Labor’s faux friendship with the Greens.

By Lyle Dunne

Am I the only one who thinks the much-publicised recent Labor-Greens dust-up carried a faint whiff of rodent?

OK, there are many reasons why the ALP should attack the Greens, especially at this point – but at least as many why they should pretend to.

Admittedly the NSW Right never had any love for the Greens.

And now that Labor is on the nose around the country, there’s a turf war over the inner-city seats that are almost their last stronghold, because as voters desert the ALP, some of them will move to the Greens, who are still seen by many voters as somehow outside the sordid world of party politics.

Sometimes it seems the logic goes like this:

• Labor has lied once too often -

• Therefore I’m disillusioned with political parties -

• Therefore I’ll vote Green.

Slightly more rationally, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good: pawnbrokers do well in economic crises, undertakers in gang wars — and the Greens will undoubtedly benefit from the current major-party impasse on immigration.

However I couldn’t help thinking that the timing looked a bit opportunistic. Not so much a case of the ALP kicking a man while he’s down – more a case of kicking him when they’re down.

As I reflected a bit further however, a clearer picture emerged: perhaps it’s not so much the fight that’s faux, as the friendship.

Undoubtedly there are some in the ALP – principally on the Left — who feel the Greens are useful in policy terms. (I’m tempted to say “useful idiots”, but that Marxist term would presuppose the existence of a long-term ALP agenda.) The presence of the Greens has the effect of pulling Labor to the left, either through coalition agreements (however described) or, ironically enough, via competition. It’s been put to me that the ALP’s sudden enthusiasm for “gay marriage” is the result not of ideological conversion, but the fear of losing seats to the Coalition being supplanted by a fear of losing them to the Greens.

But in general, the modern ALP abhors almost everything about the Greens: their economic illiteracy, their unconcern with the consequences of policies, their incapacity to negotiate because they see issues in religious rather than political terms. If whaling, logging, plastic bags or the Marriage Act represent Intrinsic Evil (to use a theological analogy), then of course they can’t be subject to negotiation.  This is the opposite of the “Whatever It Takes” approach.

The Greens see issues in religious rather than political terms.  This is the opposite of Labor’s “Whatever it Takes” approach.

It’s as much a difference of structure and culture as of policies.

Nevertheless various ALP Governments, including the present federal  government, have found themselves in the position of having to rely on the support of the Greens, in coalition in practice, whether or not by name. In this situation, one doesn’t bag out one’s potential supporters – there’s always the theoretical risk that they’ll support the other side, or more realistically that they’ll revert to their standard pox-on-both-houses spoiling role.

On the face of it, this ought to be even more important in the lead-up to an election: you’d think the risk of criticising the Greens would be greater before they were locked in to an agreement, whatever one’s reservations about their capacity to understand and stick to agreements.

But of course this only applies if one thinks one has a chance of forming government after the election. If the election is solely about damage control, then possible post-election alliances are much less important than sending a message about having a clear program, Hallowed Labour Traditions, the Light on the Hill.

NSW Labor, deeply mired in opposition for the foreseeable future and desperately needing to rebuild its brand, clearly has nothing to gain from being associated with the Greens. In the medium to long term, neither does the Gillard government – but there’s still the question of keeping the Greens from jumping ship in the short term. So the asynchronicity between federal and state electoral cycles might be sufficient to explain why NSW Labor is attacking the Greens while the PM is keeping mum.

I have a different theory, however. The PM can’t be seen to criticise her (de facto) coalition partners, but her need to salvage some Labor credibility is no less desperate, and a great deal more urgent, than that of her NSW counterparts. So whether or not this was orchestrated in advance, Julia Gillard would be quite content to have her NSW colleagues say the things she can’t possibly say about the Greens, contrasting them with Labor’s Proud History of Upholding the Rights of Workers, Delivering Social Justice, Progressive Policies, etc etc.

A complicating factor, however – which one imagines must trouble Labor deeply – is that the Greens may in fact have more to gain than Labor from a public spat between them. Whatever reasons Labor voters may have for supporting the party, it’s fair to say that uncompromising commitment to policies and principles would not be high on the list. Labor is the party of pragmatism par excellence, and its supporters have surely come to expect this.

Greens supporters, however, are much more likely to cherish illusions about the purity of the party’s elected Members, and feel shocked that they have had to do deals with the ALP – however much those deals favour the Green policy agenda. Such voters are likely to be considerably reassured by recent NSW ALP comments: if the major parties are both criticising us, that’s surely evidence we’ve Kept Ourselves Pure!

Politics is of course the archetypal Zero Sum Game – at least in this land of sun, surf and compulsory voting. There’s no point in a move that makes you look good if it makes your opponent look even better. So the only way in which this would make sense would be if it were expected to improve both the ALP and Green votes at the expense of the Coalition – because after all, minimising the extent of the inevitable swing to the Coalition is the name of the game at this point.

Is the increase in the Green vote a worry for Labor anyway? Undoubtedly – but perhaps their strategists (as opposed to individual backbenchers) have made the calculation that in the House of Representatives, the risk of losing seats to the Greens is significantly less than that of losing still more to the Coalition.

There’s always the Senate, but faced with the risk of a lower-house wipeout of Queensland proportions, maybe they really aren’t too concerned about it: I’m sure the prospect of the Greens holding the balance of power is seen as inevitable, and in any case an opportunity to frustrate Abbott’s legislative agenda.

And I suspect the prospect of Abbott’s retaliating with a double dissolution is simply too far off to contemplate.