THE Queensland Greens have played down suggestions party headquarters will strike preference deals ahead of the looming state election, saying “if we become a preference tool we become irrelevant”.
However, the Greens have still left the door open to recommending preferences in certain local seats if key local issues warrant it.
Australian Greens deputy leader Christine Milne and Greens Senator Larissa Waters today joined with key Brisbane candidates to kick off the party's campaign ahead of the March 24 election.
At the media event, held in the key seat of Ashgrove, the party stressed its priorities including coal seam gas mining opposition, environmental protection, diversification of the state's economy, and greater accountability.
The Greens attracted 8.37 per cent of the vote at the 2009 election and encouraged voters in 14 of the 89 seats to nominate Labor as their second choice, in a preferences arrangement announced just over a week before voters went to the ballot box.
Queensland Greens spokeswoman Libby Connors said she could not see any of the party's branches recommending preferences for either Labor or the Liberal National Party on how-to-vote cards.
“The major parties are not worthy of being given any strong mandate by us,” she said.
But Dr Connors, who is running for the Brisbane seat of Yeerongpilly, said individual candidates and party branches would be able to suggest voters place their second-preference with another minor party.
“Our state council has repeatedly made the decision that there will be no allocation of preferences across the state,” she said.
“But some local branches or candidates might be really concerned about issues in their areas and that means they can choose to recommend another minor party that has similar values but there will be no overarching state deals on preferences.”
The Greens candidate for Brisbane Central, small business owner Anne Boccabella, also played down the prospect of the preference deals.
“If we become a preferencing tool we become irrelevant,” she said.
“That's not what we want to be.”
The comments come after the Liberal National Party accused Labor of chasing Greens preferences, including through the government's timetable for phasing out of sandmining on North Stradbroke Island.
Senator Waters said it was important voters remembered the order of their preferences was entirely up to them at Queensland state elections, and parties could only suggest who to back.
Dr Connors said the party would “co-operate” with Katter's Australian Party on issues that they shared common, such as on coal-seam gas mining, but there was not much other common ground.
The Greens are hoping for strong showings in numerous Brisbane seats including Mt Coot-tha, the electorate held by Treasurer Andrew Fraser and contested by Liberal National Party hopeful Saxon Rice and Greens candidate Adam Stone.
The Greens, with Senator Waters as the then-candidate, attracted 23 per cent of the first preference vote in Mt Coot-tha at the 2009 election.
Dr Connors said the party was hoping to match or improve the vote it had received at previous elections.
The Greens 8.37 per cent of the state-wide primary vote in 2009, while a Galaxy poll commissioned by The Courier-Mail today found 10 per cent support for the Greens (compared with 49 per cent primary vote support for the LNP and 32 per cent for Labor).
“We know that Brisbane is going to be critical to winning this election and I think here in Brisbane people understand Queensland has drifted way too far to the destruction of the environment in order to turn a dollar for multinational corporations,” Senator Milne said.
Dr Connors said the Greens wanted to broaden and diversify the economy, saying Queensland's focus on mining was putting “all our eggs in the one basket”. The LNP has previously also raised concern over the mining emphasis, saying Labor had neglected other parts of the economy.
Dr Connors said a lot of the state's economic problems stemmed from the fact that areas such as tourism and had been weakened by the high Australian dollar, and also called for government-owned corporations to be subject to greater accountability.
Sandra Bayley, who is running for the key seat of Ashgrove, was also on hand at the campaign media event. LNP leader Campbell Newman, who does not yet hold a seat in Parliament, is aiming to wrest Ashgrove from former Labor environment minister Kate Jones.
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