There have been some very interesting reactions to success of The Greens in Ballina and Lismore at Saturday’s election.
The Greens have likely won in Ballina, and it’s still too close to call in Lismore with the outcome likely to boil down to preference flows from the ALP. Given The Nationals attracted primary votes 57% in Ballina and 62% in Lismore at the 2011 election, the swings are enormous and many don’t seem to know what to make of them.
Newly re-elected Premier Mike Baird wrote off the swings to an influx of left-leaning Baby Boomers since the last election, which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you really want to understand the swings in the Northern Rivers, you need to go back a lot further than four years. More like 40 years.
In the 70s there was a wave of young people brought to the area by the Aquarius movement, seeking alternative ways of living with more connection to each other and the land. It was these people who were the first in the world to save a rainforest from destruction at Terania Creek.
Over the decades their numbers have grown, and they have trained and organised. When coal seam gas (CSG) mining set its sights on the Northern Rivers, they were taking on some of the most experienced activists in the country.
When exploration began in the area in 2012 the community didn’t just schedule a few rallies and hope for the best, they mobilised one of the most effective grassroots campaigns this country has ever seen.
Groups like Gasfield Free Northern Rivers, part of the Lock the Gate Alliance (full disclosure: my father is the Chair of Lock the Gate), went house by house, road by road, filling out surveys and petitions until 128 villages in the Northern Rivers had declared themselves gasfield-free with an average of 96% opposition to CSG mining.
These areas were not the ‘hippy heartland’, they were farming communities with deep ties to The Nationals. When push came to shove, these communities could see that The Nationals were inclined to support mining interests over protecting prime agricultural land and groundwater. It was the ALP who had sold the mining licences, so with The Greens deeply involved in anti-CSG groups from the outset, they were clearly the party with the support of the movement. Indeed, Lismore Greens candidate Adam Guise was one of the area coordinators for Gasfield Free Northern Rivers.
With preferences still to be allocated, the primary results from 2011 and 2015 tell a compelling story. In 2011 the ALP primary vote was dismal in these seats, just 12% in Ballina and 13% in Lismore, with The Greens candidates attracting around 20% in both seats.
On Saturday the ALP primary lurched to 25% and 26%, while Greens votes rose to 26% and 27%, which indicates the trend is not voters swinging from the ALP to The Greens but from The Nationals to both the ALP and The Greens.
It’s hard to know if this ‘unholy alliance’ between The Greens and farmers in the Northern Rivers will hold beyond the stoush over CSG. Certainly, The Nationals have lost significant and high-profile support throughout the area, but if the mining licences are bought back and the mining companies move on to areas without a history of activism it is quite possible that farmers may drift back to The Nationals.
However, the looming spectre of climate change and the volatility of land management predicted to come with it may well entrench the alliance. When water becomes a more valuable resource than gas and food security is more of a priority than national security it would be easy to see farmers nail their fortunes to a party that has consistently advocated for the protection of the land and water.
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