Thursday, 29th of November, 2007

There’s some really interesting discussion going on over at GreensBlog about the Greens’ chances in the senate, which are stronger than you might think. At Larvatus Prodeo late last year, Paul Norton explained that the media regularly underestimates the Greens’ electoral success because they tend to do considerably better out of pre-poll and absentee votes than the Coalition. You can follow the links to see some theories as to why this is - but this post of Tim’s gives us some figures:

For those who like detail, check out the AEC’s data from the last election by vote type. The numbers show the total Greens vote at just under 7%, but almost 11% of absent, almost 10% of provisional and almost 8% of pre-poll. Given that these three account for just under 12% of all votes cast, and they are all counted after election night, you can see why it stands to reason that the Greens vote might seem lower than expected at first, but climbs steadily as the count moves on.

This is fascinating, and the good news is that as those pre-polls and absentee votes come in, the Greens are doing very well in ACT — potentially enough for Kerrie Tucker to overtake the Liberal candidate! In Victoria, Richard di Natale has a good chance too, especially considering there were three very Greens-friendly events on that weekend: Queenscliff Music Festival, Earthcore and the Great Victorian Bike Ride.

If they can pick up at least one of these seats, they would represent one fewer Liberal senator, meaning that Labor wouldn’t have to negotiate with Family First (they’d still need all the Greens and Nick Xenophon, or a National or Liberal to vote with them); if they pick up both of these, the Greens would hold the balance of power on their own, meaning that they would be the only group (other than the Liberals) who would have the power on their own to negotiate with Labor over policy details. As it stands, Labor would either need the Libs to vote with them, or would need all the Greens plus Xenophon plus Family First in order to get anything through the senate…

In the comments to Tim’s senate post (which also accounces the awesome fact that the Greens are projected to end up with something like 1,080,000 first preference votes in the Senate — yes, well over a million!), there’s a discussion initiated by Rob Mailler (who apparently has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about this) suggesting that the Greens should moderate some of their “lower priority messages” in order to gain a small proportion more of the vote (and presumably thus get an extra senator through). The discussion has revolved around whether the pragmatic choice of toning down other policies in order to best serve the climate change agenda is desirable.

I’m interested in this question of “principle vs pragmatism”. I think there’s an issue that all “framers” face, which is one of identifying what one’s ultimate aim is. Framing is all very well if you’re attempting to convince a group of people of one or two simple points. You find a way of coming at it from a point of common ground, using terminology that simply and effectively makes your point of view attractive. It’s like that with all rhetoric; it’s not meant for conveying nuanced, complicated matters, nor for convincing people of a multitude of policy matters all at once.
In the science blogosphere lately there’s been lots of heated argument about framing vis-à-vis “The New Atheists”. Some feel that the strident promotion of atheism by various recent writers damages the chances of promoting science to more moderate/open religious believers, tainting it by association by implying that science equals atheism. To best represent science to the masses, we should downplay our atheist beliefs.
There are two things to point out here to the so-called “appeasers” (a horrible term, by the way). First is that with works like Dawkins’s The God Delusion and others recently, the aim is to help atheists “come out” - quite literally to “promote” atheism; if this conflicts with science-framers’ perceived maximisation of science’s attractiveness, then so be it, the atheism-popularisers might say.
But of course the other issue the atheists will bring up is whether the science-popularisers are right about atheism’s unpalatability - i.e. does strident atheism really taint science? Both of these points have meant that the atheists and the science-framers have been arguing at cross-purposes, but there is a very real problem in working out how to keep on-message about a number of issues at once.

