The Australian Greens have announced they will preference Labor before the Coalition in the Senate to help prevent total control of the Parliament going to Tony Abbott.
The Greens will receive Labor’s first preferences in the Senate and the Greens will preference Labor and Palmer United before the Liberals.
Our first message to voters is that they control their own preferences.
On how-to-vote cards the Palmer United Party will be placed ahead of Labor and Liberal in the seats of Franklin, Braddon and Bass and the Labor Party will be placed second in Denison. In Lyons the party will run an open how-to-vote card.
While Clive Palmer’s support for further coal expansion remains anathema to the Greens, unfortunately it is support matched by the old parties. At least on refugee policy Palmer has opposed the brutality of the old parties and supported bringing asylum seekers to Australia to be assessed.
The order of the rest of the how-to-vote cards in those electorates will be decided by the Tasmanian Greens’ branches.
The Greens have been clear that we want to change the requirement to lodge a preference ticket in the Senate if we are to appear above the line. We have introduced legislation into the parliament for above-the-line voting which allows the voter to preference by party rather than candidate in the Senate.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown
