Latest NSW Newspoll hits hard

1. Thanks Ben
   I started doing the same thing myself, but only got as far as putting together a list of seats where the result might change, didn’t actually do the full calculations.

   What about Maitland? That’s the only other seat on my list that you haven’t mentioned.

   Without the independents Newcastle and Charlestown would probably be retained by Labor. Not sure if Greens would finish second in Newcastle, as a fair amount of Tate’s votes would have come from the Libs, Greens should get some from Gaudry though. The independent in Charlestown had been a Family First candidate in the 2004 Fed election, though he is a member of Piper’s bloc on Lake Macquarie council, would assume he took a lot of his votes off the Libs.

   The Granville numbers are probably also affected by the independent Garrard, who was ex-Labor and ran following a pre-selection dispute, hence would assume much of his vote were Labor votes.

   Greens may have a chance to win Ballina when Don Page retires. He has a massive personal vote and has been very successful at positioning himself as someone with broad appeal to voters across the spectrum (publicly criticised own party over Iraq, Kyoto, etc). When he goes some of his vote will go the Greens, maybe enough that the Greens can get up on Labor prefs.

2. There have been polls showing the Greens on 15% in Victoria which is a 50% increase on the last state election. Uniformly translated into seats, and no change in preferencing, that would be Melbourne, Richmond, Brunswick, Northcote and Prahran. Second place in the Safe Liberal seats of Brighton, Caulfield, Hawthorn, Kew, and maybe some safe Labor seats like Preston. Likelihood in all the provinces where there are no Greens now and being in the running for a second MLC in Northern Metro and Southern Metro. This would be good in the unlikely event that that is what happens.

3. Yes, this model, like any projection model, falls over when you consider independents. Personally I reckon Newcastle and Charlestown won’t go to independents, but that’s what the program spat out. I probably made a mistake in crunching the preferences in Granville.

   I think there was a mistake in my calculations regarding Maitland. I calculated that it would fall to an independent, which I don’t trust, but for some reason missed it.

4. You were probably right on Granville, as Garrard’s prefs actually did favour the Libs, which it seems is how he directed them on his HTV.

   Blackmore was a former Liberal MP, so Maitland would be a Labor loss.

5. “I also calculated swings based on a proportion of the vote previously received. So a swing for the Greens from 10% to 14% was translated into a 40% increase in the Greens vote, rather than a uniform swing.”

   Doesn’t this change the total number of votes in each electorate and is therefore biased? Or did you choose another procedure for calculating votes for the other parties?

6. Interesting results there. Personally, I think the ALP will retain Blue Mountains and Marrickville.

   My own seat is Londonderry where I ran against Alan Shearan (ALP). Shearan will be trampled. It will be embarrassing for him, I am afraid.

7. Nice maps, as usual. One thing though – I did some calculations (based around the same principle of translating the change in primary percentage to a percent change in primary vote in individual electorates)), but it yielded a different result in Coogee (Greens winning), and a Grn vs ALP result in Heffron. I based it on the actual preference flows in those electorates, with ALP (for Coogee) taken from Vaucluse, and Libs (for Heffron) taken from Balmain. What I found is that, on the swings described in the Newspoll, the Greens overtake the ALP in Coogee, and the Libs in Heffron. Problematically this relies on the swings being replicated uniformly, which I just don’t think will happen.

8. Interesting, though I expect that the polls will even out during a campaign (that is, the Greens, as they usually do in a campaign, will drop a couple of points and this should be picked up by Labor).

   I don’t expect more regional seats like the Blue Mountains and Monaro to fall; the swing is usually greatest in the outer suburbs. Antony Green had another good analysis of ‘seats to watch.’

   The Greens/Labor battle in Marrickville especially will be one of the highlights of the campaign for me. Also, while I admit it is just hearsay at this point, Clover is considering her options for the next election. She’ll be 65 by 2011 and will either run one last term or call it a day and focus on her mayoral duties. Any of Labor (my guess), Liberal or Green could win Sydney without Clover there, and it would be doubly interesting because she has so dominated Sydney politics that it’s hard to guess where the votes would go.

9. Austin, when you calculate swings based on %s you don’t always end up with a total of 100%, so I had to reapportion the percentages so that you get to 100%. This meant that 14% for the Greens ended up being slightly less, and of course there’s huge amount of room for error.

