BBC: Greens growing force in Australia

[Guest guest]

> Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:17:30 -0500

> BBC: Greens growing

> force in Australia

>

> Greens growing force in Australia

>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3720268.stm

> By Phil Mercer BBC correspondent in Sydney

>

>

> Here's an Australian election teaser: What's hard

> and green on the

> outside, spongy on the inside with a brown nut in

> the middle?

> An avocado... or, to the party's critics, the

> Australian Greens, led

> by Tasmanian Senator Bob Brown.

>

> With the conservative government and Labor

> opposition neck and neck

> ahead of Saturday's election, opinion polls suggest

> the Greens could

> emerge as the country's third political force, which

> has worried its

> opponents.

>

> Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson said Senator

> Brown was a communist

> and warned Australians to be " very afraid " of his

> party, using more

> fruity imagery to describe the Greens. " They are

> watermelons, " Mr

> Anderson insisted. " Green on the outside and very,

> very, very red on

> the inside. "

>

> Mr Anderson and other sections of the conservative

> right are rattled

> because Bob Brown's party could prosper as a result

> of Australia's

> unusual voting system.

>

> A newspaper advert placed by a Christian group

> claimed that Greens'

> support for reducing the age of consent for

> homosexuals was good news

> for child abusers.

>

> And the party's policy of decriminalising drugs for

> personal use has

> been the focus of an election broadcast by the

> Family First party.

> " Heroin, ecstasy. The Greens want to legalise the

> whole lot. Don't

> risk the extreme Greens holding the balance of

> power. " Jenny Leong,

> a Greens candidate, told BBC News Online she was

> disappointed in her

> rivals. " It is upsetting, " she said as she

> campaigned in Sydney.

> " Sure, there's a need for people to have the freedom

> to believe what

> they believe, but it's unfair when you start getting

> ads saying the

> Greens are supporting paedophiles. "

>

>

> Key votes

> The Greens are attracting attention from pollsters

> too.

> Australia's electoral system in the lower house -

> the House of

> Representatives - could mean that the Greens have an

> important say in

> some marginal constituencies.

>

> The system is called preferential voting, and means

> if the

> front-running candidate gets less than 50% of the

> vote on the first

> count, votes for other candidates are redistributed.

> Minor parties

> often strike agreements with other parties - called

> preference deals -

> which mean votes for them can be given to a major

> party.

> In July, Senator Brown said the party would decide

> preferences

> electorate by electorate. However, on Wednesday Mr

> Brown said he would

> contact the 26 Green candidates who had chosen not

> to direct

> preferences to any party and tell them to hand them

> to Labor.

>

> Seats in the upper house of parliament are allocated

> differently - by

> proportional representation. Here too, the Greens

> could do well.

> They are hoping to end up with as many as nine out

> of 76 seats in the

> Senate - a significant increase. Tanya Plibersek,

> a Labor candidate

> in Sydney, believes the system gives small parties

> like the Greens too

> much influence in the Senate. " I think there is a

> danger that the

> whole of the democratic process can be held to

> ransom by a few

> people, " she told the BBC. " It's important to have

> diversity of views,

> but it does make me uncomfortable if minor parties

> have the balance of

> power, " she added.

>

>

> Serious alternative

> As the campaign draws to a close, the Greens'

> message has continued to

> attract interest among many voters.

>

> " I think that they're a great alternative to the two

> major parties, "

> one young Australian said.

>

> A fellow commuter, Sarah, a 25-year-old travel

> agent, agreed.

> " They've got my vote in the past, " she said. " Yeah,

> I'll go for the

> Greens. " Greens leader Bob Brown has brushed off

> criticism of his

> party.

>

> He told ABC radio that in the days of environmental

> demonstrations in

> Tasmania in the 1980s, threats of physical violence

> were common.

> " I was followed down the street at night by a man

> with an iron bar and

> we had threats of terrible things happening if we

> turned up at

> protests - and that's gone, " he said.

>