Put Greens last: peak Jewish groups demand major parties agree to preferences swap

Joe Kelly and David Tanner

Two of the nation’s peak Jewish groups have taken the unprecedented step of seeking to influence the make-up of the future parliament by writing to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, urging the major parties to preference each other above the Greens at the next election.

The letter sent on Tuesday morning by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia also seeks a public commitment from both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader that they will not allow the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government or make concessions to them in return for Greens support on confidence and supply.

Separate versions of the letter have also been sent to the five recontesting teal MPs – Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel – urging them not to form a negotiating bloc with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament.

Signed by ZFA president Jeremy Leibler and ECAJ president Daniel Aghion, the letter to the major party leaders says there is a precedent for such a step given Labor and Liberals “committed to preference One Nation last on multiple occasions, including by former prime minister Scott Morrison at the 2019 federal election.”

The letter sparked a ferocious response from Greens leader Adam Bandt who warned Labor that preferencing the Liberals above the minor party would devastate the ALP primary vote and trigger an exodus in support.

“Voters will desert them,” Mr Bandt told The Australian.

The letter urges Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton to work together to “counteract the shameful and cynical behaviour of the Greens” over the past 12 months, accusing the minor party of seeking “political gains by exploiting intercommunity tensions that have been heightened by overseas conflicts, without regard for the social consequences”.

Mr Leibler and Mr Aghion warn in the letter that the Greens have undermined social cohesion and “threaten the foundations of our freedoms and democracy”.

“The Greens have knowingly spread outright falsehoods, including the monstrous lie that this government is complicit in genocide,” the letter says. “In doing so, the Greens have joined forces with and incited political and religious extremists who have at times engaged in violence.”

“We are writing to each of you to make a public commitment that you will not permit the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government,” the letter says. “We are also writing to seek a public commitment from each of your parties to preference each other above the Greens.”

However, the benefits of a preference deal between the major parties to put the Greens lower on how-to-vote cards are more likely to benefit the Liberal Party than Labor. Analysis of the 2022 election result reveals that the Greens won their three Queensland lower house seats of Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane on the back of more than 80 per cent of Labor preferences. If Labor’s preferences had split 50-50 between the Greens and the Liberals, the Liberal Party would have held on to Brisbane and Ryan, both of which were gains for the minor party.

It would have taken a slightly higher preference flow from Labor to the Liberals (about 55 per cent) for the Greens to have been blocked from winning the seat of Griffith previously held by Labor MP Terri Butler. Labor would still have lost the seat, to the Coalition.

Had the Greens not won the three Queensland seats, the minor party’s presence in parliament would have been limited to the seat of Melbourne while boosting the Liberals’ numbers by three.

By contrast, looking at seats that were a Labor-Greens contest, Liberal preferences already flow in Labor’s favour, ranging between a high of 73 per cent in the northern Melbourne seat of Wills and 59 per cent at the last election.

The Greens leader responded to the letter by telling The Australian that “Labor voters will be terrified to know their preferences are going to Peter Dutton”.

“People are already deserting the Labor Party, and if Labor does a dirty deal with Peter Dutton’s racist, climate-denying Liberals, Labor will lose a swath of seats,” he said. “If Labor preferences the Liberals, voters will desert them.”

Mr Albanese on Tuesday did not indicate that the ALP would deviate from the practice of giving preferences to the Greens at the next federal election and has previously said the matter was a question for the party organisation. Mr Dutton asked the Prime Minister in question time whether he would take a “principled stance” and rule out giving preferences to the “racist and anti-Semitic” Greens.

Mr Albanese criticised the Coalition for giving its preferences to One Nation in Queensland, noting party leader Pauline Hanson had been disendorsed by the Liberal Party in the 1990s. “In the election that’s underway … in Queensland, the LNP are saying very clearly that they’ll give preferences to … One Nation,” he said. “That is what they’re saying. And if they’re worried about preferences to the Greens, and the Greens being elected to parliament, the only reason why there are Greens in the Queensland parliament, the only reason is because the Queensland LNP put them there with their preferences.”

Mr Albanese has made clear that he seeks majority government and does not want to govern in coalition with any other party.

In the letter, Mr Leibler and Mr Aghion set out a list of seven broad grievances against the Greens including comments by NSW state MP Jenny Leong who told a pro-Palestine forum in December that Jewish groups had “tentacles” seeking to influence power. Both men said the Greens had endorsed a rally where the flags of listed terror organisation, Hezbollah, were displayed and noted the display of such symbols was a crime.

Ms Spender, in the seat of Wentworth in Sydney is acknowledged in the letter as the parliamentary representative of the largest Jewish electorate in the country, while Zoe Daniel in Goldstein in Melbourne is recognised as the representative of “one of the largest Jewish electorates”.

The Teal MPs are urged not to negotiate with the Greens over confidence and supply in a hung parliament. The letter says such a commitment – alongside action from the government and opposition – would go a “considerable way to repairing the damage that the Greens have caused.”

Additional reporting: Noah Yim