In any case, this might be a bit of a furphy when it comes to “New Atheism vs framing of science”; there should be — and is — room for many different voices, and the occasional clashes that occur when one voice says “taking science seriously must mean abandoning belief in God” and another says “Look here, your belief in God doesn’t preclude taking evolution seriously!” are acceptable. Most people have minds of their own, and can choose to say “Well I don’t like that Dawkins chap, but the nice Mr Wilson is saying some interesting things. Maybe I should give evolution another look!” (This would be sad, since Dawkins is one of the most misrepresented thinkers in the world, but that’s another blog post…)

A political party, however, needs to present a coherent and united front. Indeed, some Greens candidates & party members’ failure to stay on-point has been mentioned as a drawback for them, and it’s true that the Greens should make sure their representatives don’t muddy the waters. In the case of this discussion, what’s being suggested is that they take a pragmatic approach whereby they become more populist in some of their policies in order to give themselves more of an opportunity to effect real change with regards to what might be considered their “core” policy of combating climate change.
But of course the fact is that the Greens don’t want to be a single-issue party. In fact, being just the “climate change” party is damaging to the Greens — having detailed, well-thought-out policies across the board is a real plus. Certainly if it turned out that some minor policy point was turning away a significant number of votes that they might otherwise capture (such as an Inheritance Tax), it might be worth dropping. But I would’ve thought that there are worse barriers to mainstream acceptance: their eminently sensible and undroppable drugs policy, focusing on harm-minimisation is one, as the murdochs never hesitate to bring up the spectre of “injecting rooms on every corner”. Here’s a case where if they dropped this policy they could very well grab a bunch more votes, but that’s the last thing they’d want to do!

How the Greens can combat the frankly ridiculous idea that they’re “extreme Left”, that they’re just a bunch of drug-loving, tree-hugging hippies, or a socialist front, I’m not sure. But the best way is simply to get more and more air-time to publicise their views on a whole range of matters, which will come with balance of power (hopefully!) and the gradual increase in votes. Finding ways whenever they’re given air-time to convey simple facts like the inaccuracy of early media reports on the Greens’ success, finding ways to frame harm-minimisation that can strongly combat the “War on Drugs”/”Tough on Drugs” imagery that’s been so effectively framed by the right; these are important. I’ve been mostly very impressed with Bob Brown when I’ve seen him or heard him in the media of late, but I think there’s still plenty of room for improvement…
Plus of course an excellent initiative like GreensBlog can only help :)

Here’s to the future!
(and methinks I really should become a member of the Greens so I can stop talking about them in the 3rd person…)

Sunday, 25th of November, 2007

is what I changed my Facebook status to on my Treo last night at the venue where I was playing a gig, once it had become clear that it was a Ruddslide, and what’s more Howard had lost his seat to Maxine (they’re not calling it yet, but I can’t see how Howard can hang on to it - which is simply wonderful!)

I’m disappointed that the Greens haven’t had the out-and-out success we hoped for, but I think they still have a chance at getting a 6th senator in and holding balance of power. As it stands, the ABC are giving them 5 senators, with Nick Xenophon in SA and Steven Fielding for Family First also required for any Labor legislation to pass (in addition to the Greens). Another Greens senator would mean Family First are out of the picture.
My dear brother Tim was blogging (sporadically, between other commitments) live from the tally room last night, where you can read a bit more about the current situation for the Greens. GreensBlog, which is his awesome and revolutionary project, is Politics 2.0 in action, and you should add it to your RSS feeds (or at least bookmark it) forthwith.

It’s very sad to see the end of the Democrats. It’s particularly sad to see Andrew Bartlett go, so let’s hope he continues to contribute to the blogosphere (here’s his post analysing the senate results as they stand).

It’s still going to continue to be hard work for progressive activists now that we have a Labor government. Hopefully the Greens can make some headway at influencing Labor in the Upper House, but there’ll still be plenty to protest about.
Still, let’s hope that the blackest years are over. Let’s hope we can show the world that taking climate change seriously and taking workers’ rights seriously will be a benefit for the economy and improve the lives of everyone. Let’s hope we can give our Indigenous Australians a fair go. Let’s hope we can get rid of the outrageous incursions into free speech and civil rights that the “War on Terror” has brought with it. Let’s hope we can encourage a culture of compassion and engagement, not least through fixing our education and health systems…
At least now we can be hopeful!

PS wonder how long this‘ll be up? Second time I’ve seen it listed!