06/05/10
A curse on both your houses
With Rudd and Abbot both failing to connect with voters, Drew Hutton sees a growing role for minor parties
With the Greens now in coalition government with Labor in Tasmania and the British Liberal Democrats and Tories getting into political bed together in the UK, the spotlight is shifting somewhat to so-called minor parties and how they might affect the way we are governed. Both Greens and Liberal Democrats have strong environmental and social justice policies, although the Lib Dems would be closer to the centre on the political spectrum.
Before the election Labor leader David Bartlett stated he would not be doing a deal with the Greens, equating it to a ‘pact with the devil’. Liberal leader, Will Hodgman, said the same and maintained his refusal to work with the Greens after the election when a 10 Liberal, 10 Labor and 5 Greens result was announced. Hodgman therefore dealt himself out of a chance to form a post-election agreement with the Greens, Bartlett back-flipped, negotiated with McKim, and a Labor-Green government was the result.
Neither the Tasmanian nor the British outcomes will be without serious obstacles. Major parties in the English-speaking world, whether Labor or Liberal/Conservative, will find it difficult to come to terms with sharing power after decades of having one or the other sweeping up 100 per cent of the spoils of election victory, even if they have done so by a mere handful of seats. Both Tasmanian Labor and British Conservative parliamentarians will attempt to undermine their coalition partners at every opportunity.
Ironically, the other major obstacle will come from the Greens. While this is not the case with the UK Liberal Democrats, many Greens in Australia, sometimes including those in senior positions in the party, have a strong reluctance to exercise political power. They are part of that social movement tradition of moral resistance that wants to put a brake on what they see as the worst aspects of political power and do not want to compromise on anything. The major division in the Greens is between those, like Nick McKim, who are pragmatic enough to want to see the Greens in power and those who have a more fundamentalist, ‘green’ political morality. At a time of climate change and global ecological devastation the Greens need to clarify their position on this vital issue. Are they a political party or a ginger group?
Drew Hutton is the founder of the Queensland Greens and a long-time environmental campaigner.
Before the election Labor leader David Bartlett stated he would not be doing a deal with the Greens, equating it to a ‘pact with the devil’. Liberal leader, Will Hodgman, said the same and maintained his refusal to work with the Greens after the election when a 10 Liberal, 10 Labor and 5 Greens result was announced. Hodgman therefore dealt himself out of a chance to form a post-election agreement with the Greens, Bartlett back-flipped, negotiated with McKim, and a Labor-Green government was the result.
Neither the Tasmanian nor the British outcomes will be without serious obstacles. Major parties in the English-speaking world, whether Labor or Liberal/Conservative, will find it difficult to come to terms with sharing power after decades of having one or the other sweeping up 100 per cent of the spoils of election victory, even if they have done so by a mere handful of seats. Both Tasmanian Labor and British Conservative parliamentarians will attempt to undermine their coalition partners at every opportunity.
Ironically, the other major obstacle will come from the Greens. While this is not the case with the UK Liberal Democrats, many Greens in Australia, sometimes including those in senior positions in the party, have a strong reluctance to exercise political power. They are part of that social movement tradition of moral resistance that wants to put a brake on what they see as the worst aspects of political power and do not want to compromise on anything. The major division in the Greens is between those, like Nick McKim, who are pragmatic enough to want to see the Greens in power and those who have a more fundamentalist, ‘green’ political morality. At a time of climate change and global ecological devastation the Greens need to clarify their position on this vital issue. Are they a political party or a ginger group?
Drew Hutton is the founder of the Queensland Greens and a long-time environmental campaigner.
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