BOB BROWN
‘ … surely it is much more powerful to have some Greens in there influencing Labor than to have a number of Labor people elected who have to do what they’re told. You remember, Labor members cannot cross the floor, cannot vote against what their party’s doing – or they’re out, effectively. So: much more powerful to have a Green, and Greens with the balance of power with Labor in office, if you’re progressive – and there’s a great essay on what is progressive by Carmen Lawrence in this book – than simply to have wall-to-wall Labor in a majority, don’t you think?’
‘I would agree with that. It’s a great question, and a great dilemma.’
‘There’s – what: twenty contributors or so to the book? If you’re a progressive voter, should you vote Labor or Green? At the end of the book what’s the answer?’
‘Well, we very carefully didn’t want to give an answer.’
‘But the reader wants to have one.’
‘Indeed. But it’s not Agatha Christie, we don’t need to know who did it….’
[from a conversation promoting a collection of essays entitled ‘How to vote progressive in Australia: Labor or Green?’, edited by Dennis Altman and Sean Scalmer (Monash University Publishing), recorded at Fullers Bookshop, Hobart, Friday 23 September, 2016.