phill Parsons

WHAT A SURPRISE, Costello goes a day after waiting so long to be the bride. Turnbull’s hand shoots up offering to take the Liberals in a new direction. Vaile resigns, Downer goes off the boil the day after lauding Costello.

The old union bash failed, a majority of Australians apparently wanting the country run by union members, not right-wing ideologues.

Howard took on the mantle of Menzies in a boom time similar to that which followed WW2. However, he failed to meet the Menzies model by convincing the current generations that there was a more than one dimension to the relaxed and comfortable 1950s man busy neoconning Australia and focusing on a narrow economic approach to distributing the wealth being generated.

Too late to show a conscience in keeping with the times and values of modern Australia.

Moral issues and years of deception were represented in the climate policy differences. A symbol had so much meaning and when it leaked that Turnbull had said what does signing matter we are ahead of target and Howard dug his heels in people could clearly see yesterday’s man.

Another symbol was saying sorry. The late offer of constitutional change 3 years hence showed desperation. The vote in booths in communities showed what Aboriginal people thought of the intervention that came without respect, to wit consultation and involvement.

And so now we have another Me Too with a young trendy male leader and a woman deputy. How the dam burst. Australian’s pent up frustration with the climate issue, with an apology, with fairness in the workplace and their desire for a vision for the future that was inclusive and modern has seen a swing a wherever mining doesn’t dominate the economy.

The Manly booth, in the Warringah electorate [Abbott Liberal], returned 19.2% to the Greens in the lower house and the seat remained safe Liberal.

Three urban booths in the seat of Richmond [NSW] returned in the low to mid thirties, the seat changed to Labor.

The Greens were the third party in many, many seats, eclipsed by Independents on Occasion, and in some rural seats where Green traction against the conservative message of country people is difficult, by Family First.

In the seat of Melbourne and 2 inner city Sydney seats the Greens were better than 20% in total.

In Melbourne the 2 party preferred distribution is expected to make the other party the Greens.

With 7.6% the Greens national lower house vote is up by 0.42% in an electorate with a strong mood for change and a popular Labor leader looking to the future, an area that the Greens usually appeal to.

This time they had competition from a party with brand recognition, but still had the largest swing to any other party except the well known quantity, Labor.

In the upper house 9.02% of voters wanted a Green balance of power out of 74.34% counted. Another increase in the number wanting the Greens

Extrapolated that is 1.16million votes. Now with over a million voters will the Greens be treated as a third party?

Kerry O’Brien, 1 million Australians, and probably many of those ABC News and Current Affairs viewers, await the end to your personal boycott and for the ABC, the public broadcaster, to behave without fear or favor during the next election.

Time for the ABC 2 party fiction to end. Time to let the voters decide after hearing from the leaders of all the parties with multiple elected members in multiple states at all levels of government instead of keeping voters in the dark in the hope the Greens, or indeed any other popular party, will just go away.

The voters are supposedly the engine of democracy, an informed polity deciding what is best. The ABC is supposed to be like the Reserve bank, independent. The Reserve showed it and now the ABC needs to embark and that path.

It’s also time to change the electoral laws so where a party is mentioned in advertising it must be given equal space by the advertising party or group to respond in the same time slot or on the same page paid for by the advertiser.

Such a measure would reduce misinformation, or at least have a response of equal size, directing the propaganda into positive promotion of the policy of each party or the demands of groups with a sectoral interest, for the voter to weigh. Eg the work choices campaign.

Such a measure does not prevent a comparison of policies or personalities when campaigning, just puts it that role with the voter.

The election outcome is contrary to the conservative Australian newspapers position and the Liberal Party’s belief that their performance with the economy would rescue them at the end of the campaign because when in the booth voters would rethink their 12 month support for change.

In electing a new Labor government the importance of Green preferences is clear. A first past the post system, such as the UK has would have seen the Coalition returned.

In a proportional system with a single national electoratre for the lower house there would be some 11 Greens elected. Michael Organ, the only Green to so far be a lower house member had 14.7% support in Cunningham. The Senate in the federation represents the states

In the scheme of things Family First are an important source of preferences for the Liberals. Although their following is building by appealing to family values getting traction will be like building the motherhood party.

The Greens may be attacked for their social policies by conservative elements but justice for BLGT oriented people and health treatment for drug addicts will become the norms in Normland.

It should be noted that a $30.00 increase in the pension was not attacked as a whacky policy and nor was the nation building that were the Greens alternative to tax cuts. Was that simply denying oxygen or a fear that a campaign against those policies would expose the old foes.

The Senate

Currently it looks like the states with long running forest campaigns may return Green Senators. Tasmania and WA are expected to and both have existing Green representation in their State parliament’s multi member houses.

On that basis NSW should have the same result but Nettle only has 0.64 of a quota if you include the Australian Democrats and with the strong showing of the 2 old parties she is not elected.

QLD also has difficulties, the achievement of 3 quotas each by the old parties requiring fewer votes in the distribution.

