The Greens are a frustrating party to back.
The Liberal & Labor parties both truly dominate Australian politics, and despite labels are both very much right wing parties. The Greens have traditionally been the largest left-wing establishment in Australia, and after the recent decimation of the Australian Democrats, the Greens have become the alternative party of choice almost through necessity.
Today the Victorian Greens announced the appointment of activist and social commenteur Clive Hamilton as candidate for Higgins, to contest the seat recently resigned by Peter Costello. The seat has traditionally been a conservative hotbed so Hamilton may indeed poll well, but it’s a bold move from the Greens considering his previous controversial views on Internet censorship. He introduces the very real possibility of fracturing the libertarian left vote from the generally more conservative green base nationally.
This may be accentuated by the recent surge of new political parties cropping up which cater to the same vote.
I’m not particularly familiar with the Australian Sex Party, but I am closely following the formation of the local Pirate Party which has recently gained quite a foothold in Sweden and Germany amongst other countries. The Australian leg is currently going through the process of setting up officially, and is based on the premise of patent & copyright reform amongst other things.
I’m not sure if either party are contesting for Higgins and I suspect the Pirate Party might not even be set up in time, but I don’t anticipate that this is the place we’ll see the most interest in either. Both the Pirate Party & Australian Sex Party policies include strong opposition to the government’s censorship plan, so it will be especially interesting to see whether this new imbalance in the Greens camp will play out nationally at the next election.
It remains to be seen how Australia polls, and whether this development will be a boon or a boondoggle for the Greens nationally but other than that I think it’s a politically positive if controversial choice of candidate for that particular seat.
(The graphic shows location of Pirate Parties globally, courtesy of the Wikipedia PPI article.)
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