Claims that the environment movement almost cost Labor the 1990 election ignore the decisive role played by Democrat votes and preferences. A closer look shows the campaign helped deliver victory – and marked a turning point in Labor’s relationship with environmental politics.

The death of Graham Richardson and his imminent state funeral have seen the re-emergence of contested Labor Party history about the 1990 election. Articles in both _Pearls and Irritations_ and _The Saturday Paper_ have Bob Hogg, ALP National Secretary in 1990, using strong language to attack Richardson, Bob Brown, and the Democrats/Greens ‘for almost costing them the election’. However, Hogg’s version is only one side of a stoush within Labor about the meaning of the results. A fair historical judgement must look more closely than Hogg’s emotional outburst.

At the time, Simon Balderstone, who was on the staff of Hawke and later of Keating, summarised the other side of the debate in a paper, arguing the environment vote was crucial to the win. Outside the ALP, the environment movement’s analysis is the exact opposite of Hogg’s. They claim the work they did promoting a ‘second preference’ strategy in nine marginal electorates decided the election for Labor.

For the Labor government, 1990 was not a good time to be going to an election. After seven years in power, interest rates were at 18.5 per cent and during 1990 two negative growth quarters in a row technically put the economy into a recession.

The community was hurting economically and polling had people turning away from Labor. Within the Party, it was the height of the destabilising leadership tussle between Hawke and Keating. It is hard to imagine a worse scenario for Labor, with the election due that year.

This was the background in which a ‘second preference’ strategy emerged, aiming to have disaffected voters give a first preference vote to the Democrats and second preference to Labor, effectively containing the disaffection and returning Labor to power on second preferences. In my research, I found it amazing how many people claim ownership of this idea – environment movement leaders, Hawke’s staff, Richardson, Hogg!

Despite Hogg’s focus on Bob Brown and the Democrat/Greens, the real campaign action was in the nine marginal electorates in Sydney and Melbourne where the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the Wilderness Society handed out how-to-vote cards recommending a first preference vote for the Democrats and second preference to Labor.

The environment movement had electorally endorsed Labor at the 1983 election, because of a promise to stop construction of the Franklin Dam.  They did the same in 1987, when Labor offered a suite of promises including protecting the rainforests of the Wet Tropics, extending Kakadu and having a Commonwealth Inquiry into Tasmanian forestry.

Endorsement of Labor in 1990 was not so straightforward. Hal Wootten, as President of ACF, had warned in 1987 that continuing endorsement would portray ACF as being ‘captured’ by Labor. The Wilderness Society Management Committee and ACF Council had reservations but decided to campaign actively in marginals.

National election results saw the ALP receiving only 39 per cent of the primary vote, and the Coalition 43 per cent, but the Democrats almost doubled their vote to 11 per cent and their preferences gave the ALP victory.

In the nine marginal electorates where the environment movement campaigned, the Democrat vote was a high 13.4 per cent. The environment movement argued that its campaign, recommending a first preference vote for the Democrats and second preference to Labor in these marginals was crucial to Labor’s win. Others agreed. Paul Kelly in The End of Certainty, concludes that the environment vote won the election for Labor. In interviews for my own research, both Richardson and Simon Balderstone were emphatic on this point.

There may be more to Hogg’s attack on Bob Brown and the Greens than ALP internal conflict between him and Richardson. It is interesting that Hogg would blame the ‘Greens’ when the Australian Greens did not exist in 1990 and it was another two years before they formed as a national party. However, there were grassroots ‘Green’ groups in several states. Some came together for the first time in 1990 to field a few candidates, others had been working locally for much longer. All were inspired by Bob Brown and four other independents standing together in Tasmania in 1989 as ‘Green Independents’ and taking the balance of power under the Tasmanian Hare Clark system.

It is a period I know well, as I helped find candidates and coordinate in that election. I also remember a meeting in 1987 when I was ACF representative in Canberra when Richardson seemed to encourage the idea of Bob Brown standing candidates in Tasmania to remove the Gray Liberal government. Those of us involved at the time held hopes that Labor and the new political movement might work together. Unfortunately, it seems those leading the Party in 1990, and this includes Hogg, interpreted the nascent ‘Greens’ and the Tasmanian success as a future threat to Labor, rather than as possible allies.

The 1990 election and the disputed effect of the ‘second preference’ strategy is a pivotal turning point for the ALP. From the time Keating took over from Hawke the following year, environment was off the ALP’s agenda. Karen Alexander, who was one of the most effective community organisers during the long Franklin Dam campaign, says that this abandoning of the environment was what convinced her that a Green Party was needed. Judy Lambert, another Franklin campaign veteran, raises the interesting conundrum, “Did Labor turning away from the environment cause the rise of the Greens, or did the rise of the Greens cause Labor to turn away from the environment?’” Either way, the 1990 election announces the beginning of the continuing tension between Labor and the Greens.

I believe it was also a lost opportunity for Labor to fully embrace a rising new environmental world view. In 1990, environmental awareness had never been higher. The decade-long Franklin campaign energised thousands with over 2,500 going to Tasmania in 1982-83 for the blockade. The environment movement built on this interest during the 1980s with campaigns on the wet tropics, Kakadu, forestry and various World Heritage nominations.

From 1988, climate change was in the news when scientists set the Toronto targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent of 1988 levels by 2005. That same year, the Commission for the Future, chaired by Barry Jones, ran national conferences on climate change involving 8,000 people, and The Age newspaper had a four-page lift-out.

All this local awareness was part of a world view expressed in the 1987 UN report, Our Common Future. The report was international recognition that we live on one planet but are eating up its resources unsustainably.

Coming out of the 1890s shearing strikes, the ALP has a proud tradition of labour battles, including leading the world in providing an eight-hour working day. However, I believe the party missed an opportunity in 1990 to fully embrace this new world view, to incorporate it into Labor DNA and to mingle it with union history. If they had done so, would young voters now be turning to the Greens and independents in such numbers?  We will never know, and Judy Lambert’s conundrum remains.