BY PETER SYKES
[Former Queensland Democrats state leader Peter Sykes knows all about compliance committees and getting the boot for speaking his mind. Now a veteran of the Australian Greens, he follows up his April 1998 GLW article which asked, "Are the Democrats doomed?"]
Soon after my 1998 article on the state of the Democrats was published, Greens Senator Bob Brown asked me whether or not it was really true that the Greens' main political nemesis was doomed. The ensuing discussion focused on the issue of the two parties' "core vote" and how the changing tides of political fortune might be set to favour the Greens in the coming years.
Given what has occurred since last year's federal election, it is probably a good time to revisit and update some of the key themes outlined in the original article. Just to backtrack, at the time Cheryl Kernot had recently jumped ship and joined the ALP; most in the green-left and union movement were seething over the Democrats' support for draconian industrial relations legislation; and the Howard government was relentlessly advancing its Telstra and GST agendas. Adding a dash of paranoia to the mix was the rise of the far-right in the form of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party.
By any measure it was a crucial time for the green-left. By consistently compromising the remnants of their progressive agenda the Democrats were fast losing the confidence of green-left voters.
To make matters worse, all the polls suggested that the Greens were destined to be no-shows. The pragmatic choice for many progressive voters seemed to boil down to the Democrats or oblivion. Indeed, the Senate results in the 1998 election gave the Democrats 8.46% of the vote and four seats, One Nation almost 9% and one seat, with the Greens receiving only 2.72%.
Core vote
What didn't show up in the '98 results was the number of voters who opted for the Democrats without knowing the party's stand on the introduction of the GST. The party's notional "core vote" of around 5-6% had apparently stood firm, propped up with a fair few GST-disgruntled Liberal votes to sweeten the pot.
A core vote is the percentage that a party can always expect to get from voters who stick to their traditional voting patterns. Shifts in core voting patterns are rare, but when they happen they tend to affect the entire political landscape for years, or even generations to come.
The Greens also held on to their core vote in the '98 election — the difference being that it was only about 2.5% to begin with. While some observers saw this as a reason for doom and gloom, nothing could have been further from the truth. Small parties used to surviving on crumbs tend to get pretty good at doing it — and besides, there was still the GST vote to come. It was a fair bet that by the time of the next federal election a good number of usually apathetic voters would know that the Democrats had voted for the GST.
It is important to note that a shift in a core vote is invariably a gradual process, rather than a fireball that occurs as a result of a single event. History teaches us that the Democratic Labour Party ceased to be a force when it lost all its Senate seats in the 1974 federal election, after the Whitlam government had appointed DLP leader Vince Gair as ambassador to Ireland.
The event, however, was the trigger not the cause. The DLP had been in a state of internal decline for years and all that was required to bring it crashing down was something to highlight in voters' minds just what an absolute mess it had become, and the Whitlam years were jam-packed with highlights.
But even with all the well-documented turmoil occurring within the DLP, it took about five or six years for voter perceptions to change and show up at the polls.
After helping the GST through the Senate, Democrats members tried to arrest their party's internal decline by dumping leader Meg Lees for the then-popular Natasha Stott Despoja.
Looking at the party's 2001 federal election performance, this might appear on the surface to have been a pretty good move. The Democrats got four senators elected with 7.25% of the vote, losing only one seat to the Greens, who got just under 5%.
Greens breakthrough
Nevertheless, the Greens painted the election as a major breakthrough and this time the media agreed. There was strong evidence in the voting patterns that the Greens' core vote had increased to at least 4% — an electorally significant improvement of around 1.5%.
As such, there is every chance that the 2001 federal election will be remembered as a watershed for green-left politics in Australia and, ironically, it probably has as much to do with the Labor Party as it does with anything the Democrats have (or haven't) done.
For the first time ever, a non-environmental issue — asylum seekers — had not only won a significant number of votes for the Greens, but had also taken front stage ahead of the party's environmental agenda.
The Greens juggernaut didn't stop there. Despite having the electoral system rigged against them by the major parties, the Tasmanian Greens produced a stunning result, rivalling the Liberals with over 18% of the vote and getting four members elected.
Voters on the ALP-left are coming over to the Greens. Many of them will never go home. The days of the Greens being perceived as a single-issue party look like they may soon be over.
No room in middle ground
Meanwhile, across the country the ALP is moving steadily towards the "middle ground", which is causing more than a few space problems for the Democrats. As the DLP before them found out, stand in the middle of the road long enough and you're bound to get run over.
The Greens' stellar performance in Tasmania came hot on the heels of what can only be regarded as a Democrats disaster in their South Australian stronghold. With a full contingent of candidates, the Democrats scored 7.3% of the vote, down a whopping 9.2% on the previous state election.
The Greens, on the other hand, surprised even themselves with 2.3% of the vote — a good showing considering they stood candidates in less than half of the seats. A concerted effort would almost certainly have seen them snare about 5% of the vote in what used to be Democrats heartland.
Meanwhile, the Democrats' woes continued in full spindizzy mode when Lees quit the party and, to make matters worse, refused to give her seat back, opting instead to sit as an independent. Western Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Murray subsequently went into self-imposed "exile", while a few of the others tried to pretend they didn't vote for the GST.
The two that didn't are trying to convince voters that the Democrats can re-fashion themselves as a party of the left much like the Greens. One of them — Queensland Senator Andrew Bartlett — even decided it was time to break party protocol by launching a scathing verbal attack on colleague Murray in language that most observers perceived as juvenile and abusive.
Things hit rock-bottom for the Democrats when the ABC's children's current affairs show Behind the News produced a segment that was basically a lesson in how not to act like a mature adult.
The Democrats' other Queensland senator, John Cherry, showed his frustration by publicly admitting that the party had fallen into "complete disrepute".
Murray was eventually dragged back into the party room kicking and screaming, responding to a move by some WA members to have him expelled by describing parts of the Democrats' constitution as "silly" and "ludicrous".
Underpinning this whole sideshow was the fact that by occupying an ever-narrowing middle ground and traditionally drawing votes from both the left and the right, the Democrats are increasingly looking like a party without a home.
If the Greens are to displace the Democrats as the party of choice for progressive voters, a lot will rely on the direction of "above the line" Senate preferences. When someone votes above the line for a party on a Senate ballot, the party they voted for determines their preferences. The overwhelming majority of voters choose this option in order to avoid having to sequentially number each of the many boxes on the ballot paper.
Over the years the Democrats' position in the alternative middle ground has seen a high level of preferential support come their way from a wide cross-section of parties, including the Greens. In coming elections it will be important for the Greens to maintain meaningful relationships with all of the parties on the green-left if they are to have any chance of outlasting the Democrats in elimination counting processes.
It is quite conceivable for a party to gain a high proportion of first preference Senate votes and still not gain a seat because of the flow of residual preferences, as has been the case for many One Nation candidates in recent elections.
In a toss-up, the major parties will almost certainly opt to direct to the Democrats over the Greens, preferring to deal with a party of consistent compromise than one of principled resistance. To a certain extent, the Greens are often their own worst enemy in such instances, almost invariably opting to direct Senate preferences to the Democrats as a "like-minded" party, rather than play political hard-ball and work to prevent Democrats victories.
Despite being in a state of decline, the Democrats could conceivably hold on for some years to come thanks to their positioning in the Australian political system. However, all the evidence points to a state of irreversible rot from within.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 21, 2002.
Visit the