We’ve spent the last few days looking at the ALP political prism, where their big gains at the last election in seats with high recipient levels of Family Tax Benefit Part A seems to have resulted in that group being the dominant political demographic that shapes government decision making – from driving the politics of the distribution of the consumer component of the government’s compensation package for the ETS, through to the distribution of the outlays for the economic security package, not to mention a fair swag of other more peripheral issues (where FTB A has become the favoured form of measuring the qualification for government payments and subsidy thresholds.).
Following on from a few comments that arose about the Greens with this, as well as some earlier requests coming out of the last Requestathon – it might be worth having a bit of a squiz at the Greens in a similar fashion.
One thing that has become pretty clear is that the seats where the Greens are making electoral inroads aren’t the seats that government majorities of either persuasion are built on. While Howard built his majority with what was (usually erroneously) called his “Battlers” and the ALP has built their majority with the Family Tax Benefit set – the Greens are picking up votes from the absolute opposite end of that demographic spectrum.
If we run a scatter of the Greens vote at the 2007 Election against the combined proportions of the electorate receiving either the Aged Pension or FTB Part A, it tells a story of a thousand words:
The key here isn’t FTB A and Pensions in and of themselves when it comes to the Green vote as those transfer payments are merely a symptom of something larger – income, or rather income and its relationship to education levels.
If we look at the median income of each electorate scattered against the proportion of each electorate with a Year 10 education or less, the seats that the Greens are eying off as their most likely targets over the next few elections really stand out.
The further to the top left you go, the more you find seats which are mentioned (often heroically though) as future Green targets while the further you go to the bottom right the less likely, on average, those seats are of voting Green in any sizeable proportion – with the Tasmanian seats the exception because of local political demographics.
This must pose a bit of a conundrum for the Greens. While their political base gets a bit feral at times and has a sizeable streak of radical socialism running through it, the more the Greens listen to that base the less likely the party is to gain votes in the wealthy/ high education seats. Doctors wives and electoral success aren’t really compatible with their base at the moment – when push comes to shove that clash probably won’t be pretty, although if the Greens ever want to be more than a fringe party occasionally having or sharing the balance of power, it’s a decision they’ll need to make sooner rather than later.
Finally, the Greens vote against both education and median income by electorate – two near identical stories.
32 Comments
What about age breakdowns Possum. Is being Greens something you tend to grow out of as you grow older, acquire responsibility and become aspirational?
Not enough data of high enough quality to tell Greeny. Sub populations of minor party votes get hit with small samples squared. Small because the party doesnt attract a large vote to begin with, and small again because we only want to look at sub populations of that already small vote. If we use the Newspoll quarterly to track it, we still end up with error margins on age cohorts of 7,8 and 9%.
You will need to change Greens vs. Median Income to Education on your last chart.
Thanks TP, I cut and pasted a column of data into an existing chart and somehow managed to forget to change the Title.
All fixed.
Fair enough about where the future support levels of the Greens lie, but my experience with members of the Greens indicate that there is no contradiction between demographics of Greens members and demographics of potential Greens voters. We’re not a bunch of long-haired hippies. Apart from that, you’ve perfectly captured where Greens potential lies.
What’s with the consistent outliers on those last two graphs – Melbourne, Sydney, Grayndler, Batman etc?
To complete the analysis we really need to see which seats the Greens are closest to coming second on TPP – because that’s their path to election. Seats where the LP / ALP aren’t too evenly matched (regardless of which one is in front), yet the highest polling party isn’t too much over 50% either.
hmmm – so Greens voters are Yogis – smarter than the average voter. I am kind of an outlier because I don’t have a high income, nor do I have a tertiary education. However, if the Greens abandondon social justice policies in favour of being an ersatz Liberal party – I’ll have to revise my stated first preference plans and lodge a deliberate informal vote as I will effectively have no viable option for a first preference.
Yeah, good analysis except for that strange line about “ferals” and the disconnect between future support.
There’s probably a bigger disconnect between the Labor base and most of their voters then The Greens.
Oz – it wasn’t “ferals” it was “their political base gets a bit feral at times and has a sizeable streak of radical socialism running through it”.
That, in turn, leads to policy positions popping up regularly that make most of the rest of the country go WTF?!?
Of course there’s a larger disconnect between the Labor base and most of their voters for no other reason than Labor have far far more voters.
