Page 3550 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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Cruisers Walk Against Warming to take into account the V8 Landcruiser that she probably drove to this event? I see her there, arm in arm with Bob Brown. I wonder what the people in the Greens party thought when they opened up the paper last week and saw that. I wonder what the Greens MLAs thought when they read that. I wonder whether they thought, “You know what? Maybe this person is not a true believer. Maybe she is not one of us.”
But I am afraid I think Lin Hatfield Dodds is one of the Greens. I think she is one of the true believers, yet she seems to be hypocritical on a few different things. To that end, I believe she will vote with Bob Brown in the Senate on every single matter should she be elected on Saturday by the people of the Australian Capital Territory. It is a very real risk the people of Canberra are confronting. It is a very real risk that Canberrans must choose to avoid on Saturday, because so much is at stake if we do lose that Senate spot to the Greens.
One thing which does complicate any predictions of what might happen in the Senate would be what has happened in this place over the last couple of years. If your perception of the Greens was “radical whale-hunter chasers” or “radical dam-avoidance campaigners”, people that are advocating 10 per cent public housing, or whatever it may be, I think the evidence of this place has shown that the Greens have had next to no impact whatsoever on the policies of this government. I would think the Labor Party would be pretty pleased with how the last two years have gone with the Greens on the crossbench. I wonder what it is in the Labor platform over the last couple of years that they have not got up because of the Greens. What is it in their suite of policies that they took to the 2008 election that they have not been able to progress because of the Greens?
This is as good as it is going to get for the Greens. They have got four members, and they have never had four members before. It is as good as it is going to get; this is the high point of the Greens in the Australian Capital Territory. I wonder whether these four people, when they come to work each day, think, “I am living the dream. This is as good as it is going to get. This is the ultimate moment for Greens politics in the ACT.” I wonder whether they turn up and think, “I am making a difference. I am changing the way the ACT is governed.” Well, they are not. The Labor Party is having a field day with this crossbench, because the Labor Party is getting exactly what it wants—exactly what it wants.
They might put on a show every six months and they will have a joint caucus meeting. Or every now and again they might back a Greens motion saying, “We will do a report into a review into something we might do in three terms time.” Whatever it might be, this Labor Party is having a field day with the four Greens members of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly.
Unfortunately, I do not think Bob Brown is as much of a pushover as are Shane Rattenbury and Meredith Hunter. I think he is probably the real deal when it comes to conviction and standing up for what he believes in. So, should Lin Hatfield Dodds be elected to the Australian Senate on Saturday and should other Senate races go their way, it would mean that the Greens would have the balance of power in the Senate and, unlike the Australian Capital Territory Greens, I think they would
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