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The Greens will also direct preferences to Labor in La Trobe, Dunkley and Flinders, all held by the Liberal Party with margins of less than 4 per cent, and in McMillan, which Labor holds by just 0.6 per cent. Overall, the party will direct preferences to Labor in 110, or 70 per cent, of all seats. It will not direct preferences to the Coalition at all.
Prime Minister John Howard yesterday criticised the deal, saying Labor had sold out in order to win the Greens' preferences. He said the arrangement, along with Labor's preference deal with the Democrats, would make it harder for the government to win the election.
Senator Brown said that immediately after the Tampa crisis and Kim Beazley's support for the government's border protection policies, the preference deal with Labor would have been "unthinkable". But he said Labor's pledge to phase out land clearing in the Murray-Darling Basin and a planned moratorium on burning woodchips from native forests in power plants, as well as its commitments on health and public education, had opened up a gap between the two leaders.
To win government, Labor needs to win an additional seven seats. But it will not pick up Greens preferences in other important Victorian seats such as Aston and Deakin, nor in Chisholm, regarded by the ALP as one of its most vulnerable seats.
Victorian Greens Senate candidate Scott Kinnear said the party had used its preferences to achieve good policy outcomes from the ALP. While Labor was not a great or visionary party at the moment, he said the Greens believed on balance that it was in the national interest that Labor won office.
The preference deal came as weekend polls showed the Greens' Victorian support had risen to 6 per cent in the Senate, and 4 per cent in several marginals. A Saulwick poll commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation found that environmental policies would influence the majority of undecided voters in four key national seats: La Trobe (Victoria), Richmond (NSW), Moreton (Queensland) and Adelaide.
- with CLAIRE MILLER
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