Labor ploy may give Greens Senate balance

LABOR'S decision to give its preferences to the Greens makes it more likely that the minor party will hold the balance of power in the new Senate.

LABOR'S decision to give its preferences to the Greens makes it more likely that the minor party will hold the balance of power in the new Senate.

According to ABC election analyst Antony Green, Labor and the Greens will battle it out for the final, sixth spot in Victoria and NSW.

The Greens do not have any sitting senators in those states up for re-election in 2013, meaning if they win a spot it will boost their numbers in the new parliament at the expense of Labor.

Labor officials in Victoria and NSW have previously advocated doing away with preference deals with the Greens.

Last year, NSW secretary Sam Dastyari called the Greens "extremists not unlike One Nation" and said Labor must "stop treating them like they are part of our family".

"Where it is in the Labor Party's interest to do so, we should consider placing (the Greens) last -- just like we did with One Nation," Mr Dastyari said.

The Greens have nine senators in the current Senate, but only three -- in Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia -- come up for re-election.

In South Australia the decision of independent senator Nick Xenophon to put the major parties ahead of the Greens' Sarah Hanson-Young has made her chances of re-election slimmer.

In Queensland, the race for the final place has been complicated by Labor's decision to preference the Katter Australia Party.

Labor has decided to preference KAP in the Queensland Senate race before any other party in return for KAP preferences in several key marginal Queensland seats it needs to hold government.

The deal drew anger from the Greens, with the Queensland Greens convener Andrew Bartlett saying: "The deal betrays the ideals of the ALP.

"The final Senate seat in Queensland is likely to come down to a contest between the Katter party and the Greens, and this Labor-Katter deal could well make the difference between keeping or losing carbon pricing and billions of dollars in investment in creating jobs while modernising our economy into a clean-energy one," he said.

"It could also determine whether issues like marriage equality are able to be passed through a finely balanced Senate."

Queensland is also home to the other new right-wing party, the Palmer United Party, which, combined with Katter's KAP, could reduce the first preference support for the Coalition.

According to Labor's analysis of the Senate preference tickets, Queenslanders who vote for PUP will almost certainly see their preference votes helping to elect a Greens senator. The Greens appear to have done a preference deal with PUP in Queensland to direct preferences to it in House of Representatives seats.