[Green-Activist] mail to greens national office

Thu Dec 27 07:47:35 EST 2007

Sorry to disappoint everyone with some facts, but the Greens vote has
continued to climb, even in an election where the majority of voters were
focussed on changing or retaining the government rather than on voting for a
minor party.

Nationally, the Greens vote increased by 0.60% to a new record 967,781
primary votes (7.79%) in the lower house.  This represents 126,047 more
Greens voters than the last election in 2004, when we polled 7.19%.  By
comparison, in 2001 our national lower house vote was 569,075 (4.96%); in
1998 it was just 290,709 (2.62%).

The change in the last 10 years has been dramatic.  In 1998, the Greens were
behind Hanson's One Nation (8.43%), the Nationals (5.29%) and the Democrats
(5.13%).  In 2007, the Greens cemented themselves as the official third
party of Australian politics, over a quarter of a million votes ahead of the
Nationals (5.49%), and more than the combined primary vote of all other
parties (including Family First 1.99%, CDP Christian Party 0.84%, Democrats
0.72%, One Nation 0.26%, Citizens Electoral Council 0.22%).

The Greens are now within reach of winning key ALP seats in the lower house.
Lindsay Tanner's seat of Melbourne is now officially a Labor-Green marginal
(see http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-13745-228.htm), with the
Greens polling 22.8% primary vote and 45.29% after preferences, thus needing
only a 4.71% swing to win this key seat.  Other seats that will challenge
the ALP in 2010 include Sydney (20.71%) and Batman (17.17%).

In the Senate, the Greens broke through the one-million barrier, picking up
1,144,751 primary votes nationally.  Our 9.04% was a strong 1.37% increase
over the 2004 Senate result, and delivered us two new Senators - Scott
Ludlam from WA, and Sarah Hanson-Young from SA (South Australia's first-ever
Greens Senator).  With five Senators from July 2008, the Greens will now be
accorded official "party" status within the Senate, delivering us critical
additional staff and resources.

Looking to the future: with K.Rudd now in power, we can expect the Greens
vote to strengthen in the next Federal election as Labor voters become
disenchanted with the ALP's failure to properly address climate change,
spiralling fuel and energy costs and the ongoing housing affordability
crisis.  The Greens should pick up new Senators in Vic & NSW, and quite
possibly in ACT, SA and Qld; and we could win lower house seats in Melbourne
& Sydney leading to the distinct possibility of the ALP having to form a
Labor-Green coalition government.

As Frank might be aware, trees don't spring up overnight.  The Greens too
are growing every year, and it won't be long before they are able to wield
genuine power in parliament.

Chris Chaplin
PS Frank, don't be surprised if your email to the Greens national office 
doesn't get a formal response.  They get lots of crank emails like that, and 
there's no point wasting time forwarding them to me, as I'd just bin them 
myself.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bill&mika" <mikabill at aapt.net.au>
To: "maillist for Green Activists" <green-activist at lists.altnews.com.au>
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 9:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Green-Activist] mail to greens national office

> Hi Frank although i agree that we have not increased our vote and we are
> tied to the ALP we need to position ourselves somewhere. until one of the
> major parties falls appart we are stuck in this horrible position.
> bill weller
>
>
> frank wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> Below is mail i sent to The Greens national office in reply to their
>> election summery.
>>
>> Nice spin, but the fact is The Greens are wallowing in the mud.  The vote
>> has hardly changed in the last 10 years.
>>
>> Keeping The Greens vote low when the environment has become a major
>> election issue is an outstanding achievement for the infiltrators.
>>
>> While the party's management remains in the hands of the labor stooges,
>> The Greens can look forward to being a minor party till the environmental
>> situation degenerates to a state where the world economic system
>> collapses and anarchy rules.  Not too long afterwards humans will
>> probably go extinct. But before we do, we'll probably wipe out most of
>> the other species.
>>
>> These events won't be long in coming, so i want the labor stooges who've
>> succeeded in making The Greens into a preference gatherer for the Labor
>> Party, rather than a party in it's own right, to remember what they've
>> done as they are being killed and eaten by other humans.
>>
>> frank brown
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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