Green victory in Australia

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

CounterPunch, October 25, 2002

Australians Vote Green:
History-Making No to US War Plans
by VANESSA JONES

Seven days after the Bali bombings Australian voters history gave a jump
in Australia. Michael Organ, became the first The green candidate to win
a seat in the Australian House of Representatives. Indeed, it was the
first victory for a minority party in the House of Representatives since
WW2. (There are currently two national Greens Senators in Australia.)

The venue for this triumph was a by-election in the "Cunningham"
electorate, in the Wollongong area, a town 90 minutes south of Sydney, a
surfing, seaside town, known as "The Gong". It has one university, and
the area is famous for hosting the BHP steel works at nearby Port Kembla.

It's traditionally a working class area, where many post World War 2
southern European migrants chose to settle, with jobs at the steelworks.
Many men, migrants and Aussies, brought up their families from the wages
earned at BHP. Now it's attracting families who can't afford Sydney's
high housing prices, who settle for an average (not low) mortgage, by
the sea, where parents often commute by train or car to Sydney, twice a
day, to pay off these 30 year long mortgages. I have a friend who bought
a house near Wollongong, a year ago. It was the cheapest house on the
market. She bought it with the bank for $195,000 and says that in the
past year, prices have risen so much that young families like hers' can
no longer afford a modest home there.

The multicultural community of Wollongong is opposed to Australian
involvement in a US-led war against Iraq, also to the locking up of
refugees (a third of whom are children), in detention centers in the
desert, as is currently Australian government practice.

The conservative Australian government declined to put up a candidate in
the by-election. They knew they couldn't win. Since 1949, it's been
Labor (like US Democrat) all the way. But this time it looked, by
preferences, to be a Green or union-backed Independent victory. In the
event, the Greens won by trading preferences with Peter Wilson, the
independent, left wing, union-backed candidate.

full: http://www.counterpunch.org/jones1025.html

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