aussietobe

Please think again. They are an extremist party with a social and economic agenda that goes way beyond saving forests.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ele...-1225894722878

Sherlock Holmes

Yup...I have some concern for our planet but...every protest, whatever, same old faces appear. Look out for them in news items. I suspect though, that as usual, a group of well meaning individuals has been hi-jacked by the extremists.

You certainly don't need them holding the "balance of power".

quoll

I do so agree. The thought of the watermelons holding balance of power scares me witless. They have already begun in ACT and it isnt a pretty picture. Mind you, they arent that out of step with the incumbents anyway on most things as our local labor are red to the core.

Centurion

If you vote for the greens you should have long lost your entitlement on the basis that you cannot be arsed to read a manifesto and just like the word green.

If they ever held power we would be economically doomed and you'd better get used to hugging a tree because you wouldn't be able to afford to live in a house.

What makes it worse is that people are so apathetic they won't look at their own electorate and realise that if they vote labor in some of them, they are voting for the greens.

Wol

Correct, Centurion. With the farce that is "Preferential Voting", all sorts of people that you positively DON'T vote for get in - Steve Fielding for example is a senator and he got 2% of the primary votes!

koalakim

Thanks for that bit of insight!

Not that I would vote Green (I think we should address the planets problems but they go far too much the other way, that wouldn't be practical or economically sound) but as a newbie votee I'm just trying to gather as much info as possible so these snippets on the forum are really good, especially as it is a different voting system here.

Wol

If a "Voter" votes, presumably a "Votee" is one up for election? Which seat are you contesting? <bg>

ABCDiamond

Here is the way that Steve Fielding (Family First) was able to jump ahead of the Greens.

Original Votes:

1. 1,321,337 44.10% Liberal/National Party
2. 1,081,558 36.09% Australian Labor Party
3. 263,481 8.79% The Greens
4. 58,042 1.94% DLP - Democratic Labor Party
5. 56,580 1.89% Australian Democrats
6. 56,376 1.88% Family First
7. 55,170 1.84% liberals for forests

Result:
540,012 Family First
314,729 The Greens

Family First jumped from 6th position to the third spot.

fish.01

Anther "fair and balanced" fox news article by Andrew Bolt.

fish.01

If you just vote green in the lower house they won't get in anyway so it won't cause all the damage they are predicting.

It will just help Labor stop the far right Tony Abbott getting in.....so a very good thing for Australia!!!

Vote green in the lower house to keep extremists at bay.

Centurion

Yes, it is Fox news and thus one must eye it with suspicion. However, the manifesto does speak for itself. It surprises me that few people I know actually bother to look into what the party they intend to vote for actually will do in office.

I'm not quite sure why you see the Liberals as a bad thing though. Frankly, their policies offer substantively more than just words.

The nation is at a critical point in history economically speaking, and honestly, name any Labor government in history that is credited as being an economic success in the long term.

fish.01

Economic policy is a matter of degrees these days with the Howard Liberal National govt massively expanding govt welfare and building nothing, the old norms are under threat.

We all know the greens won't get to implement those policies. Sure, in the upper house, they may get a few amendments to greenify a policy but it will be amendments to Labor or Liberal National policy, not green policy. Blocking of policy can't get any worse than it already is under the Coalition. And we also know the the exercise of power will drag some of their ideas more mainstream.

My objection to the Liberal Party is that they no longer are one. They seem to be morphing into the current American republican fox fundamentalist party.

The far right faction under Tony Abbott is in control and I find a lot of their idealogical positions immoral and reckless. Unlike the greens they will be in a position to implement them.

Just as the Labor party harbours some far left fools they need to keep in check, the Liberal National party harbours some racists and religious nutters who are kept in check when decent moderate Liberals are in control but who get a lot more influence under the far right.

They also have the limited and lightweight economic credentials (Abbott/Hockey) vs Swan who has just guided us through the GFC with independent world bodies scoring it highly positively.

At the present time I find a vote for the Greens in the lower house a far more supportable decision than a vote for the Liberal Nationals.

Deancm_MKII

Should be called the watermelon party.

Deancm_MKII

You mean it will help a far left Labor stop the centre right Liberals getting in.

Another term of Labor will be disastrous for Australia. Especially in these uncertain economic times.

Deancm_MKII

Bang on!