If the Greens seek to expand their vote level, they too will start running headlong into that problem – once you get beyond your base, conflict is inevitable.
The Greens have never really had to choose between their base and their growth. With two elections in a row at 7-8% nationally, the time for that choice has pretty much arrived.
Possum, I wonder whether you’re overstating the size of the ‘radical socialist streak’ in the Greens’ ‘base’. I understand that the Greens’ politics is rooted in socialist ideology, but I know plenty more rusted on Green voters who fit the well educated, high income (or from high income families if they’re 18-25 year olds still at uni) stereotype than the radical socialist stereotype. I think it’s important for the Greens to break the radical socialist/long haired hippie etc stereotype if they want to increase their vote, but I think it’s much more a stereotype in the minds of ALP and Coalition voters than it is a real phenomenon.
Along with showing the seats the Greens are targeting, it is somewhat depressing that on the median income graph, we can see that 1-4 and 6 have the former Liberal leader’s seat, the current Liberal leader’s seat, and the three possible replacements.
And 1 to 4 are contiguous (allowing for the harbour or if we accept that the Cahill Expressway and harbour tunnel stay above and below the seat of Sydney).
It does not bode well when the apparent opposition is so driven into a Bourgeosie ghetto.
As a Greens supporter, I’m quite happy with the analysis here as it’s obvious that most social change comes from above rather than from below. Except for traditional labour-based campaigns for better wages and conditions, most social change is first supported by high income, well educated people long before it is supported by the bulk of population. So, in a few decades time (regardless of whether the Greens become a major party or not) you would expect most of the Greens policies to be non-controversial mainstream ones. The only problem is that it may be too late by then….
So we will have 3 parties chasing the same end of the market, the top 10% of the income demographic. While at the same time, the bottom 10% is even more disenfranchised. The patronising suggestion that the elite will share some scraps off the table of their own volition is redolent of the Ayn Rand “trickle down” policies that have been pursued in the last 20 years. None of the above seems like the only option.
The income=intelligence equation is, at best, a self-justifying fallacy, and at worst, the modern equivalent of hereditary titles and a pseudo peerage. Income v intelligence is not a linear relationship, but on recent evidence, it could be argued that it is an inverse relationship.
Poss, are those median incomes per week, per fortnight, or what?
Don, median weekly family income.
The Democrats destroyed themselves trying to expand their base, why should the greens follow. Balance of power in the senate will give them a lot of power.
I agree fredn – if the greens try and fight for the same territory as the Libs and ALP… they will go the way of the Democrats. Why vote Green if they are just like the other two? As soon as the Dems stopped keeping the bastards honest and became bastards themselves (Kernot/Reith IR laws… Lees GST), they lost support. For every vote the Greens might gain in those smug git electorates, they will lose 10 in the rest.
Hey Poss!! I ain’t no feral!
I agree with the comments that we need to retain our difference to stay relevant. Rudd needs to be pressured to take the environmental issues seriously -it’s not going to happen from the business lobby.
GG at Comment #1, it is a reasonable hypothesis that you put forward. I have done some work on this using census and 2007 primary vote. The 25-34 year old cohort seems to display strongest Greens support, especially when viewed with education levels and particular fields of study. One thing I have noticed is that Greens support tends to perservere into older age groups where eduction levels are highest. This may possibly point to eduction being a more significant factor than age. If this is the case, we may see the Green vote grow older in subsequent elections.
Dave Richards, income=education, not intelligence. Having spent more than my fair share of time at university (and in business), I can attest that level of education and intelligence are not necessarily the same thing.
As a member of the Greens, I have to agree with the comments above that in terms of the membership, there is no obvious problem with appealing to those electorates. Greens tend to have a very varied membership. Actually, if there is any age discrepancy, it is in the middle – we have plenty of Gen Y and Boomer members, but perhaps slightly less Gen Xers (like myself).
As for the general problem that Possum raises, I do agree that the Greens will be tested as their share of the vote grows. However, I don’t think that David Richards has to be worried yet – there is no sign that the Greens will ditch their belief in social justice, and I don’t think doing that is a prerequisite in the electorates mentioned.
