It’s election day in Canada today. The following press release from the Green Party of Canada hit my inbox overnight on Friday. The principles basically hold true elsewhere, including Australia:

1. I want to feel good about my vote. I want to vote for someone, not against someone.

2. The Green Party has the best platform. The Green Party platform has earned positive reviews in the media, has done well under analysis by non-partisan organizations.
3. My great grandchildren will be proud of me. I want them to have a sustainable future, a green economy, and better democracy.
4. I want my vote to have an impact on the legislative agenda of the next parliament. MPs will spend the next session trying to look good for the next election, so they will be looking at who they lost votes to. Vote Green and Green priorities will set the agenda.
5. People are saying good things about the Green Party.
6. I am nobody’s fool. I refuse to let Martin, Harper, Layton or Duceppe think he can scare me into “strategically” voting for him just for not being the worst among them.
7. Green Parties around the world get elected, govern countries, and make the world a better place.
8. Whoever I vote for will get $ 1.75 in public funding, per vote, per year. I feel good about the Green Party putting it to good use defending my values.
9. I am socially progressive, fiscally responsible, and committed to environmental sustainability - just like the Green Party.
10. One hundred and thirty nine years of Liberal and Conservative governments. Albert Einstein said it best: “The significant problems of our time are not going to be solved by the same level of thinking that got us into them.”

I should disclose at this point that I have been a member of the Greens since last October, the first time I have ever actually been a member of a political party. But I’ll explain more about that in a future post.

I was prepared to give Channel 9 in Sydney the TV cockup of the year award for showing a pre-recording of Saturday’s lotto draw in place of Monday’s live lotto draw by mistake a few weeks ago, but I can’t help thinking Channel 4 in the UK has gone one-up on them.

On Thursday night, Channel 4 showed a Green Party election broadcast. The subtitles, however, were of the election broadcast for the rather right-wing UK Independent Party.

Friday’s Guardian picks up the story.

Some classic home-town political commentary from former Sydney Morning Herald columnist and former independent Leichhardt councillor Padraic McGuinness in November’s Balmain/Rozelle edition of the Village Voice (no, not that Village Voice):

Greens ideology flexible on pole position.

The Australian Electoral Commission’s excellent Virtual Tally Room website has a breakdown of the voting figures for Saturday’s election, not just electorate by electorate, but polling booth by polling booth. I’m not going through them all - there’s several thousand across the country - but I’ve gone searching for some interesting demographics in my electorate of Grayndler and surrounds. A good benchmark to pursue is the level of the Greens’ vote. Grayndler and Sydney, covering the suburbs to the immediate south and south-west of the inner city, have historically been two of the left-wing heartlands of Australia.

In 2001 the Greens received 569,075 primary votes nationwide in the House of Representatives (4.96%). Bob Brown was hopeful of topping the million this year, but with postal and absentee votes still to be counted, they currently have 690,550 (6.94%) this time. Belford Parrot and other galahs have pounced on this as some sort of failure, but the Greens have, in fact, outpolled the National Party (580,990 - 5.84%), which is a milestone that I haven’t seen any commentators point out as yet.

Family First, incidentally, have 197,945 (1.99%) nationally, while the Democrats (116,651 - 1.17%) and One Nation (114,074 - 1.15%) are both sliding into irrelevance. However, as I’ve already pointed out, One Nation’s voters have shifted across to the Liberal Party column. All these figures are updated regularly on this page on the AEC website.

State by state, the Greens are currently have 7.98% of the lower house primary vote in NSW, 7.30% in Western Australia, 7.16% in Victoria, 5.24% in South Australia, 4.89% in Queensland and 9.34% in Tasmania; also 10.39% in the ACT and 6.07% in the Northern Territory. Of course, none of this has translated into winning a seat, but has for the most part helped Labor to hang on in some tight contests. Of course, in the past, these Greens voters would most likely have actually voted for the ALP. That’s a story in itself.

Fourteen of the fifty seats in New South Wales saw a Greens vote of ten per cent or more. Three cleared twenty per cent - Cunningham (Michael Organ, 20.23%), Grayndler (Philip Myers, 20.57%) and Sydney (Jenny Leong, 21.56%). In 2002 Organ had won Cunningham in a by-election with 23.83% of the primary vote to Labor’s 38.13% with the Liberals not fielding a candidate.

