The Left in These Elections (Updated).

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Well, as far as the politicians are concerned the die was cast. Election day is tomorrow.

As regular readers may be aware, I don’t have much faith in the much vaunted “liberal democracy”. Still and all, that’s what we have. So, it’s up to us, the people to make the best decision possible given what’s available. We better not screw it.

So what’s available to readers of a Left-wing persuasion who are also concerned with climate change? In a way, the choice is simple.
This is what the ruling COALition offers:

Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction
Plan: Modelling and Analysis, page 11

And that’s leaving aside inflation, industrial relations, wages, rorts galore (including the multi-billion dollar JobKeeper for those who did not need it), foreign policy, housing, human rights, Scotty from Marketing’s vaccination blunders … It’s a no-brainer: these psychopathic swindlers must go.

So, we are left with the Australian Labor Party, The Australian Greens, The Socialist Alliance, and the Victorian Socialists.

Labor and the Greens have presented the more elaborate climate change plans: these are Labor’s policies and these are the Greens’. The Greens, as well, are becoming much more sympathetic to workers. Readers may know how I – and, much more relevantly, the scientists – evaluate their policies and rank them in terms of voting preferences.



As an advance to readers, this is where Left parties have presented candidates to the Senate by state/territory:

To learn what’s on offer where you live, you need to go to the Australian Electoral Commission website. If you don’t know your electorate, go to this page. To learn where to vote on election day, go to this page. This page tells you what are the parties/candidates in your electorate, both for the Senate (above) and the House of Representatives.

Remember: in Australia we have preferential voting. If you are not familiar with it, this short ABC’s BTN video (endorsed by the Parliamentary Education Office) shows the basics (to be precise, for Upper House election):

 

This SBS explainer is more detailed.

Party militants will offer you how-to-vote sheets. You may, but do not have to, follow their instructions. The same applies here with my own recommendations: I will give first preference to smaller socialist parties (in my case, the Socialist Alliance), second preference to the Greens, third to Labor.

Last preference goes to the Liberal Party.

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Many of the SS4C climate kids are too young and so, they can’t vote, but we oldies can. And we can do that with them in mind.

They assessed the parties and several independents’ climate change policies and gave them grades. Here’s the general election scorecard:

And here you find the scorecards for North Sydney, Curtin, Kooyong, Boothby, and Mackellar.

Image Credits:

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