Hollow victory when the count is done

ALTHOUGH Labor won the state seat of Melbourne, the Greens continue to drive a stake through the heart of modern Labor.

Despite its win in the heartland seat, more voters opted for the Greens and two-thirds chose a candidate other than Labor.

The 33.32 per cent of votes Labor received, according to the latest figures, is less than half Labor's vote in 1988.

In politics, winners may be grinners but behind the smiles Labor strategists will be concerned it is a pyrrhic victory on the way to losing the war against the Greens and a reminder that the Greens are a mortal enemy of Labor, not an ally.

It demands Labor revisit its strategy towards the Greens and rethink the value of continuing Julia Gillard's parliamentary alliance with the Greens.

The by-election was not a referendum on the incumbent government as there was no Liberal candidate, and while state issues played a role, it was mostly a proxy for the longer-term battle between Labor and the Greens.

Not only are the Greens a danger to Labor's seats, they drain resources from campaigns elsewhere. A generation of Labor activists are going Green.

This is why, nationally, Labor needs to follow Victorian Labor leader Daniel Andrews and better define the differences between the two parties.

Labor must reassert itself as a party that can govern for all Australians in the Labor tradition and Gillard must lead this effort but is constrained by the alliance she struck with the Greens.

In addition, the alliance continues to damage Labor outside the inner cities.

There is another danger. The Greens have only won seats from Labor when they have secured Liberal Party preferences. This was the case in the NSW seat of Balmain and the federal seat of Melbourne.

But with Labor so catastrophically unpopular, if the Liberals do not field candidates in federal Labor seats such as Grayndler, Sydney, Batman, Melbourne Ports, Brisbane and Fremantle, they are also at risk of being lost to the Greens.