Greens announce preferences for Monaro
The Greens in Monaro have announced their preference decision for the 24 March 2007 State Election. They will be running an ‘open ticket’, encouraging people to Vote 1 Green on the ballot paper, and then to number the rest of the candidates in the order of their choice.
Catherine Moore, Greens candidate for Monaro, said “Greens from the two local groups in Monaro met in January and felt that it was not possible for us to recommend giving a second preference to any party in this election”.
“The State Government’s indiscriminate support for developers, its failures in the areas of transport, health and education, and the fact that the Eden chipmill has just “celebrated” an annual turnover of a million tonnes of native forest chips make it very difficult for Greens to support the ALP. And the Debnam Opposition’s agenda, together with the Liberal Party’s anti-democratic, anti-worker, anti-environment agenda as demonstrated on a daily basis by the policies of the Howard government make it impossible for us to support the Coalition,” she said.
“By voting 1 for The Greens and then the party or candidate of their choice, people have a double vote. If the Greens are excluded from the count, the full value of the voter’s number 1 vote for The Greens is passed on to which ever remaining candidates or party the voter numbers next on their ballot paper”, she said.
“This means people can still vote for a major party, but are sending them a strong message that they are not happy with their policies. However, if the voter would rather not vote for a major party at all, they can do this too, because in NSW, the system is ‘optional preferential,’ allowing voters to number as many or as few squares on the ballot paper as they like.“
The Greens in Monaro have agreed that this decision is final, with no negotiation possible, and will use the campaign period to continue to promote Greens policies, work on regional community issues and provide education to voters about the electoral system.
“An important part of making this decision is to remind voters of the power they hold to do whatever they want with their vote”, Catherine said.
“And a reminder to all those who may not yet have registered to vote – an enrolment form and reply paid envelope is available from your local post office. The form will enrol you for State, Federal and Council elections. If you are not currently enrolled, to be eligible to vote in the March election, you must enrol by 6pm on the day of the issue of the writ (the document issued by the Governor ordering the election of a member or members of parliament).
“The Greens NSW have just launched the campaign website ( www.nsw.greens.org.au ), and next week The Greens in Monaro will be launching our new website for campaign and community issues. Amongst other things, it will contain more detail about the voting system.”
February 26th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Your decision looks very justified to me.
I have written a summary story re forests situation here:
http://sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog?topic_id=1083881
called
‘Sunday, 25 February 2007
ALP’s minister Debus plays green voters for suckers with captured journo?’
What most people don’t quite realise is that Carr’s cynical interpretation (read unravelling) of the ‘peace deal’ in 1994 with the Green Party’s Ian Cohen now MLC, and select green groups, notably excluding the biggest activist group (The Wilderness Society) by entrenching woodchipping for 20 years (with ‘resource security’) from 1998 onwards, ….. was a template for ALP/Coalition resource security logging and chipping nationally.
The national forest campaign against woodchipping unravelled from NSW first in my view starting in 1994-5 with the sidelining of TWS national reform agenda. It’s now 70 MILLION TONNES of natural forest chipped in the last 10 years. That’s alot of biodiversity down the drain and a hell of lot of CO2 emissions as well.
I hope we get a minority government, because it will be the only way to get some discipline on these vandals and liars in the major parties representing vested interests, not the public interest.