Zooming in on Grayndler, and to the booth where I voted, Stanmore Public School. Here, Anthony Albanese polled less than his electorate-wide average, getting 48.62% of the primary vote. Myers got 26.97%, and Stephanie Kokkolis of the Liberal Party 20.61%.

I won’t go through all 44 booths in Grayndler, but it appears that Kokkolis’ vote was strongest around Ashfield, on the western extremity of the electorate, and around Lilyfield, both areas where she has appeared to surpass 30% of the vote. At Ashfield North she made it past 33.

Albanese’s vote was strongest in and around Marrickville, where his electoral office is located. At both Marrickville Town Hall and Marrickville Public School he polled better than 61%. At the Marrickville Uniting Church his vote reached 66%.

For the Greens, things get interesting as we head for the north-east corner of Grayndler. Enmore, 31.95%. Camperdown South, 31.97%. But it’s at the Newtown North polling booth, at the Newtown Uniting Church on King Street, where we see what is probably the biggest Greens turnout in the country - 40.23%. Poor old Steph barely made it into double figures.

The Newtown North booth was also used for the Sydney electorate, being on the border between Sydney and Grayndler. Sydney voters for the Greens registered 36.71% of the vote at that booth.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise that the Greens are so strong around Newtown, especially as they rode heavily on the same-sex marriage issue. You’ve also got Sydney University just up the road. The performance I find really interesting in this election is that of the Socialist Alliance. For all their posters on telegraph poles and walls, not just at election time but throughout, they struggle to get 1 to 2 per cent in some of the leftiest parts of the country. They’re just not connecting, are they?

Latest on other election fronts: final senate outcomes still up in the air until absentee, postal and below-the-line votes are sorted out. Best case scenario is that the Libs and Nats finish with 38, and that Steve Fielding of Family First in Victoria either misses out, or turns out to be another Brian Harradine (yes it’s not much of a best case scenario, is it?). John Faulkner looks like stepping down as leader of the ALP in the senate, and that would be a shame as he is one of the party’s best performers in parliament.

And John Howard is still telling porkies: “I won’t ride roughshod over the senate”, “I will respect the wishes of the people”, and so on and on.

I’ll finish with a word or two from JWH’s mate:

Australia had an election, as well. And I was honored to call my friend, John Howard, the Prime Minister, and congratulate him on a great victory.

- GW Bush, “Victory 2004″ Rally, Chanhassen, Mo., 9.10.04

As an aside, neither Howard nor the White House are yet to acknowledge Wangari Maathai for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Sore loser, George?

Last night I was at Petersham Town Hall for a “Meet The Candidates” forum. Organised by the Marrickville Council for the first time, the five candidates for Grayndler were invited to put their cases to the public and answer questions from the floor.

Sitting member Anthony Albanese (ALP), Philip Myers of The Greens and Sue Johnson (Socialist Alliance) were present. Jen Harrison of the Democrats and Stephanie Kokkolis of the Liberal Party didn’t attend. Marrickville mayor Morris Hanna (Independent) chaired the forum. About a hundred people were present, mostly middle-aged. The non-appearance of the Liberal Party gave the forum a decidedly left-wing skew, but in this part of the world that reflects the demographics. Not being a regular at political meetings I only recognised a handful of people in the audience, the ABC’s Antony Green being one of them.

Each of the candidates gave opening addresses to the forum (in order, Albanese, Johnson and Myers) before questions, or in some cases, rambling rants, were taken from the floor. Closing addresses were given before the meeting closed after two and a quarter hours at 9.15pm.

Albanese, the rough-and-tumble Labor careerist was, in my view, the best performer on display. A seasoned politician and a member of the left-wing of the most right-wing of the parties on display last night, he copped a lot of flak from the floor over ALP policies, especially their stance on same-sex marriage and Senate preferencing. Although not making it explicit, it was clear that there were occasions when he was defending a party line that he personally opposed. In many ways he resembles a young Arthur Calwell, though he’d probably prefer the parallel with one of his predecessors as member for Grayndler, the great Fred (”Give us this day our Daly Fred”) Daly.

Sue Johnson is another who impressed personally. A frequent candidate for local, state and federal elections and a union delegate, she appears comfortable with the fact that she will get one or two percent of the vote every time. She spoke of the Socialist Alliance’s grassroots activism, especially their campaigns against mandatory detention and the war in Iraq. She accepts the prospect of a Latham Labor government as a better alternative than Howard, but believes that voting for her party will help put pressure on the ALP to deliver the type of government that the voters want.