   Stewart, I came up with a Labor vs. Greens race in Heffron, but I made a judgement that the gap would be too wide for the Greens to win. In Coogee, I came up with Labor coming second with 29.5% with the Greens on 28.5%. This is probably due to the large swing to the Liberals resulting in the swing to the Greens being reduced. Again, such a result could easily put the Greens in 2nd place, in which case there’d be a good chance we could win it.

   Phil, if Clover retires Sydney would be fascinating, with a four-horse race between Greens, Labor, Liberal and likely one of Clover’s councillors trying to continue her support. In that case I would tend to think the race would narrow to Labor and Greens, which would be good for the Greens.

10. Hmmm Sydney would be fascinating and completely unpredictable

11. The ALP is so on the nose in the Blue Mountains it is highly likely they will finish third, or even fourth if a strong independent, such as is currently on council, runs. The ALP will not win Blue Mountains.

    This points to something missing from the Psephology, which is identifying potential crossbench seats based on what is likely to happen, rather than what has happened in the past.

    This involves identifying potential independents on a statewide basis. If anyone can throw some good potential candidates into the mix it would be interesting.

    Obviously we’ve flagged Maitland
    Incumbency will probably keep Charlestown in ALP hands.
    It’s hard to see Tate’s machine making any further impact in N’castle – politically he is past his apogee. He simply hasn’t delivered to his support base. The Gaudry vote will fracture every which way, but the council result in 2008 can’t have been thrilling for the Greens.

    Seats like Page, Upper Hunter, Bega, Cessnock, Blue Mountains, Goulburn, Macquarie Fields and Monaro offer interesting opportunities for community activists with a reasonable profile. All these seats have strong localised issues that have seen the opposition unable to capitalise. Basically the ALP (and sometimes the Libs and Nats) being ambushed from political positions to the left of the ALP.

    Paradoxically, there is an assumption that Dawn Fardell will hold on to Dubbo, which is far from a given.

    Fundamentally a combination of a severely disenchanted ALP base vote, potential independents and optional preferential voting will see swings wildly fluctuate within seats, let alone on a state wide basis.

    There will be no meaningful state wide swing. The idea of state wide swings died with marginal seat campaigning of the eighties. It means nothing in terms of who is going to win the election. Barry O’Farrell could get big swings in ultra-safe ALP seats, end up with 53% of the two party vote, and see the ALP continue as a minority govt. That’s pretty much what happened to Greiner in ’91.

    All in all the above anaysii are extraordinarily optimistic about Greens chances in Marrickville, where the Green vote appears to have plateaued for some time).

    Without a cross over into significant lower middle income and blue collar support the Green vote will continue to stagnate around %15 across the state. This is still a significant figure. The concentration of that vote in seats like Balmain, Marrickville, Coogee, Vaucluse, Wollongong and (others?) is what will make life interesting.

    It is not improbable that any or all of those seats could fall to the Greens.

    What will be interesting is what happens to the Green vote in rural and outer metro seats. That’s where they could garner enough to get a third Upper House seat. That will come down to how effectively they campaign in non-traditional areas for the Greens.

    Any thoughts welcome…

12. Ben – I don’t see how the swing to the Libs reduces the Greens swing – the Libs vote also doesn’t necessarily go up much because the Newspoll doesn’t take into account the lack of 3-way (ALP-Nat-Lib) contests (thus the reduced Lib vote in the state election and the elevated Nat vote) – I took it as a Coalition vote, with the swing then being only about 4% to the Coalition.

13. Stewart – I’m not saying that the Liberal and Greens swings would impact on each other, I’m just explaining why my spreadsheet may not have given the full swing to the Greens, as doing a simple percentage swing calculation results with more than 100%, meaning you need to lower the numbers a bit.

    #11 – Lots of interesting thoughts that I’ll have to look at more. In the case of Marrickville, though, I would disagree with the vote having plateaued. We polled 31% in the 2007 election, which was substantially more than in 2003. In addition, we polled much higher in the council election in the same areas in 2008.

14. There is a general strong trend against Labor. Are there any groups that might resist this tide somewhat? In 1988 Labor’s middle-class vote in Sydney could have been worse. A good model would be to take the 2004 Howard vote and apply it to state electorates this would suggests that more of the western Sydney seats would be at risk.

15. 14 – There may be a general trend against Labor, which is pretty inevitable after so long in Government, but it won’t be a uniform tide. This is just my judgement, nothing more, but if the swing is on I feel it will be in outer Sydney and the Central Coast. My areas of the inner-city and the north coast (far north, the hunter could well be different) hasn’t shown the anger that you read about in the Tele.

    I think the battleground for this election will be remarkably as per usual.

