Beware the politician who likes to claim moral superiority above other politicians. They will likely be proven to be a hypocrite. For today’s prize winner, meet Bob Brown.
Brown likes to pretend that his party, the Greens, represent some form of new politics. They claim to stand on principle. In reality, they stand for themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that, but don’t try to con voters otherwise.
Like the Christian crusader who gets outed visiting brothels, the holier than thou political change agent who strikes the same old political deals deserves our scorn.
Bob Brown’s preference deal with Labor is particularly worthy of such scorn on two fronts: what he’s been saying and what Labor’s been doing.
For months now Brown has been saying that voters should make up their own minds about preferences. He has railed against old fashioned preference deals.
“We have a right to vote for who we want in the ballot box in the privacy of the ballot box and direct our preferences where we want,’’ he has said in numerous ways on numerous occasions. He’s still saying it, even after announcing the deal, stretching credulity by pretending the deal was struck without his imprimatur.
And yes, Brown is right. It is up to every voter to, ultimately, direct preferences according to their own wishes. But he and every other political operative know that how-to-vote cards are distributed because a large body of people follow them, largely out of a desire not to get anything wrong with their vote. The party does, in effect, allocate preferences for these voters.
In his railing against preference deals Brown even went so far as to tell the National Press Club last Wednesday that the Greens were “not a preference machine”.
Yet, within a week of these comments, the Greens non-preference machine has remarkably done the same thing it did at every other recent election: announce a preference deal with Labor.
This deal even seems to have been struck in record time, well before candidate nominations even close. Not bad for a non-machine!
There is an alternative way, pioneered by the previous balance of power party, the Democrats. For the better part of two decades the Democrats successfully got Senate candidates elected around Australia without resorting to such deals. They presented a split ticket, advising voters how to vote Democrat with options to preference either Labor or Liberal, leaving the choice totally up to the voter.
Bob Brown’s rhetoric made it sound like the Greens were about to have faith in the strength of their own vote and take the principled approach of the Democrats of yesteryear. Alas, no. The Greens still want the Labor Party to prop them up and they’re happy to jump into bed with Labor in return.
What makes this deal even worse this time is that the Greens have clearly given no consideration to what Labor has done on environmental issues over the last three years, and certainly no consideration to what they plan to do for the next three. Brown has even acknowledged the deal was done in a “policy free way”.
But are insulation businesses or home sustainability assessors better equipped to deliver energy efficiency after Labor’s disastrous home insulation and Green Loans programs? Do solar installers enjoy any business certainty after the three year rollercoaster ride of axed solar programs, changing rules and cost blowouts?
Have community environment groups relished the smaller budgets under Labor’s Caring for our Country program compared to the Natural Heritage Trust of the previous Coalition government? Have any whales been saved or is the International Whaling Commission more functional after three years of Labor’s overblown rhetoric with no follow through?
Has it helped the Murray Darling that Labor has massively underspent and under-delivered on budgeted water saving infrastructure throughout its term? And does Labor even have a climate change policy, let alone one to match the Coalition commitment to purchase abatement, regenerate our soils and support a massive expansion of solar and renewables?
The answer to all of these questions is an emphatic no. But it seems that Labor’s track record on the environment or their failure to have released any policies for the future is no barrier to a Greens preference deal with them.
Not about policy. Not about principle. This preference agreement is simply a political deal that betrays both what Bob Brown has said and what he claims to believe in.
Do the Greens represent a new approach to politics? No way. But have they struck new heights for hypocrisy? You bet.
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