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Australian Greens Seek Senate Balance of Power in Record Election Campaign
The Australian Greens Party unveiled its biggest ever national election advertising campaign today, seeking to win enough votes in the Aug. 21 ballot to hold the balance of power in the country’s Senate.
The Greens offer a vision for Australia “which is lacking from the big parties,” said leader Bob Brown, who accuses Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labor government and opposition leader Tony Abbott’s Liberal-National coalition of inaction on tackling climate change.
Support for the Greens, who have five senators in the 76- seat upper house, rose to a record 16 percent in a Newspoll published on June 1 and stood at 12 percent in a Nielsen poll released yesterday. Brown said today that Abbott is just one seat away from controlling the Senate, which can block, pass or amend legislation, and that would lead to legislative deadlock in the nation.
If Gillard is re-elected, her government says it will delay plans to set up a market mechanism to put a price on carbon until after 2012. Her Labor government would establish emissions standards for new coal-fired power stations and pay A$1 billion ($904 million) to connect renewable energy sources to the nation’s power grid. The party also supports carbon capture and storage.
‘Green Army’
Abbott wants to set up an A$1 billion fund to encourage companies to reduce emissions and establish a 15,000-strong “green army” to repair environmental damage. The coalition would cancel government funds for carbon capture and storage.
The Greens want a carbon price of A$23 a ton that rises 4 percent plus inflation each year and Brown has urged Gillard to set a price in 2011 before introducing an emissions-trading system. The party has said it will support Gillard’s 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal profits at companies such as BHP Billiton Ltd.
Labor has 32 seats in the Senate, the coalition 37 and independent parties two. In the Aug. 21 ballot, all of the House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, and half of the Senate will be elected.
A tax on carbon will cause electricity prices to spiral leading to “more pressure on people’s cost of living,” Abbott told reporters today.
The coalition leads Labor 52 percent to 48 percent on a two-party preferred basis, the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday, citing a Nielsen poll. Gillard’s approval rating fell five points to 51 percent, while Abbott’s rose six points to 49 percent, according to the poll.
The telephone survey of 1,356 voters on July 27 to 29, which has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points, put support for the Greens at 12 percent.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gemma Daley in Canberra at gdaley@bloomberg.net; Ed Johnson in Sydney at Ejohnson28@bloomberg.net.
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