16. #11
    I want to make a few comments here because independents have been a particular area of interest to me.

    Firstly, I would agree that Blue Mountains would seem to be one of the more obvious seats where a suitable independent could win. I might add that it is also conceivable that if the Green vote were to increase a little, and an independent took sufficient votes off Labor, but just fell short of overtaking the Greens, and there was a well-controlled flow of preferences from the independent to the Greens, and then to Greens from Labor, it’s not impossible that the Greens could win it (very difficult to get good enough preference flows under OPV though).

    It is however practically impossible to identify potential independent candidates without knowing a fair bit about the local political scene in each area and who the movers and shakers who might be potential candidates are (I’ve been trying to do it, and have come up with a few ideas, but just don’t have the local knowledge to know whether they’re real possibilities or not). Indeed, in many areas there may not actually be many potential candidates around – in my seat of Lismore for instance, there aren’t really any obvious potential independent candidates who would stand a realistic chance of winning, though our Labor Mayor Jenny Dowell could win as an independent (which I would find appallingly dishonest, but Richard Torbay followed a similar career path – and perhaps not surprisingly is making a rather dismal failure as an ‘independent’ Speaker).

    That does bring me to what I find most disheartening about the independents at the last election – almost all of the serious and credible independent candidates ran big budget campaigns bankrolled by the same vested interests who fund the major parties, and were at least tacitly supported by one of the major parties. Not many genuinely independent or grass-roots candidates at all.

    Perhaps this is a bit off-topic, but I think it’s very interesting, These are some of the higher profile independents from 2007 with their campaign expenditure as declared in their electoral funding returns:

    Tim Horan (Barwon) – $40,666.
    Paul Scarfe (Charlestown) – $52,929.
    Keith Rhoades (Coffs Harbour) – $58,444.
    Dawn Fardell (Dubbo) – $98,996. (Nats spent $97,000)
    Paul Stephenson (Goulburn) – $46,827. (Lost narrowly to Pru Goward, whose expenditure, local campaign only that is, was just under $200,000)
    Steven Pringle (Hawkesbury) – $93,963.
    Greg Piper (Lake Macquarie) – $59,426.
    Peter Blackmore (Maitland) – $118,896. (the Libs, who finished third, spent $150,000)
    David Barr (Manly) – $58,693. (dwarfed by Mike Baird’s $263,000 campaign, the most expensive in the state)
    Eddie Loftus (Myall Lakes) – $37,930.
    John Tate (Newcastle) – $198,654.
    Bryce Gaudry (Newcastle) – $34,706 (couldn’t compete with Tate’s cash)
    Richard Torbay (Nthn Tablelands) – $73,523. (and it’s an ultra-safe seat)
    John Davis (Orange) – $73,971.
    Alex McTaggart (Pittwater) – $43,606. (Libs spent $93,000).
    Rob Oakeshott (Port Macquarie) – $62,978. (again, ultra-safe seat).
    Clover Moore (Sydney) – $83,465.
    Peter Draper (Tamworth) – $112,056. (Nats spent $116,000)

    Bear in mind there are about 45,000 enrolled voters per electorate (is that right?).

    Note here also that, centrally, Labor spent $16.8 million ($3.85 per voter), and the Coalition $7 million ($1.60 per voter) on their state-wide campaigns. Real independents just can’t compete, nor do many who would make good candidates know where to start.

17. Ok, got a bit carried away there. No worries if you want to delete the previous comment Ben. Sorry.

18. Don’t say sorry, it made some good points.

19. Thanks
    Re that job you’re offering on Twitter to your 1000th commenter – it does pay well, so I might be interested, but only if we can agree on a few conditions first.

    First off, as the late Peter Andren told Mark Latham when Latham jokingly offered to send him an ALP membership form, “only if I can reform the party in my own image.”

    Secondly, I want to be guaranteed a safe seat, so that if I lose the job I can at least hang around on the backbench long enough to collect my super. (and it better remain a safe seat after the redistribution too)

    Thirdly, since you’re getting me into it, you’d have to come and work for me as my CoS. I know you might prefer a nice comfortable Senate seat, but I’ll only agree to getting you that if you get me into the Lodge, then I’ll make Bill Heffernan ambassador to Turkmenistan and you can have his seat.

    And finally, after I meet my inevitable inglorious demise, you have to agree to helping with editing my diaries, so that when I publish them I look at least a little less of an idiot than Latham.

    Otherwise, no deal.