Myers had the most support from the audience at the start of the evening, and delivered his prepared opening address with a deep theatrical baritone that belied his tall, thin appearance. He was less convincing when it came to question time, appearing unconvincing and “me-tooish” about some policies. He felt the pressure most in discussions of the abolition of ATSIC and of the location for a second Sydney airport.

Going through some of the issues discussed during the evening:

The Greens and Socialist Alliance both oppose tax cuts, indicating a preference to using the surplus to improve public services.

Labor supports consideration of a second Sydney airport in the vicinity of Wilton in the Southern Highlands. The Greens want Mascot airport closed, but have no preference for a location for a new airport - a stance ridiculed by Albanese. “I guess you could parachute into Sydney without an airport, but how would you fly out?” As was disclosed later in the evening, Wilton falls in the electorate of Cunningham, currently held by the only Greens member of the lower house, Michael Organ. Myers: “Well naturally Michael Organ will oppose an airport in his own electorate.” The acronym NIMBY featured in Albanese’s response. Socialist Alliance also wants a second airport but does not advocate a location. A gentleman from the floor asked about the impact of the Airbus 380 on facilities at Sydney Airport. None of the candidates were aware of the capabilites of the A380 (big enough to seat up to 1000 passengers). All oppose further expansion at Mascot.

Free tertiary education, introduced by Whitlam and withdrawn by Hawke. Greens and SA both advocate its return, Albanese promised the reversal of the HECS increase, the provision of extra University places, and opposing the “privatisation” of TAFE. He avoided addressing the matter of free education.

I heard someone in the audience say “it would be interesting to know if Albanese was the beneficiary of free tertiary education”. We didn’t find out. Born in 1963, I reckon he was…

Free public health insurance. The Greens and Socialist Alliance say yes. For Labor it’s not so simple, but they will, as Albanese says, “re-establish the importance of Medicare”.

Indigenous sovereignty and full compensation for past injustices. While skirting the question, Albanese said “white folk have a lot to answer for”, that Labor will “endeavour to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues”, and re-stated the importance of Paul Keating’s 1992 Redfern Park speech.

All three supported an official apology to Aborigines. Greens and Socialist Alliance opposed the abolition of ATSIC without the establishment of an alternative. Linda Burney, state member for Canterbury and the only Aboriginal in NSW parliament, spoke emotionally from the floor about the failure of ATSIC. Albanese said that its abolition was supported by most of the indigenous community. Burney also spoke in passing of her concern that Aden Ridgeway would lose his senate seat at the election - a prospect that appears almost certain, given the way preferences between the minor parties are expected to flow.

On the question of preferences, Albanese copped flak over the ALP’s decision to give one-third of its preferences to Fred Nile ahead of The Greens. Albo, in a “it’s nothing to do with me” fashion, said that he is second preferencing The Greens in Grayndler and putting the Liberals last.

I had a look at the very complicated Senate Group Voting Ticket booklet on the AEC website this morning. For two-third of their preferences, the ALP have the Greens at 12-17, and the Christian Democrats at 33-37. For the remaining third, it’s weirder. The lower-placed Greens on the ticket are 44-48, then 49-50 for the two minor Democrats, 51 Fred Nile, 52 John Kaye (Greens #1), 53 Aden Ridgeway (Democrats #1), rest of the Christian Democrats 54-57. It’s all hypothetical in my opinion. Keep your eye on Liberals for Forests, who the ALP have at 8 and 9 and are high on the preference lists of most parties.

Albo couldn’t help himself in having a go at The Greens over preferences, saying that Kerry Nettle was elected to the Senate in 2001 “on One Nation preferences”.

Preservation of Tasmanian old-growth forests, a central cause celebre of the Greens, and supported by the Socialist Alliance. Albanese said “watch the campaign launch on Sky Channel at 12.oo tomorrow” (it’s actually on Sky News at 1) and said, as he did several times through the evening, that only major parties in government can make genuine change. Make of that what you will.

On the question of mandatory detention, The Greens support a maximum of fourteen days in hostels while applications are being processed. Albanese stood by his personal record as a founding member of “Labor for Refugees” and said that a Labor government would process “90 per cent of refugee applications within 90 days”.

One of the more entertaining moments of the evening came later on when a gentleman asked what Labor would do about the political prison being built on Easter Island. Albanese: “I think you mean Christmas Island, and it’s a refugee processing centre”, being built there because it is close to Indonesia, closer in fact than to Australia. “No it’s not” said gentleman from the floor. “Yes it is” said Albanese.

