Balance of power.

How the Greens promise to use the balance of power:

• have promised to use their balance-of-power role responsibly.
• would exercise their newfound power judiciously.
• the balance of power is a huge responsibility and we will treat it with the respect it deserves

"Each issue will be decided as we go and we won't have a blanket position on balance of power. We'll work with everybody and we'll talk with everybody."

Liberal Deal.

One of the popular angles of Greens critique from Labor supporters around election time was of a sell-out preference deal with the Liberal party.

Labor made the following accusations:

• Greens did a deal with the Liberals,
• Greens got inner-city Liberal preferences (some second last, instead of mostly last),
• for running split or open tickets in some seats (allowing voter to pick Labor or Liberal preferences)
• thus, Greens support WorkChoices

Greens claimed:

• “We aren’t preferencing the Liberals”
  Argue their IR policy is more anti-WorkChoices than Labor

FACTS:

• The Greens do not explicitly deny deals with Liberals.
• The Greens only ruled out doing any deals with Family First, and were willing to talk with all parties.
• From Jon Faine’s attempts, no party was willing to discuss deals when they were being done, and only one was willing to discuss the process they were using (Greens).
• As far as I can tell, no party has confirmed any deals – even the obvious ones are still only speculation.

JUDGEMENT:
Did they do a deal? Quite possibly, but supporters believed they were told there was no deal (despite it not being explicitly denied) - this suggests spin from the Greens. SHAME.
Whether running a split ticket allowing preferences to go to Liberals or Labor is considered to be unprincipled entirely depends on whether each supporter considers there to be a substantial difference.

Intro

I’m a (currently expired) card-carrying strong supporter of the Greens. However, I have no intention of placing mindless trust in any of their doings.

One of the great tragedies in politics is party zealots that dismiss any and all criticisms and flaws of the team they’ve decided to support. It’s fine for a footy team, unacceptable for politics. It’s probably not even acceptable for bands – how many Dead Kennedys or Midnight Oil tattoos have seen the cheese grater? You are nothing, but human, “for life”. (And even then, only until custom hybrid mutations are possible.)

The best way to prevent falling into this trap (and the popularity of major parties, and the line-toeing of their staunch supporters, would show that it is all too easy to do) is to keep an open mind, actively listen to criticism, and maintain permanent vigilance.

Which is my intention for this blog: to judge the Victorian Greens in their fresh slate year zero, as objectively as I can.