20. You drive a hard bargain, Nick

21. A straw poll if I may.

    I assume that most of the posters on this blog are Green voters. I was curious what percentage of these voters preferenced Labor at the last NSW election and how many will do so this election, or just let their vote exhaust (hypothetically saying that the Greens will come third in this test).

22. I preference the ALP rather than exhaust and will do so again.

23. The only way Keneally’s getting my preference is if she pries it from my cold, dead ballot.

24. I’ll preference Labor but only if I think it’ll actually make a difference if and when it flows on.

25. Fristly, I don’t pretend to be a normal voter, so don’t know how much you can read into what I did.

    I was a Democrat for a little while, but since then have mostly voted Green. Last state election I voted in the seat of Ballina and just voted ‘1’ for the Greens and didn’t direct any preferences. I will add that I expected the Greens to outpoll Labor, although I was never going to preference Labor anyway (I do at federal level though). I can’t imagine I’ll be preferencing Labor in 2011 either. There is however a whole range of factors to consider when deciding, so I may have chosen differently in another electorate, with different candidates, different chances of effecting the result, etc.

    Funny story though, the one time recently I didn’t vote Green, last federal election, was for the strangest reason – I just didn’t feel comfortable voting for a candidate I hadn’t personally met. I’d been running this community campaign through which I got to meet all the local politicians and candidates, so I’d gotten so used to actually knowing personally who the people I was voting for were that I just wasn’t comfortable voting for this guy who I hadn’t met! Instead I voted for this rather unimpressive independent who was never going to get many votes anyway (whom I had met), and put the Green 2nd.

26. I’m with Oz on this one, although I have pref’d the ALP for the last 20 years. Keneally is an atrocious Minister, who has managed to make her predecessor, Sartor, look good. An all too typical machine politician. If I was still in Coogee it would be harder, coz Pearce has been a passable local member and has been reasonable on some issues (like electricity privatisation). Of course, this is a luxury because Heffron isn’t going to deliver a Lib win off the 34% difference in primary vote between ALP & Lib. That said I wont be preferencing the Libs either, so Keneally should win (dammit!).

27. For me, a Labor Gov has always been better than a Liberal Gov. I couldn’t not end up parking my vote with the Labor Party if the other option is, however implicitly, helping the likes of Clarke, Ficarra, Debnam et al by exhausting.

28. 26# And how is Keneally a typical machine politician? She was a teacher in rural New Mexico, a Youth Coordinator for St Vinnies, has written some interesting articles on feminist issues and from what I’ve seen has worked hard for Heffron, especially for public housing tenants in the Redfern Waterloo area.

    For me, between her and a Liberal, there’s no comparison. (And I gather that Irene Doutney will run for the Greens in Heffron, which dissapoints me.)

29. Phil
    This is the problem with the Labor Party, you get all of these people from good backgrounds, but once they get into office they seem to go through some kind of brainwashing exercise and end up being these typical machine politicians who forget about the real world.

    Labor’s greatest triumph in NSW has been to make many progressive voters not feel they are sufficiently better than the Coalition to warrant receiving preferences.

30. Phil

    Sorry, she’s also worked hard to do over residents in Botany and Banksmeadow with the ongoing Port development, has done nothing on the plumes from ICI-Orica, been largely silent on the waste problems at the site (although almost everybody, including ALP & local Greens wants it moved – this is causing its own problems). She has been great for developers across the state, including those in the City of Sydney & Randwick CC (both of which Heffron covers) by demanding that even more medium and high rise is built, all without new infrastructure. Yes, the #10 bus is a good idea, but Anzac Parade is now overloaded, cross streets like Lachlan St, Lenthall St & Gardeners Rd are badly congested. Then there’s the residents in Pagewood & Eastlakes who complained to me during the last state election about their missing Member. Being a Minister does take alot of her time away from Heffron, I’d agree, but then we have to judge her performance as Minister – which I think is very poor. Keneally is a machine politician because she does what’s required by the party machine men (Tripodi etc). Daley’s been a better local member in Maroubra, and he’s not much chop as a Minister either (actually looks a bit out of his depth, not unlike Rees when he first got pushed forward).

    The problem I have is that I don’t think much of Keneally, but I do think a whole lot worse of Tripodi and Obeid.

    Oh, and my experience of a good local member is often down to the quality of the staff employed, as much as the quality of the MP. I don’t Keneally’s staff, but my experience of other offices has been of too many AYL hacks sitting in offices thinking too highly of themselves. I should add, this can effect any party.