The swing in those states was strongly to Labor.

In WA the Greens quota exceeds the part of a third quota that Labor has, returning the Greens 2 out of 12 like Tasmania.

Victoria now has Greens in their upper house and so it should return a new Senator. Di Natalie has 0.82 of a quota,a good chance there, provided they can beat the Liberals to that last quota from below the line votes and the preference distribution. Labor will most likely have 3 quotas and not much to spare.

SA is odd as it has no remaining forest and so no campaign about same.

Xenophon, the anti gambling candidate, is elected with 1.08 quotas but gaining a national change to gaming laws that support the States revenue base will be more difficult than reforming the health system within 2 years.

The Greens in SA have 0.5 and the major parties have about 2 and one half quotas each. Labor should flow to the Greens provided the Greens get good flows from below the line votes and the preference distribution and exceed Labors part quota.

Labor learned it lesson from last election and made a Senate deal with a party that has more in common with it than a conservative religious party and in July the no pokies party Xenophon or the Liberals will determine the fate of government bills.

The Pulp Mill

In Tasmania the pulp mill seats in the North showed how important a single ‘local’ issue can be. The vote for the Greens in Bass giving a strong performance above the state level of primary vote last election and the 2 anti-mill candidates in Lyons gaining 20.26% of the primary vote.

In Denison even with a swing to Labor the Green and therefore anti-mill vote grew.

What measures can be used beyond Tasmania’s shores to see how the pulpmill and therefore Australia’s forests and sustainability played in the electorate?.

Wentworth and Kingsford-Smith were grounds where the pulpmill was played as an issue. A side benefit is allowing a measure of difference in the ‘doctors wives’ syndrome.

Kingsford-Smith, a safe Labor seat, returns the sitting Labor member with a swing of 4.38 %, below the national [6.34%] and the NSW [7.95%] swings to Labor. The Green vote is up by 2.38% to 10.2% in a ‘safe’ Labor seat in an election fought over strorng Labor issues pay, tax and the cost of living, as well as the environment.

Wentworth will most likely return the sitting Liberal Turnbull [49.9%] on preferences. Ecuyer [anti mill independent] got 0.88 and the Climate Change Coalition 1.33 % and when added to the Greens 15.24% [10,311 with 70.52% counted] made for a strong anti mill vote of 17.25%.

No wonder Turnbull is talking about a new direction. More voters in a Sydney seat don’t want a Tamar pulpmill than in the seat where it will be built. Why is that, of what importance can such a decision be to people so far away.

There is a desire among Australians for a change in the direction the economy takes in transforming natural services for human benefit. Is this what Kerry doesn’t want debated?. This desire has spilled over into foreign policy and now the new government is committed to taking Japan to court over its bullshit scientific whaling program.

For all of Howard’s cultural warring, the baton now taken up by Nelson, the culture has retained its sense of fairness and a need to ensure a future.

Brown raises the idea that Labor will revisit the Tamar pulpmill decision to make further changes.

Garrett flagged a plantation only feedstock. The mill would thus have to import woodchips. This may be acceptable to the CFMEU as it doesn’t affect the total number of jobs.

Then native forests could go into carbon sinks, making Labor look modern and proactive on climate change and the conservation of biodiversity as the perturbation of the climate impacts on the natural systems upon which we all depend.

Large intact systems are more robust during periods of external pressure on them.

All 3 major parties claimed a climate policy, only one had a comprehensive, effective and timely policy. Labor is claiming the ground and now it is in government.

The newly elected PM will lead the delegation to Bali in December, with 2 ministers, one dedicated to the climate and in the Senate. Rudd knows how important the issue is and a failure here will see the Green vote grow further as climate chaos becomes the norm.

Rudd will receive the official advice from the permanent government [public service] and from Garnaut, who is conducting a policy review, now for 2 levels of government.

This advice will have to be interpreted from the Labor position. It has to meet the 3 criteria for Australia to take its full level of responsibility for minimizing the dangers we face and thus avoiding catastrophic climate collapse.

This will be an interesting test of the capacity of Labor to lead in times of national difficulty. The coal miners claim they recognize the need for change and business is also giving similar strong signals. NSW and QLD have vested interests in coal export and so the changes have very strong brakes on meeting the criteria and not being diverted into dead end delays such as clean coal.

Nuclear power has been ruled out for now and with the communities’ level of opposition and the critical nature of the next few years it will not be a player in Australia’s immediate energy future.

The US now stands isolated on climate at least until the next President is elected and Congress can agree on joining the rest of the industrialized and industrializing world in stabilizing the climate.

phill Parsons’ brother tells him he went over to the Greens in the Senate and Labor in the lower house because a Green could not get elected in Warringah, a long way for a Menzies man to travel. How many others reason that way, reducing the Green lower house vote.

Labor can have a second term but they will have to avoid deception like the plague or be labeled as deceivers like the party of the former member for Bennelong.