Too Green for Their Own Good?

Check out the letters page in today's Age, specifically Alex Schlotzer and Stuart Kingsford. These are blatantly pro-Greens partisan letters - apparently from party members. No letters writing in such terms about the major parties will ever be published in the Age without some sort of acknowledgement of the writer's party affiliation.

The Greens party and especially many of their members seem to want to take the glory of moving from fringe party (in terms of electoral support) to significant minor player without any of the obligation. These two letters are just another example of that, you can't be all over the letter pages claiming victimhood while your electoral support is surging especially when you are gaining support from large sections of uninformed voters.

That moves me on to a comment on the next letter from Helen Smith. She talks about tram conductors and writes: "Come the election this Saturday, I'll remember who put these thugs on our trams and trains and who has kept them there. "
It seems like she's implying that the people who put them there (Liberals) will not get her vote and neither will the people who kept them there (Labor). Safe to assume she thinks she can vote for a third party (probably Greens). This misunderstanding of the preferential voting system pops up over and over again in Australia. Helen, in most seats you must ultimately still choose a preferred party of Liberal or Labor. If you vote Greens and just follow the how to vote card you have preferred Labor, ie. "the ones who kept them there."