31. Further, as I think I’ve said elsewhere, I’d rather the ALP lifted its game, but I don’t think this will happen while in Government currently. There is not the injection of good new people that the party badly needs (nor of good ideas, something else which it appears to lack) while it hangs on. A good clean out, a rethink about its strategic direction, and the ALP might be able to bounce back fairly quickly. In some respects I hope Tony Bowen wins the preselection for Coogee (there are rumours of Pearce going this election not next) because I have heard some good things of him. My partner was on Randwick CC with Daley and reckons he’s better than the other’s the ALP could have chosen (Bastick & Sullivan). Garrett will get my preference federally, depending on the redistribution effects, so I think the “ALP will always be better than the Libs” sort of commentary doesn’t do anyone any good except the machine pollies who rely on it.

32. Sorry Ben, I think I went off topic there.

33. Stewart,

    I can’t comment on the port development, I’m a new Heffron resident, though I note that Heffron cuts off at Mascot, so I’m not sure how much Keneally would be responsible for. I imagine the Minister for Ports would be in charge of Port Botany.

    Anyway, a concern of mine about the Greens, the NSW Greens anyway, is the staunchly anti-development stance that they seem to take to near everything. Sydney is a growing city. It will have 6million residents within a decade. I for one would far prefer to see high density inner-city developments than pushing everyone further out in their frankly unsustainable quarter acre blocks. If there’s a market for high density inner city living, such as the Victoria Park development which you would know of if you live in Heffron, then great. Inner city apartment living is relatively environmentally friendly, easy, and brings an optimum number of people close to their workplace in the City. (On that note, I got a letter from Keneally saying that she was opposed to the City of Sydney overriding the VP masterplan and overdeveloping Victoria Park the way they want to). And I think that the Greens should embrace that high density development is not only inevitable, but beneficial, in both terms of the environment and the economy. Nothing bugs me more than seeing Greens get upset about ‘destroying the natural community of Waterloo with development’ – to paraphrase Clr Doutney, when the area clearly needs to have a makeover.

    On the note of planning, I think Planning Ministers will always cop flak from Greens. It’s a position that needs to evaluate the needs of the economy, the environment and the need to plan an expanding city (in the case of Sydney); which will never satisfy everyone.

    I guess we’ll agree to disagree.

34. I definitely agree that the MP’s staff do make a big difference.

    Back to an earlier discussion, I was just looking at the upper house vote by electorate, and it would seem to suggest that Sydney would indeed be a fascinating contest when Clover retires. In 2007 it was ALP 29.54, Lib 29.66, Greens 27.32.

    Also noticed that the Greens outpolled Labor in Pittwater (19.01 – 14.88), so without an independent challenge that will probably be a Lib-Greens contest next time as well (probably not a very close one though). In Manly Labor got 21.58 to the Greens 19.26, so without an independent next time that may be a Lib-Greens contest too.

35. Phil, in response to the Greens anti-development agenda:

    “That while increased urban densities afford potential environmental, economic and affordability benefits, current policies of urban consolidation have:
    10.1 Failed to produce quality living spaces for residents;
    10.2 Damaged the quality of existing neighbourhoods and the amenity of surrounding communities;
    10.3 Destroyed the character of many urban areas and produced alienated and unpleasant urban forms;
    10.4 Produced massive and unsustainable profits for a number of developers that continue to drive unrealistic profit expectations; and
    10.5 Focused on site development without significant regard to the surrounding area.” http://nsw.greens.org.au/policies/building-and-development

    ie The Greens are not anti-development more that we need the right type of urban consolidation.

36. Joel, yes, I understand that, but it never is the right type for the NSW Greens. The inner-city guerilla types anyway. When you oppose almost everything, you get ignored.

    There will always be some Nimby who says that some development will destroy the character of the area, usually because they’re afraid of change. Development will always bring change to neighbourhoods, which someone will always feel ‘damaged the quality’ of the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, the quality of a neighbourhood is a subjective thing.

    To use the Waterloo example, some Nimby locals said that the warehouses and houses suffering urban decay were a part of the character of the area and that the new apartments weren’t. This doesn’t make them bad. Things change. Cities change. As I said, the quality of a neighbourhood is a subjective thing, and you can bet that for everyone who wanted to keep the decrepid warehouses, there’s another who wanted them knocked down and replaced.

