The greens got more votes in the last election than the one prior, and their overall percentage remained unchanged. The greens lost out because the liberals preferenced Labor over them, and so a large amount of the swing away from the liberals ended up in Labor’s lap both directly and through preferences
Just loose wording from me. What I was trying to say is that their vote count was actually higher this time around, not lower, but the increase was so small it was a rounding error on their overall percentage. The point being, their voterbase didn’t go anywhere, but nor did they attract new folk.
Are you meaning this in a negative way? The seat was reapportioned and as is the Electoral Commission’s guidance on the matter, it was pushed towards as even of a split as possible.
Maybe it is unfair to call it Gerrymandering but my understand is that it worked against Greens (eg boundary extended across the Yarra into Kew - that is conservative territory).
I mean, to call it gerrymandering is valid, but people always tend to use it as a dirty word. Any time people are making the choices about electoral boundaries there’s gerrymandering at play. We just choose in Australia to generally try to make seats as competitive as possible. On the balance of things, Greens-dominant areas in Fitzroy North and Carlton North were also redistributed away from Melbourne to Wills, which meant that Peter Khalil (Labor) had a huge 7.60% swing against him. Samantha Ratnam (Greens) came within 3k votes of winning the seat. This is all coming from a Greens member by the way.
Do you think Greens would have won within the old boundaries? Or would the preferences have screwed them anyhow? Speaking of which…
The greens lost out because the liberals preferenced Labor over them
Just to be precise: Greens probably preferenced Labor in the previous election too. The difference this time is that 2PP was between Lab & Grn, whereas previously it was between Lib & Grn so of course the Kab preferences followed mainly to Greens.
You sound savvy enough to know it but your wording was ambiguous so I just want to make sure a fellow Green is armed with the info.
I no longer vote #1 Greens although they get my vote via preferences. A few of my friends have followed suit. Their support of the Digital Identity Bill was a sellout and their lack of criticism of Hamas put me off.
Also Larissa Waters using the hashtag #ibelievewomen. I have been arguing this week with two women friends who embraced it literally to mean that not a single woman would lie about rape. It took me a lot of energy to budge them from that delusional stance. That is why using the hashtag is irresponsible regardless of what Waters means.
Yup exactly. The Greens’ loss was mostly because the earlier Greens wins came on the back of Labor finishing 3rd and preferences going to the Greens. If the LNP finishes 3rd, preferences go to Labor and Labor wins. There was also a redistribution in Melbourne that favoured Labor pretty strongly. It’s one of the weird quirks of IRV and exposes a reason proportional systems like MMP (used in Germany and NZ) are better.
The greens got more votes in the last election than the one prior, and their overall percentage remained unchanged. The greens lost out because the liberals preferenced Labor over them, and so a large amount of the swing away from the liberals ended up in Labor’s lap both directly and through preferences
Isn’t that a contradiction? Was it increased or was it unchanged? I think you might be talking about first preferences vs 2PP.
Just loose wording from me. What I was trying to say is that their vote count was actually higher this time around, not lower, but the increase was so small it was a rounding error on their overall percentage. The point being, their voterbase didn’t go anywhere, but nor did they attract new folk.
Gerrymandering in Melbourne also worked against Greens.
Are you meaning this in a negative way? The seat was reapportioned and as is the Electoral Commission’s guidance on the matter, it was pushed towards as even of a split as possible.
Maybe it is unfair to call it Gerrymandering but my understand is that it worked against Greens (eg boundary extended across the Yarra into Kew - that is conservative territory).
I mean, to call it gerrymandering is valid, but people always tend to use it as a dirty word. Any time people are making the choices about electoral boundaries there’s gerrymandering at play. We just choose in Australia to generally try to make seats as competitive as possible. On the balance of things, Greens-dominant areas in Fitzroy North and Carlton North were also redistributed away from Melbourne to Wills, which meant that Peter Khalil (Labor) had a huge 7.60% swing against him. Samantha Ratnam (Greens) came within 3k votes of winning the seat. This is all coming from a Greens member by the way.
Do you think Greens would have won within the old boundaries? Or would the preferences have screwed them anyhow? Speaking of which…
Just to be precise: Greens probably preferenced Labor in the previous election too. The difference this time is that 2PP was between Lab & Grn, whereas previously it was between Lib & Grn so of course the Kab preferences followed mainly to Greens.
You sound savvy enough to know it but your wording was ambiguous so I just want to make sure a fellow Green is armed with the info.
I no longer vote #1 Greens although they get my vote via preferences. A few of my friends have followed suit. Their support of the Digital Identity Bill was a sellout and their lack of criticism of Hamas put me off.
Also Larissa Waters using the hashtag #ibelievewomen. I have been arguing this week with two women friends who embraced it literally to mean that not a single woman would lie about rape. It took me a lot of energy to budge them from that delusional stance. That is why using the hashtag is irresponsible regardless of what Waters means.
I don’t put them first myself, usually I put the Socialists. I also don’t make voting choices based off hashtags though…
Yup exactly. The Greens’ loss was mostly because the earlier Greens wins came on the back of Labor finishing 3rd and preferences going to the Greens. If the LNP finishes 3rd, preferences go to Labor and Labor wins. There was also a redistribution in Melbourne that favoured Labor pretty strongly. It’s one of the weird quirks of IRV and exposes a reason proportional systems like MMP (used in Germany and NZ) are better.