Federal Election 2016: Opinion - Prospect of Greens-Liberal preference deals cause Labor angst

GREENS/Liberal preference deals are back on the agenda - and they’re causing all manner of angst in Labor ranks.

AFTER the landslide win of the LNP in 2012, Anna Bligh broke one last commitment by fleeing her safe South Brisbane seatand setting the seven-member Labor team up for one more test.

The drubbing Labor suffered left some onlookers wondering if the party’s candidate Jackie Trad could hold the seat at the by-election.

Behind the scenes, LNP strategists seriously toyed with the idea of directing preferences to the Greens which would have delayed the beginning of Trad’s career by at least three years.

The orthodox view won out and the LNP’s Glen Grehan sent his preferences to the ALP.

“We identified Trad as a future leader and thought it would have been worth delaying her entry into Parliament until the following election,” said one backer of the idea at the time.

These Greens/Liberal preference deals are back in the news with some muscular pragmatists, especially in Victoria, very keen on giving Greens a high rank on the ballot paper so some Labor operators can be pushed out of Parliament or stopped from getting in.

In the sights of Liberal fixer Michael Kroger - the current Victorian party president - is former Labor campaign director David Feeney who holds the nominally safe Labor seat of Batman.

Batman has a very Green southern end around the suburb of Northcote and if the Liberals allocated preferences to the Greens, Feeney could be looking for a job.

There are also other Labor held seats that could be vulnerable such as Wills in Victoria and, if the New South Wales Liberals did such a deal then senior ALP MPs Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek might be in trouble.

This is causing all manner of angst in Labor ranks - and not just because everyone should be outraged the noun preference has been turned into a verb.

The other thing is we won’t know who is sending which preferences where until people turn up at the pre-poll voting places some time in early June.

Under the changes to the electoral act the Turnbull Government rushed through Parliament in March, there is no longer a requirement to lodge how to vote cards. You just turn up at the pre-poll station and pick up a card.

Just another step down the road to transparency and accountability.

Originally published as Federal Election 2016: Opinion - Prospect of Greens-Liberal preference deals cause Labor angst