37. Phil
    The issue with Port Botany is the traffic that travels through – alot of trucks and now trains. Its not about being opposed to the Port per se, but that when increased freight is used, there are a lack of ameliorations like baffles and barriers, and air & noise pollution (coz they’re all diesel loco’s) is a concern as well. This effects western Sydney people too – ask residents in Casula near the rail what they think of the new freight line developments, and the lack of ameliorations. The problem with the Port is that it sits snuggly in the middle of a major urban area. So Keneally does have a say as a local MP, and was previously dismissive of concerns raised by residents over traffic.

    As to high rise – well, 30m developments along Anzac Parade in Maroubra have produced a tunnel effect. This isn’t about not wanting medium and high rise development – far from it – but the need to look at the infrastructure and amenities that will support the development. Given the volume of traffic on some of the roads (like Anzac Pde & Botany Rd) there are air and noise pollution issues to be dealt with which are often overlooked or deemed irrelevant. And there actually has been a positive effect of the high rise in Maroubra – the revitalisation of the strip shops in the area, which had suffered after Botany Council approved Eastgardens SC. But this in many respects was a perverse outcome over the desire to maximise profits in unit development.

    Sadly I could go on (how about the 8 storey developments going into Bondi that now incorporate water and energy saving as part of the design feature – that came from the last ALP-Green Council as part of a deliberate process to get better developments rather than just slapping in more blocks of flats). And if inner urban areas are to have high rise & the population then they should have the services too.

    Yes, cities change, and that process is all but inevitable, but we can determine what is the best way for that development to proceed so that it benefits residents (new & old) too, not just the developer. I think you’d be surprised at how many inner urban Greens aren’t Nimby types on development at all – they just have a problem what’s being offered up and the way its being presented to them as a done deal.

    Victoria Park is an interesting development – its being done by Landcom, the the NSW Govt’s own developer…and I’d be more worried about the developments adjacent to them along Bourke St, which have overloaded Bourke, South Dowling & Lachlan St’s with traffic – they were built because they were “within 500m” of a train station – well, maybe one corner of the development site was. For Victoria Park this means catching a train at Green Square on the over-priced Airport Line (another NSW Govt PPP). Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad the Airport Line was built, but the cost to travel is a major disincentive to use. The original route from Bondi through Randwick and Kingsford would have been better in this instance (and provided a ready market of paying commuters).

    These are the compounding problems that have built up over time, with poor planning and development control. Yes, the Planning Minister always seems to get it in the neck from someone, it seems to now be part of that Ministerial territory, but we could also try to do better.

38. Oh, sorry Ben, Phil for the rant. Yes, lets just agree to disagree (or maybe keep talking but I promise to use less words…).

39. Stewart, I see your points, but I still have plenty of time for Keneally and I would argue that she is a net plus and certainly far better than a Liberal and thus worthy of a preference, which I think was the original point.

    As someone who spent his Uni years as an ardent north coast environmentalist, I must say that since moving to Sydney that I’ve become rather disenfranchised by the inner-city Greens, who are more and more not representing what I, and I believe people like Ian Cohen, pushed for.

40. I am a Green but I wouldn’t class myself as an inner-city Green, nor a north coast environmentalist Green. What’s the difference? I suspect its actually a lot less than many in those “camps” think.

41. Hmmm, we are going to have to disagree re Keneally. Fair enough.

    Re inner city types, as a person who used to live in the ‘gong where do I fit into this? As a person who used to run youth-based environment programs am I an environmentalist or social activist? I think the characterisation of “inner-city Greens” is quite misleading, and certainly misrepresents the diversity of life experiences you might find. The dichotomisation into inner-city types and north-coast environmentalist is also a furphy. Ian is perfectly able to represent inner city concerns in Parliament (and has done), but also chooses to focus on other issues. The same goes for most other Green MP’s I’ve met from across Australia (and they’re not all urban-based MP’s I might add) in respect of what they choose to focus on.

42. Stewart, I have no idea where you fit into it. I think it’s far more about outlook than location, though location clearly affects outlook. I think that the ‘Green movement’ on the North Coast is, for obvious reasons, different to the same movement in the inner-city and creates different political thought. The struggles in, say, Lismore (or Nightcap) are clearly different to the struggles one finds in, say, Newtown; and I’m a product of the former and don’t really buy into what I see as the often undergraduate struggles of the latter. There is, to me, a clear seperation between the two, that happen to be unified under the wider ‘Green’ umbrella, which is fine, all parties unite different groups under a vague common goal.

    I’m not trying to split the Greens into the red-green green-green cliche, I’d hope you’re all too smart for that one, just simply saying that I don’t connect with the inner-city Greens the way I did up the coast and that to say that there aren’t different types of Greens is being naive; there’s different types in all parties and location has a big part in each of these.

