Little choice in Greens-Labor spat

If politics is a blood sport, the slug-fest currently under way between the ALP and Greens is delivering plenty of thrills.

The two parties are at war over inner-city seats that have long been the property of the ALP but are now wide open following Adam Bandt’s victory in Melbourne in 2010 and 2013.

The Greens are picking up support from inner-city voters disgusted at the ALP’s disgraceful record on refugees. If Medicare is in Labor’s DNA, so too is bashing asylum seekers. It was, after all, Labor’s Gerry Hand who, as immigration minister in the Keating government, began mandatory detention.

It was John Howard who introduced offshore processing with the so-called Pacific solution. But whatever horror the Coalition cooks up, Labor’s leaders generally back the government to the hilt, even to the extent of hounding those who call the hell-holes of Manus Island and Nauru by their proper name – concentration camps.

The ALP, particularly the Labor left concentrated in the inner city, are paying back the Greens in kind. They accuse the Greens of being in bed with the Liberals – doing dodgy preference deals with the conservatives to ensure their own candidates get up, collaborating with the government to force through Senate voting reform, squeezing out the minor parties, and passing budget measures that hit middle income pensioners.

If this election were to be won by a party that could proudly and honestly boast its own credentials as a fighter for the working class, that’d be something to celebrate.

Labor left leaders such as Anthony Albanese also argue that the Greens are middle class blow-ins, out of touch with the bread and butter concerns of working class voters.

Just like the Greens’ criticisms of the ALP, Labor’s attacks on the Greens carry some weight. While the Greens may deny that they have struck any preference deal with the Liberals, they have left open the possibility.

Their denials would have a lot more credibility if they were to state right now their intention to put the Liberals last in every seat. But they refuse to do so, lending weight to the argument that they are opportunists willing to do a deal with the devil to secure their own advance. Not for nothing has Victorian Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger floated the idea of a “loose arrangement” with the Greens at this election.

Labor is also right that the Greens much prefer to pander to university-educated, well-heeled professionals than to go into bat for the blue collar and migrant working class. While the party may have reasonable policies on workers’ rights, their hearts are not really in it.

Just look at some of the seats that Greens leader Richard Di Natale hopes to win within the next decade – Melbourne Ports and Higgins in Melbourne, Grayndler and Sydney in the NSW capital, Richmond in the state’s north and Fremantle in WA – all of which are dominated by the lawyers, doctors and other affluent professional types, or which are in the process of becoming so.

What could better signal a big “fuck-you” to blue collar workers than to express your hope that one day you might win these seats but only when the proles have been driven out by extortionate house prices?

It’s true that the Greens are putting up firefighters’ union leader Jim Casey for Grayndler, probably the most left wing candidate on offer and who, after being red-baited by the Daily Telegraph, was happy to defend his anti-capitalist credentials.

But Di Natale, the very model of a modern Greens leader – right wing, respectable and guaranteed not to scare the horses – is happy to endorse his candidate because he knows that while Casey may be anti-capitalist, the party is not. And if Casey is to win and hold the seat, he’s going to have to look out for the interests of his well-to-do constituents.

If this election were to be won by a party that could proudly and honestly boast its own credentials as a fighter for the working class, that’d be something to celebrate. But all we’ve got is a fight between two sets of opportunists who can tell a good story about the crimes of their opponents but whose own record should be a source of shame.