The man was right, of course. Easter Island is nowhere near Indonesia…

Policies for assistance to people with disabilities. Labor and The Greens have some, Democrats, Liberals and Socialist Alliance have none. Sue Johnson said that she would look into that and rectify the SA’s disability policy.

Same-sex marriage. The battleground we were all waiting for last night. Greens and Socialist Alliance are in favour of legalising same-sex marriage. (Myers, although it was not mentioned last night, is openly gay - this was stated in a Greens press release a couple of weeks ago.) Albanese said that Labor would give gay/lesbian/bi/trans/intersexual couples all the same rights as heterosexual defacto couples. That is, everything, except legal marriage.

Albanese spoke of how he had tried to get a bill into Parliament giving same-sex couples equal superannuation rights. He said that Labor will conduct an audit of all Commonwealth legislation once elected, to eliminate all discriminatory provisions. He said that not one person had approached him about legalising same-sex marriage before the issue came up in parliament.

After Sue Johnson pointed out that Mark Latham had been critical of the ABC for depicting a lesbian couple on Play School, Albanese said that Latham had testified in court as a character witness for John Marsden. I think this was meant to demonstrate that Latham is not a homophobe.

Anthony Albanese defending Mark Latham. Amazing. That’s politics for you.

Quote of the day from AA: “I don’t know any gay or lesbian couples who want to get married.”

Overseas aid. All agreed that Australia’s contribution, as one of the world’s richest countries, was pitiful. Labor pledges to raise the level of foreign aid to the international benchmark of 0.7% of GDP. Philip Myers was unaware of the benchmark, when told what it was said “Yes we’ll give 0.7% of GDP too.”

Industrial relations. Greens and SA support repeal of secondary boycott provisions. Albanese discussed IR policy without answering the question.

Albanese stressed the importance of engagement with Asia, as begun by Paul Keating, and ridiculed Howard/Downer’s “pre-emptive” strike proclamations. He invited everyone to read page three of this week’s “Inner-Western Courier”, which features a visit to the electorate by shadow foreign minister and Mandarin-proficient Kevin Rudd.

As the Labor Party bovver boys in their luminous orange shirts and baseball caps became more vocal and obnoxious, the highlight of the evening above all else came when Greens MLC and former Marrickville deputy mayor Sylvia Hale took the microphone to ask Albanese a question. We never did get to hear the question. After five minutes of preamble which seemed to have more to do with State ALP matters, Hale uttered the words “Carmel Tebbutt”. Albanese sprang up, outraged, and said “I will answer questions about federal politics but I will not answer questions about my family”. This is despite the fact that Ms Tebbutt, AKA Mrs Albanese, is a member of the State upper house and a minister in Bob Carr’s state government.

Before Hale could resume her soapbox, Mayor Hanna ruled her out of order for talking about state politics and taking too long to ask a question, and asked for the next person to take the microphone. Morris Hanna applying the gag to Sylvia Hale. I bet he would have loved to have done that when they were on Marrickville Council together.

In closing statements, Johnson acknowledged that a vote for the Socialist Alliance would filter to The Greens and then to the ALP, and that a Latham Labor government would be better than the Howard government. But a vote for the SA would send a message to the Labor Party about the style of government the voters want.

Albanese spoke of how “only the major parties can form government”. Absurdly, he went on to invoke the name of Ralph Nader, repeating the fallacy that votes for Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 US Presidential election. Apart from the totally different electoral system in the US (ie, no preferences), it was the millions of people who could have voted, but didn’t, who could have given Gore the presidency.

For all that was said and done through the evening, I still score Anthony Albanese as the candidate I will be voting for on October 9. Though I have misgivings about the Australian Labor Party which I have supported in every federal election since 1977, I believe that Albanese as an individual is a very good politician and shadow minister, and one of the more progressive members of the parliamentary ALP. I believe he would make a good deputy Prime Minister some day.

There were a few things not covered. No one talked about just when the troops should come home from Iraq, no one mentioned Israel and Palestine, or Darfur, or Nauru. No one mentioned childcare, or mature age employment services (and I blame myself for not getting into the long queue and asking about that one). But a worthwhile evening, and full credit to Marrickville Council for putting it on. But, oh for a right-wing voice or two to provide some comic relief…