — would not necessarily mean blocking supply (in fact a supply bill is normally passed by Parliament ahead of the budget debate to avoid any problems in the event of delays and the Governor would be unlikely to agree to a new election without a guarantee of supply).
(b) it showed the Greens might be disruptive to get their own way and undermined their whole campaign strategy which relied on convincing people that the economy wouldn’t collapse and people’s lives would not be affected by multi-party government;
(c) it made Greens Leader Peg Putt look power hungry;
(d) it may have scared the daylights out of public servants (think Denison, think soft Green voters) whose pay packets may have been held up if supply was ever affected.

No big issue

This is something that is normally outside the control of any party but the Greens especially rely on big issues to rally support. Failure to identify a single big issue however, was a mistake because:

(a) it meant they had to focus on minority government and good governance issues;
(b) they had to argue policy. While the media wrote that in government the Greens “would deliver …” nobody really believed the Greens would be able to deliver on their policy promises in government (see above);
(c) they had to fight on the government’s home turf — the economy.

Sidelining the Liberals

In the crucial second last week of the campaign virtually the entire week was consumed with debate between the Government and the Greens over alleged dirty tricks etc. This may have made the Greens feel good and think they were winning the campaign but it was a mistake because:

(a) it ensured the Liberal Party lost traction and perhaps even went backwards. It appears little understood by most commentators but it doesn’t really matter how well the Greens go if there is a massive imbalance between the two major parties. They only get a balance of power if Labor and the Liberals have a roughly equal share of the 80-85% of the people that don’t vote Green;
(b) it demonstrated very poignantly how Labor and the Greens couldn’t work together.

Inconsistencies of message

In elections, staying on message is important so it’s a mistake to confuse people with inconsistencies such as:

(a) arguing that it is good government and good parliamentary democracy if the parties have to work together in the House of Assembly on legislation the Greens support but if Labor and the Liberal Party work together to pass legislation relating to a pulp mill it would be collusion.
(b) if the Greens raise questions about the affairs of the Premier or his brother that is public accountability, (if the media asks the same questions it’s investigative journalism) but if someone in government asks questions about Greens funding that’s a dirt unit.
(c) if a doctor criticises the health system during an election campaign (even if the doctor bears the same name as another doctor for forests) that is freedom of speech but if a doctor defends the health system that is a breach of protocols during a caretaker period of government.

Acting like a protest group

This is a long term Green failure and is a perhaps the biggest mistake they make on a regular basis.

The Greens have now been around in Tasmania in various forms for some 30 years or more (UTG, Green independents, Green Party) and have had a lot of success in environmental campaigns and social policy. However their success as a party is questionable.

Consider that the ALP — formed in 1891 — won Federal Government (briefly) in 1899 and then more successfully in the early 1900s or that the Liberal Party — established in 1944 — formed a 17-year Coalition Federal Government with the Country Party five years later. Both Labor and the Liberals had equally quick successes at State levels.

If that is the benchmark then the Greens have failed as a political party.

Stunts like dumping cigarette packets on the steps of the Liberal Party and holding protest rallies in the parliament park just serve to underline their status as a protest group, albeit with a political edge.

In 1989 the Greens wrestled with the question of whether to remain as a collection of independents or to form a party.

They decided on a party format but they haven’t matured much as a party since then.