Greens "R" Us

Victoria: Life support pulled from "Born to Rule" Libs
Harold Hark
6 December 2002

"[Robert] Doyle was more articulate than [Dennis] Napthine but with his own hand he wrote the script [for the election]: we have nothing to sell but our own desire to get back into power, which we regard as our right."
Shaun Carney, The Age, 2/12/02

In a separate article in the previous Saturday's Age newspaper Shaun Carney suggested Greens supporters were utopians without a care for responsibility. From the perspective of an aging two-party status quo, he is right. From the perspective of the direction humanity must now take in order to save itself, he is way off the mark. The two-party stranglehold cannot last forever. Even they began as fledgling, somewhat "utopian" entities.

I am not aware of any newscasters on the night of the election suggesting that the massive Greens vote may have been in part a rejection of John Howard's disastrous regime. But that is precisely why this family voted Greens, with preferences to Labor. The Greens are now the only voice for the disaffected Left.

That said, the prevailing wisdom suggests the Illiberal rout was a hangover from the timid rejection of Kennett's regime three years ago, when voters, coming up for air after six years of authoritarianism, were yet unable to bring themselves to commit regicide.

Well, in this election they did it with a vengeance.

Oz Family Hark's electorate, Illiberal since the first paramecium was greeted by a toddler sun, swung to Labor with a whopping 11 per cent. The average overall swing was eight per cent. The Illiberals were not only strung up, but drawn and quartered, their fetid parts tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Good bloody riddance.

But wait. Now we are stuck with Steve Bracks and John Brumby for at least two more terms. It will be gratingly interesting to see what these Illiberals in Labor clothing come up with.

If they only accomplish one thing in the next three years, let it be the total reform of the Legislative Assembly. Miraculously, they won that too. Not in 150 years has Labor controlled this, Victoria's counterpart to Britain's House of Lords.

The planned reforms, as outlined by Malcolm Mackerras in The Australian, are:

• Eight regional electorates, each with five members.
• Fixed four-year terms in both houses of parliament.
• Senate-style proportional representation instead of House of Representatives-style preferential voting.
• Rules forcing candidates to declare their home address on the ballot paper.
• A new system for resolving parliamentary deadlocks.

The best plan, of course, would be to abolish the Legislative Council altogether, but let's not get carried away. Especially with the cost-effective abolishment of state governments* altogether in favour of Federal and municipal governments. What do we want here, Utopia?

There is a hitch to the above plans, and that may come from the Labor party wishing to defer the change until newly elected members serve out their terms under the prevailing system. Mackerras: "If that principle were allowed, the council would have 62 members for the 2006-2010 term before dropping to 40 at the November 2010 election. In other words, Labor would have a Legislative Council majority for the next eight years."

That should not and must not happen. But I'll bet it does.

Finally, this is a pyrrhic victory, though a welcome one. In these times of hairy-chested madness by the satrap posing as a prime minister, it almost doesn't matter who is running the state governments, because the satrap is calling the shots in Canberra. While he is in power, there is absolutely no hope for this nation. The Bracks government may indeed offer hope for the education of our children, and our hospitals may be somewhat better staffed, but what is the point when John Howard is begging terrorists to blow us to smithereens?

PS: Illiberal Party state director Brian Loughnane will have some mighty answering to do regarding the election campaign. He clearly blew it. But the good news is, he is tipped to replace Lynton Crosby as the Illiberals Federal director. The reason? There is no one else with credentials as good as his. Rejoice!

* For a discussion on state governments, see Ray Cassin: Do we still need state governments?

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