It is usually assumed the Liberal Party decision to preference Labor before the Greens prevented the Greens from winning up to four seats in the recent Victorian election. In Brunswick this was very definitely the case.
This election saw a reversal of previous Liberal preference activity which very clearly 'saved' Brunswick for Labor.
And becuase Labor had already decided it was more important to beat the Greens in the inner city than preserve their middle suburban seats, the Liberal's late decision to preference the Greens last completely wrong-footed the Labor machine, which suddenly found itself having invested heavily in seats it would now almost certainly hold, and not into the seats it eventually lost.
In a big way, the Labor Party was committing the same mistake for which the suburban voters punished the Labor government. That is, faced with an inner city threat more sharp in perception than reality, the Labor party poured money into the inner city and ignored the suburbs, where their lack of commitment to solving real problems cost the Labor party government.
First to Brunswick. This chart shows the first preference votes in Brunswick elections 1999 to 2010:
Obviously there are serious qualifications required in discerning meaning from this chart. For example, the electorate has changed size and there has always been a brace of independents and smaller parties running. But Blind Freddy can get the drift.
In practice crunch time comes after all the independents' and minor Parties' votes are distributed and the Liberal preferences come into play.
In 2006 before Liberal preferences were distributed Labor had 16,295 votes to the Greens' 10,823. The Liberals by then had 6170, and these went 4612 to the Greens and only 1558 to Labour. The Greens were never going to win that one.
In 2010 the story was different. Before the Liberal preferences were distributed this time Labor had 14,538 but the Greens had 14,556. That's right, the Greens were actually ahead by a mere 18 votes before the Liberal preferences were distributed. This time the Liberals had 7350 votes by the final round, and these went 2477 to the Greens but 4873 to Labor. In 2006, 25% of Liberal preferences went to Labor. In 2010, 66% of Liberal preferences went to Labor. While it is worth noting that 1141 of these Liberal votes had not originally been 1st preference Liberal votes, it is still clear that it was Liberal voters who delivered Brunswick to Labor.
The next issue is about money. The rumour currently doing the rounds in Brunswick is that Labor spent about $300,000 on the Brunswick campaign, and the Greens about $20,000. I have no idea of the exact amounts but it was clear that Labor was spending a seriously big bucket of dosh here during the campaign. It did them no good. It was, in fact, a big mistake. If the aim was to get Green voters to vote Labor it clearly failed, as once again first preference votes decreased for Labor but increased for the Greens. There was even an increase in the Liberal vote. Whatever the aim of that spend it was wasted. Worse, it was money that was not spent on campaigns in the middle suburbs, where Labor was hammered, and where they lost government.
Obviously resources are always limited and the Labor Party had to decide where to prioritise its spending. If, as seems likely, the Labor Party thought it more important to defeat the Greens in the inner city than to ward off the Liberals in the middle suburbs this strategy was an absolute failure in both those aims. The first preference votes show it was not the money that saved them in Brunswick but Liberal preferences. These are preferences that are unlikely to be changed by Labor advertising, as to be a Liberal in Brunswick must require a particularly solid loyalty to the Liberal faith. This loyalty is evidenced by the relatively disciplined march of preferences away from the Greens in 2010 compared to 2006. No number of billboards will change those voters' minds.
The sad reality for Labor is that had they spent the money they wasted in Brunswick (and I assume likewise the other four inner city seats) in the middle suburban seats that were clearly pissed by the government's ignoring their problems the Labor Party might still be in power.
But Labor couldn't do that, because it was too wrapped up fighting a perceived enemy in the inner city, and ignoring the middle suburbs. Their election loss is itself a neat summation of their government's failure.
Of course, hindsight is easier. But even before the Liberals announced their decision to put the Greens last the Labor Party was wrong to fight so expensively in Brunswick. If the Liberals had not put the Greens last Labor may indeed have lost a number of inner city seats to the Greens. But they would have had a better chance in the middle suburbs they subsequently lost. Had they held some of these seats the result could have been either a returned Labor government or a minority Labor government with Greens holding the balance of power. The Greens would have supported a minority Labor government because if they didn't they would be crucified at the next election.
In the end the Liberal decision to put the Greens last, because it came so late in the campaign, nullified this possibility. But only because by that time Labor had already spent itself fighting a series of battles it didn't need to fight, and thus losing the bigger battles it really needed to win.
Source for voting numbers is the Victorian Electoral Commission website.
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