Election Update

Oh Labor, what happened man, you used to be cool.

On a deal with the Liberals:

NOTE: The Greens are running split tickets (allowing preferences to flow to Liberal or Labor) in about a quarter of lower house seats, the rest go to Labor. Liberals have also preferenced Greens ahead of Labor in a few inner-city seats. The Labor spin is that this is from a deal (which I checked, and it wasn't, it had a lot to do with Family First and David Risstrom however.)

LABOR: "The Greens have done a grubby deal with the Liberals that could see Ted Baillieu become premier." There was no deal - this is an assumption, and Ted is not going to become premier, this is a lie.

LABOR: "This means that a Greens-Liberal government in Victoria would back the Howard Government's extreme industrial relations laws." Also a lie, any Greens member that supported WorkChoices in any way wouldn't be in the party for long.

LABOR: "Greens had "sold out" working families and the environment." Deception, the effect of Greens split tickets on the Labor party will be less than negligible, and Victorian Labor has barely proven itself to be a friend of the worker, let alone the environment. The Vote Environment has you on par with the Liberals.

LABOR: "The Greens have exposed themselves as hypocrites by doing a deal with the Liberal Party which refused to sign the Kyoto protocol and promised to scrap the Victorian renewable energy target." They're giving preferences to the ALP, despite policies such as not even considering civil unions, (insert the usual array of non-left ALP policies and actions here - bay dredging, etc), and as for the renewable energy target, has Labor even legislated yet? How many times are they going to weaken it, like the recent one where the 10% was changed to somewhere around 8% (based on current output instead of future output)?

Liberals called the deal "a dishonest joke by the Labor Party"

Labor threatened to consider advertisements linking the Greens to Prime Minister John Howard's IR laws, with the following image used as an example:

In fact, the image is being used, and The Greens have called for the campaign to be withdrawn, as the image is "an infringement of the Greens trademark", and "calls for a written undertaking from the ALP by midday today that it would not use the Greens logo or any similar logo." Labor said "its legal advice was that there had been no breach of trademark and that it would push ahead with the ads".

Bracks: "I think it effectively means the Greens are prepared to accept the prospect of a Liberal government in Victoria which would have with it the support for the federal industrial relations scheme, which we have resisted," Mr Bracks said. "And they will be labelled for all time to come, for supporting the federal IR laws in this country."

The Greens Greg Barber said the Greens could do an advertisement of Steve Bracks carrying a gun because Labor had received preferences from the Shooters Party.

"Labor seem to be going ballistic about the idea that the voters should decide their own preferences," he said referring to the Greens' decisions not to direct preferences to any party in some Labor seats. "If they cared about Victorian workers they would bring back the IR powers from the Federal Government that Jeff Kennett handed over." As a union person, it's very relieving to know that this issue is still kept alive.

Bob Brown accused Victorian Labor of sour grapes, of "acting a bit precious". "Labor have unfortunately made it clear that they don't see preferences as an ethical business. They see it as a business of gaining advantage. Both major parties had misjudged the role the Greens would play in Victorian politics."

Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals are all fighting both each other, and The Greens. Bracks is suckling the milky teat of WorkChoices-backlash to the point of exploitation.

GREEN'S SLANDER COLLECTION:
According to The Age, "no candidates have attracted more flak in this campaign than the Greens". Wearing them like a badge of honour:

From Liberal:

• Luddites
• Wolves in sheep's clothing
• Victorians should be "terrified" of them
• have not been exposed or scrutinised by the other parties or the press (LOL)
• disguising revolutionary intentions in feel-good policies
• will begin with shutting down coal-generated electricity in the La Trobe Valley
• finish with the destruction of "the whole social and economic fabric" of the state (as laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Greens.)
• (a Liberal supporter was allegedly taking Greens pamphlets out of people's letterboxes and replacing them with Liberal ones, which is an offence and the AEC has called the police.)

From Nationals:

• their policies are irresponsible
• popularity is based on the "popularist ring" of their policies
• they don't care because they are never going to have the responsibility of implementing (their policies)
• Beware of the Greens voters and beware of those who do deals with them
• If you get into bed with them we all know what eventually happens (you get Green babies? Not sure...)
  

From Labor:
Un-authorised posters have been sighted in the CBD with the title "Greens and Liberals - together at last", depicting two people hugging, that claims the Greens preferenced One Nation in 2004 and will preference the Liberals in this election - both spurious lies.

An email sent from a Young Labor head and ALP staffer sent the following email:

Hi Comrades,

It looks like those scum the Greens have decided to preference the Libs in the outer east in exchange for preferences in the inner city. This is a comprehensive betrayal by those filthy self- righteous pricks, and it's important as many people as possible know it. Labor is now seriously in trouble in a dozen marginals, and everyone needs to work really hard over the next 8 days to help the campaign.

PS - today is International Round-House Kick a Green Day. Go for it.

Young Greens have reportedly been abused by Labor members who have received the email.