The Prime Minister wants you to believe that when it comes to the Greens, he will not deal with them, he is not party to any preferential agreement made with them and voters are free to make their own decisions on the minor part. It’s not your business.
When it comes to the Greens’ most controversial policies, Anthony Albanese sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil.
Except, of course, it does.
A major party leader who claims he has nothing to do with a minor party making deals with his political party ahead of the federal election is promoting a very disingenuous scam.
Even more so when the Labor Party needs the support of the Greens to pass the legislation in parliament. The Greens are the largest minor party in the Senate. When legislation is negotiated, Anthony Albanese’s chief of staff periodically calls the phone to find out which way the Greens plan to vote.
In an interview last week, the Prime Minister was asked whether Labor should refuse to accept the Greens’ preferences, given some of the controversial positions the minor party has taken on issues such as Palestine.
Albo pulled out of his bag of weasel words when answering the question.
He stated that “I do not accept preferences” from the Greens. He said any preference deal “will be done by the organizational wing” of the Labor Party, not him.
But wait, isn’t Albo the leader of the Labor Party? Is he seriously claiming that the agreements signed with the Greens to exchange preferences have nothing to do with him?
When it comes to the Greens’ most controversial policies, Anthony Albanese sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil.
That was not an acceptable excuse for Albo when John Howard was Prime Minister and the Liberal Party was seeking preference swaps with One Nation (before the then Prime Minister ruled it out).
At the time, Albo was one of Howard’s strongest critics, demanding that the then prime minister rule out deals with extremely minor parties such as One Nation. Albo even called One Nation “abhorrent.”
Albo is happy to demonize the Greens as extremists when he appears before the media, but he is equally happy to sit idly by while his organizational operatives make deals with the minor party ahead of the upcoming elections.
All the while claiming it has nothing to do with him. Pull the other one.
While I am certainly willing to believe that Albo lacks the leadership skills necessary to order his agents to refuse to deal with the Greens, I will not accept that he is incapable of issuing such a directive if he wanted to.
The leaders of political parties make the decisions, if they have the courage to do so. Especially in government when said leader is also the Prime Minister.
That carries additional authority.
The fact is that Labor has made preferential deals with the Greens for decades: getting the minority party’s preferences in the lower house electorates in exchange for directing Labor’s preferences its way in the Senate.
It’s a win-win relationship… only Albo wants to pretend it has nothing to do with him.
Greens leader Adam Bandt and his wife Claudia Perkins at a previous winter ball
Without such deals, the Greens would be unlikely to win as many Senate seats as they do, reducing the minority party’s influence over policymaking.
So remember this the next time you hear Labor MPs complain about the influence of the Greens.
They could close it by not helping them win Senate seats thanks to Labour’s preference deals, but they won’t because in exchange for those preferences Labor gets all the important Green preferences in key lower house marginal seats it needs. victory against the Liberal Party.
Labor only wins government thanks to these agreements.
That’s Labour’s deal with the devil, so to speak. It’s also simply the nature of how politics works in a preferential voting system like Australia’s.
I just wish the Prime Minister wouldn’t treat us like fools by claiming that the entire process and decision-making behind it has nothing to do with him.
It is obfuscation of the most egregious kind.