The last day of the campaign

The last day of the campaign was eventful. I was woken up by a phone call and alerted to the Labor dirty tricks afoot in Northcote. They have circulated leaflets criticising the Greens, including one purportedly from a "Liberal businessman". Bob Brown wrote a letter rebutting Peter Garrett's attacks on the Greens in the inner city seats.

I then attended a media event at Flinders Street station, which was a good opportunity to hand out some Green Times and interact with the public.

Here is a photo of some assembled candidates with Bob Brown. I am on the right.

I then did a session at the prepolling booth in Mitcham, which was not too busy. During the afternoon I evening managed to walk and wash the dog, and spend a little time with our daughter Chloe.

The final night of news coverage was a bit boring. Just a summation of two "presidential style" campaigns based around Ted Baillieu and Steve Bracks, with the consensus being that Baillieu had won the battle (the campaign) but will lose the war (the election), and dissappointingly - absolutely no mentions of the Greens or any other minor party.

So here are my predictions.

• The Greens will win one lower house seat - either Melbourne or Richmond
• The Liberals will win several Labor marginals including Morwell, Monbulk, South Barwon, Kilsyth, Gembrook, Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Hastings, Ballarat East and Mount Waverly. Mitcham and Ripon might come under pressure too.
  
• The Greens will win between 2 and 5 upper house seats, most likely 3. Northern and Southern Metropolitan are almost certain. Eastern Metropolitan is the next likely, followed by Eastern Victoria and Western Victoria. Northern Victoria is also an outside chance.
  
• Nobody from Family First, People Power, the Democrats or the Country Alliance will be elected. The Country Alliance is however an outside chance in Western Victoria.
• The balance of power will be shared between the Greens and the Nationals - but if the Nationals revert to their usual coalition with the Liberals (putting aside their outbreak of hostilities prior to the election and during preference negotations) - then their Coalition may have control of the upper house.
• The ALP dirty trick of falsely accusing the Greens of "preferencing the Liberals" - will be seen for what it is
• The Liberal dirty trick - their "anti Green leaflet" - will indicate to many people that the the Liberals are happy to tell lies too.

Overall, the campaign at a local level has been a good one from my perspective. I have received good feedback from many members of the public, and have had good support from local Greens members. I have been impressed by the commitment and capability of all the Greens candidates and campaign team I have worked with out here in the inner east.

We have also worked closely with the country region teams and the State Preference Support Group (PSG) during preference negotiations.

I still don't know why the Liberals put us last in the upper house with the high risk of Labor retaining control of the upper house as a result.

Thank you for reading my blog. I will put a summary of the outcomes up on the day after the election.

I close with one of my favourite quotes, from Mohandas Gandhi:

First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.