[International Socialist Organisation]
Richard Di Natale is right that the Greens' IR policy is vastly superior to Labor's. They continue to present a real political alternative to Rudd's "me-tooism" in the election campaign. That's why Socialist Worker encourages our readers to vote 1 Green and 2 Labor.
A big vote for the Greens will send a message to Labor that we won't accept a continuation of the Howard government's policies.
But there is no getting around the fact that the resurgence of Labor's fortunes under Kevin Rudd makes it much harder to increase the Green vote than in previous elections.
Now that Labor is "electable" again, many of the people who voted Green in 2001 and 2004 will be strongly inclined to vote Labor this time.
At the same time, Kevin Rudd's campaign is hardly inspirational. This creates an audience for the Greens among those working people who want to vote against Howard but who do not trust Labor.
But it is a very tough audience to win over. Doing so will require a shift in the Greens' strategic thinking.
Campaign focus
For a start, we need a Greens campaign that focuses on WorkChoices. Of course, climate change is also a massive issue that we need to campaign around. But the media will try to stereotype the Greens around this "single issue", while Labor will try to convince voters that its policies can tackle global warming.
Campaigning hard around WorkChoices and the need, as Richard Di Natale argues, to abolish it root and branch can help break out of this media-imposed straitjacket.
Secondly, the Greens should not get drawn into a tit-for-tat, seat-by-seat preference war with Labor. We need to see the Greens preferencing Labor in every seat, whether safe or marginal.
Let's be clear-the fact that Labor is even considering a preference deal with Family First, or any other crackpot rightwing party, is a disgrace and a sign of the party's degeneration.
But Green preferences should be about increasing the Green vote, not punishing Labor's betrayals. Regardless of the intention, open-tickets send the message that the Greens are ambivalent about who they want to win the election.
In this context, Richard Di Natale's argument that voters will preference according to their own values is a red herring. Most convinced Greens voters will preference Labor anyway.
The bigger concern is the hundreds of thousands of working people who are flocking back to Labor. The Greens must side with this anti-Howard mood, while arguing that we don't have to accept Labor's rightwing policies. The approach should be something like, "Dump Howard but send a message to Labor".
At first glance, open-tickets seem like an acceptable response to Labor's unprincipled tricks. But it is a dangerous strategy that threatens to shrink the Green vote and undermines our chances of building a leftwing alternative to the Labor Party after the election.