    Hope that made sense.

43. damn, wrote this really neat reply and forgot a field (so it rubbed everything out…)

    Anyway, yes, made sense. Only real comment is that it plays both ways in respect of finding some “undergraduate” or maybe “unrealistic” or “holier-than-thou” or whatever. Could say the same for some environmentalists, but this doesn’t stop me working with them and cheering on their victories.

    Oh, and if you’re feeling disenfranchised and marginalised I’d like to hear why and how you thing that might be ameliorated or mitigated (or is it tied to something less tangible like a sense of belonging?).

44. Oh, probably mother issues. 🙂

    But really, I can’t shake the feeling that a lot of the ‘Newtown Greens,’ if I may use that term, are protesting for the sake of protesting, or perhaps opposing for the sake of opposing. Not long ago I had a debate with a noted young Green from Newtown who believes that possession of all drugs should be legal, which I don’t believe is the official Green position, but it’s more the person than the organisation that irritates me. I argued that that was not a good position and that all he had to do was walk around Redfern with me to see the effects of widespread drug use and that decriminalising drugs would only worsen the situation.

    Anyway, this guy, who is prone to calling 90% of the population fascists, is what irritates me about inner-city Greens. Not a lot, but enough of them are oppose everything, smash-the-system pseudo-anarchists; whether they actually believe this or are just doing because they’re trendy Uni students is a moot point. Now, I’m a realist and, despite popular opinion, I think that most of Green ideology is based on realism rather than idealism (climate policy etc), but I think this is largely reversed in the inner city where there’s a drive to oppose everything for the sake of being in the opposition. And frankly, I don’t do that. Call me a unrealistic north coast hippy if you will, but that’s how I feel.

45. Phil, I thought it was usually these ‘north coast environmentalists’ who were the ones accused of being unrealistic and opposing everything for the sake of opposition.

    I think you are exaggerating some minor cultural differences which may have been more significant in the past. Certainly, the Greens I know on the north coast today are hardly a homogeneous bunch, and most have no trouble at all identifying with your so called ‘inner city’ crowd. Indeed, if anything, the people I know who I think best fit the tag ‘north coast environmentalist’, are probably not the same people you would characterise as such, and are arguably the ones who find more common ground with your so called ‘inner city’ Greens.

    My impression (and as a non-member I don’t have extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the Greens, so may be wrong) is that any schisms that do occur seem to have much more to do with personalities than ideology, and that happens in any organisation, anywhere.

46. @Phil Hi, I’m the guy who drafted the NSW Greens drugs policy and I’m also the emergency psychiatrist at St Vincent’s Hospital (though here I’m writing with my personal opinion). So unfortunately I’ve seen way more drug-related harm up close than most people, and it’s not pretty.

    But our Greens NSW policy *is* to oppose the criminalisation of possession. That seems to me to be a rational position given the negative individual and social effects of criminalising possession, especially when compared with the unrealistic, utopian idea that criminalisation decreases overall social harm.

    Criminalisation doesn’t even necessarily decrease consumption that much: even the US Prohibition, one of the most spectacular criminalisation “experiments” ever tried saw per capita alcohol consumption return to almost the rates of pre-Prohibition by the time it was rescinded, but with huge additional social harm created: widespread serious illness due to poorly produced moonshine (mainly hitting the poor) and the rise of the mafia (a marginal organisation before Prohibition).

    Furthermore, a law-and-order approach to the illegal drugs trade in general is pretty ineffective. The larger busts we see at the border seem to still only represent around 10% of what’s coming in: it’s just that more is getting in. And the rise of complex webs of organised crime in terms of drug production and distribution has barely been dented despite recourse to draconian legal measures like the recent bikie laws.

    The real question is why people use drugs. But that raises uncomfortable social questions. Better to blame the users than think about why they are getting hammered.

    My experience is that those who end up being brought to our hospital often have significant social or personal problems that explain why drugs become such an out of control part of their lives. But more broadly, the problems parallel the problems that our patients with alcohol abuse have. One poison is illegal, the other legal, but little else is different. And the worst violence and self-harm is almost always alcohol-related.

    This also calls into question the arbitrary division between the two most harmful drugs (tobacco and alcohol) and the rest. Some types of drug abuse can be legally advertised and promoted, but others are off limits. I say arbitrary because the risk-benefit ratio of different drugs doesn’t match how illegal they are before the law. Stupidly, ecstasy and ice are considered equally bad before the law, when a case can probably be made that the former is less harmful than alcohol.

