Gut-full.

I think I may have just had a gut-full.

I’m growing incredibly tired of Labor’s attacks on the Greens.

Firstly it was Morris Iemma’s slamming their drugs policy. Saying they are out of touch, it will never happen, "it is just an absurd and ridiculous and disgusting policy."

*sigh* Thanks. Thanks heaps for that, I wasn’t aware – when Family First, the Liberals, Exclusive Brethren, and random right wing columnists, bloggers and others made the same judgement, I just wasn’t paying attention.

It’s not absurd, ridiculous or disgusting. It’s logical, proven effective (unlike the current strategy, which doesn’t appear to be working), and recommended by drug NGO’s. I doubt Iemma believes the policy is so repulsive either, he is simply exploiting a double-whammy by scoring points with the average-Joe as well as tainting the Greens with the extremist brush.

Harm to the Greens helps the Labor party, but it doesn’t help the left-wing cause. Nor does it raise the ALP up the moral ladder. What are the NSW Greens doing with their preferences in response to Iemma’s attack? Still giving them to the ALP of course. The Greens will once again help elect the same party that molested them.

Paul Austin hits the mark in today’s Age.

The emergence of the Greens as serious players on the Victorian political stage… has exploded the myth that Labor and the leftist minor party are somehow de facto partners against the conservative forces. In fact, the Greens are an electoral threat to Labor in its heartland.

Bracks relished the face-to-face combat with the Greens during the campaign, rejoiced in his success in putting down the Greens challenge in the lower house, and is on a mission to ensure the Greens never do as well again at a Victorian election. The tactic now is the same as it was during the campaign: to link the Greens hierarchy — the strategists and now the MPs — with the Liberals, when the average Greens rank-and-file member regards the Liberals as beyond the pale.

Labor's campaign manager… reckons he knows why the Greens' support fell away in he last days of the campaign. He has told cabinet and caucus members it was because of Labor's loud assertions that the Greens had done a secret preferences deal with the Liberals.

Labor is quite proud of its slander.

Labor strategists believe it is electoral poison for the Greens to be seen to be in bed with the Liberals. That's why the Government is now talking up the Greens' voting record in the upper house. In the 30 or so split votes since November 25, the Greens have never sided with Labor. Not once. They have, almost without exception, voted with the Liberals.

The Greens haven’t sided with Labor, and with good reason. They voted for more government transparency – a left position. Liberals want it because it will help their numbers (they are against such things when in power, so it’s a shift of position). Labor voted against it because it will expose their shame. Greens voted for it because IT WAS THEIR ELECTION PROMISE TO DO SO. The Greens aren’t siding with the Liberals, the Liberals are siding with the Greens.

The Greens and their supporters want things changed and fixed. It’s not easy, it’s frustrating at every turn trying to be green/left. Infuriating even. Case in point - a fellow-traveller today got gang-mocked during his lunch break by apolitical peers when discussing global warming – for suggesting it was even remotely a concern. Right-wing assaults are expected, the inability for the average-Joe to read all party policy and judge for themselves is wearisome, but ALP (or Democrat) assaults to gain popular votes in spite of progressive progress are an absolute disgrace.

The decision to put Labor second is not automatic, it is pained over. This crap will only make that decision a little easier.