Greens confirmed as the Third Force in Australia

The New Zealand Green Party has congratulated the Australian Greens on their strong showing in yesterday’s General Election ‘across the ditch’.

Melbourne’s The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald are anointing the Greens as the new ‘third force’ of Aussie politics, following the Democrats’ fall from grace.

The Australian Greens look likely to win one million votes in the lower house elections, having increased their share of the vote by 2.2 percentage points to 7.1 per cent, placing them third ahead of both the Democrats and the ruling Coalition’s National Party.

The Greens have also lifted their votes significantly in the Senate, almost certainly gaining a third seat - that of Christine Milne in Tasmania - and are still in the running in several other states.

“Our delight at the significant increase in the Greens’ popular support has been tempered by the fact that this has not translated into the Senate seats they deserve,” said Green Party Co-Leader Rod Donald.

“This is due to Labor preferencing fringe parties like Family First instead of reciprocating the Greens’ decision to give their second preferences to Labor.

“The overall result points to the need for Australia to adopt a proper system of proportional representation so that Aussies can elect who they actually voted for.”

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>