The challenge is not to make major changes to our policies, but to communicate those policies and issues in ways that reach a broader audience. In my experience, many people who would self-identify as “conservative” often have a lot of interest in social justice and saving the environment. Right now, they are voting against their beliefs, often out of sheer habit, and making them see that is the task the Greens must undertake.
Nice Graphs Poss.
But does anyone seriously think the Greens have a chance of winning a lower house seat?
The only remote hypothetical I can envisage is Green running second to LNP and being elected on Labor preferences. But I cannot see a federal seat where this is even remotely possible.
The Greens would be better off trying to win a Senate seat in NSW,VIC or Qld. (You know where the bulk of people live).
El Nino,
Have you considered that better educated people who were already supporters of the Greens tend to have higher incomes and can therefore afford to be supporters of Greens both philosphically as well as financially?
I got a bit carried away there by the implications or my drawn inferences on the income/education nexus. Sadly, education IS often mistaken for intelligence, and a lack thereof is similarly seen as a marker of mental deficit. Such beliefs, while erroneous, do colour people’s thinking. For what doth it profit a party, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of its own soul?
GG – The relationship between Green vote and education is stronger than the relationship between Green vote and income (especially 35+ age groups), suggesting that there is something about education level that drives Green vote independent of income. Perhaps higher education levels allow a better understanding of complex issues such as global warming and immigration policy, especially given the low brow policy approach of the Liberal Party in recent years. Anyway, that’s the best that I can think of through the mental fog of New Years Day.
ruawake @ 22, Melbourne’s certainly a possibility. We’re already second on 2PP, a few hundred behind the Libs on primaries. I’d especially lie to draw your attention to the fact that when almost every electorate in the country recorded a swing in primaries to Labor, in Melbourne Labor’s primary actually fell (a swing was recoded to Labor in 2004, and in 2007 Tanner was taken to [just] below 50% 2PP).
Bob Brown’s castigation of the Rudd stance on Israel’s current aggression in Gaza makes him sound more like a Prime Minister than our absentee leader. I would love to see the Greens occupy the treasury benches, but the realities of our warped and unfair electoral system mean that at best it will only ever have a seat or two in the House of Reprehensibles.
In other words, the Greens have succeeded in supplanting the Democrats, only to become them. The conflicting constituencies conundrum pointed out here is exactly what they faced.
and that should be a warning to the greens not to go down the path the Democrats took towards joining the bastards
It’s a bit a of a Catch-22, that’s for sure.
If the Greens seriously want to become a third-force, they will need to move toward the centre to improve their vote. 2001-2007 was the high water mark for the ‘doctors wives’ and with Howard gone I think most of them will go crawling back to the Liberals. Certainly the likes of Turnball and Hockey are far more palatable than Howard. So the Greens will need to work harder to appeal to Lib and centrist voters. If the Greens remain where they are, where will the extra votes come from? They’d be destined to never get more than about 10% of the vote, and never win more than one or two seats. So to what extent are they prepared to moderate their position in the name of electoral success?
Although the very idea provokes outrage from Greens, would a coalition of some sort with the ALP go some way to address this dilemma? It could give the Greens some direct influence and power while allowing them to remain on the Left. Or would it be the worst of both worlds?
Another potential issue is the fact that Bob Brown won’t be around forever. Do the Greens have someone capable of filling his shoes? It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the Green vote is due to Brown’s personal appeal- will this be lost when he goes?
MDMC@30, re the Bob Brown succession, exactly the same (some loss of Green vote) was speculated of the Tasmanian State Greens when BB moved into the Federal Senate in the 90s. Christine Milne proved to be a more than adequate replacement as leader. I suspect that history will repeat itself in this instance.
I find the verdict on whether Bob Brown’s departure led to loss of Green votes in Tasmania inconclusive. In 1989 the Green Independents under Brown’s informal leadership polled 17.1% and in 1992 the Greens under Brown polled 13.2% at the end of the Labor-Green Accord. In 1996, the first election under Milne, they polled only 11.1% and in 1998 again under Milne and following the Green-supported Rundle minority government, 10.2%. In 2002 with Peg Putt as leader (by virtue of being the sole surviving Green MHA from 1998) the Greens suddenly jumped to 18.1% and in 2006 (again with Putt as leader) this fell slightly to 16.6%. It’s very difficult to untangle leadership as a factor because the other factors driving the Green vote in Tasmania up and down from election to election probably have far more impact.