    But also consider that in practice (rather than some imaginary fair society) the authorities are more likely to crack down on drug use by certain social groups, and that other social groups (if caught) have greater wherewithal to get themselves out of trouble. There is an element of social control and discrimination at the heart of drugs policy (and, indeed, about the current binge drinking hysteria).

    None of which is to say that I think that “drugs are harmless”. That is clearly not true, and I see the awful results every day at work. But the law-and-order option plays well for politicians because they appear to be doing something quite simple about real but complex social problems. And the yardstick they can set is not a decrease in drug-related harm (that doesn’t seem to happen) but the number of arrests or imprisonments or busts. It looks like they are “getting results” when these items hit the news.

    Here’s a link to the policy: http://nsw.greens.org.au/policies/drugs-and-harm-minimisation

    BTW, I haven’t lived in Newtown since a few months in the mid-1990s.

47. Hmmm, Greens policy calls for a health-based harm minimisation approach (Tad who writes on here can explain the detail much better than I), so I would suggest that your experience was somewhat a-typical. Nonetheless, its a real impression. And I think Nick C hits the nail on the head – my impression of some “north coast environmentalists” has been pretty much of the unrealistic kind…and then there’s the rest who are not.

    But I agree, I don’t understand the desire to call people fascists (bit Rick – The Young Ones – for my liking). And as I’ve tried to argue before, alot of inner city Greens I know don’t oppose for the sake of it (and approve of alot), just think there’s a better way to do things.

48. Regarding Port Botany: For efficiency reasons the major cities of the world do not run container ports and airports together so close (10k) to their CBDs. Check out the big ports. Heffron included the western side of the Port until the 2007 election and Keneally managed to broker an offset (a gym) for a school that remained in her electorate after the redistribution. The Port was subject to an Upper House Inquiry, a Commission of Inquiry, and an Ipart inquiry as well as the usual EIS. The Commissioner did not agree with Sydney Ports and recommended about half the expansion added to the 2 existing terminals. The Commissioner said that the Port could not be developed to the scale of Brisbane (in the future) and Melbourne because of environmental impacts and Sydney Airport. The Commissioner presented his report in May 2005 to Knowles. Knowles sat on it. Only asked for an explanation on one figure. In the Winter of 2005 Carr, Refshauge and Knowles left parliament and the report was handed to Sartor as the new Planning Minister. He overruled his Commissioner’s report and after 21 years of operation the Commission was wound up. Regarding the proximity of Sydney Airport, on the first day of the reconvened Commission of Inquiry (October 2004) Air Services produced a caveat on the development. Even if the Port were finished today there would be no ships docking because the technology is not yet in place. Sydney Ports had to provide Air Services with funding to develop it to get the caveat lifted. In the September 2008 issue of About the House (Australian Government Publication) Professor Bruce Thom is quoted asking the question “When will barrages be needed at Port Phillip or Botany Bay? When will the very low runway at Sydney Airport need to be elevated?”

    The reason why the Commissioner’s report was rejected was because the new Iemma Government wanted a 3rd terminal to attract a 3rd stevedore. We were supposed to know the outcome of the selection process in August this year but it has been postponed – shipping and stevedoring are in the doldrums. The Government is spending $1billion on the Port and will need to support it with infrastructure upgrades such as an ‘enhanced’ (the word is in the Ports EIS) M5, the M4East, the F6, additional ramps to the ED and duplication of the Botany Rail Line. All these add over $10billion to the project. Port Botany will slowly strangle Southern Sydney if these don’t happen. Because of the problems at Port Botany (it was referred to in a National Freight Inquiry years ago as the bloodclot on the eastern seaboard) NSW has been losing business to Queensland. The Port there is east of the CBD and warehousing generally north and south. Qld does have problems but to be expected given the SEQ has been growing at around 2.3% pa while Sydney was around .8%. If the States weren’t competing but specialising we could have a national freight policy with opportunities to construct the long debated Inland Rail which would benefit centres like Moree and Parkes. Instead we have had the Victorian Government approve the controversial channel deepening of Port Phillip Bay (including the toxic dump) and NSW, Port Botany, because both are competing against each other. In the media debates on transport freight movements are nearly always overlooked but emissions from freight movements are growing much faster than from private cars. Within the next 10 years around 40% of emissions will come from moving goods not people. It is instructive to read reports from the National Transport Commission, Productivity Commission and DOTARS.

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