Feud may cost minor party dearly

Leak cartoon

THE Labor Party thinks that the Greens are "extremists" and "loonies". The Greens think that the Labor Party "doesn't stand for anything" and are "diseased".

This from parties that are supposed to have a formal signed alliance. Why would either side want to maintain such a dysfunctional situation after the war of words over the weekend?

The decision by NSW Labor secretary Sam Dastyari to start a debate about preferencing the Greens last on how-to-vote cards has seen the two parties trade insults like never before. The theatre of the exchanges has been spectacular - but it is the implications of such a move that are more significant.

If Labor did preference the Greens last at the next election, it would certainly cost the minor party Senate positions. The last federal election was a high-water mark for the Greens, picking up Senate spots in every state across the country. The nationwide primary vote for the Greens in the Senate was a historic high of 13.11 per cent, but that was with the popular Bob Brown as leader. There are no guarantees Christine Milne would fare so well.

To win a Senate spot in a standard half-Senate election, a party needs to secure 14.29 per cent of the vote.

Minor parties usually get there only on the back of preference flows from the major parties.

Even at the last election, the  record Greens primary vote exceeded the quota only in the states of Tasmania and Victoria, and in the latter case, only just. In other states, preferences got them over the line.

It is in this context that the significance of a Labor decision to put the Greens last becomes more apparent. It could quickly reduce the Greens back to being only a minor minor party, with less than a handful of senators.

They would struggle to survive as a parliamentary party, much less with the balance of power in their own right that they hold now.

The impact that Labor preferencing the Greens last would have on the minor party's chances of retaining Senate spots is only one factor; perhaps more important to Dastyari's reason for raising the issue is the perception it creates that a growing chunk of the Labor Party wants to decouple itself from the Greens to make Labor more appealing to mainstream voters.

That was the intentional message Dastyari delivered. Unintentional may have been the way he did it: telling The Australian before he told Julia Gillard. Kevin Rudd supporters have been quick to view that approach as "a smoke signal that the NSW Right are no longer protecting the PM", as one Labor MP put it.

Then there is the impact that Labor hardening its stance against the Greens will have on the conservatives. The NSW Nationals have been quick to declare they will look to preference the Greens last at the next federal election, and are calling on Tony Abbott to do the same. You would have to think the Opposition Leader will take up the challenge, if he wants his rhetorical attacks on the Greens to be seen as more than hot air.

Fewer than three months ago, Brown announced he was retiring from politics, leaving while the Greens were at the top of their game. All of a sudden, their future looks less bright, as the major parties start to turn against them.

In the middle of all of this, an increasingly isolated Prime Minister continues to stand by her Greens alliance.