30-06-2008 The Gippsland and Kororoit by-elections were held in very different parts of the state, but had one thing in common - both were areas where the Green vote has usually been well below the state average. Consequently we were pleased to see our vote grow from 5.5% in Gippsland to over 7% (postal votes still to be counted). Some voters commented that our candidate Malcolm McKelvie made them take Green policies seriously for the first time.

The Greens got swings of over 2% across most of the La Trobe Valley and our vote doubled at two Morwell booths and Traralgon South (in the last case to 16.7%). These results undermine the media line that the big swings against the ALP in the Valley represent a protest against action on Climate Change.

In Kororoit the Greens vote fell from 7.5% to 4.7%, but this seems to be the result of Les Twentyman running and scoring over 20%. Twentyman campaigned on similar issues to us, but as a former Victorian of the Year he had a far higher profile than our candidate Marcus Power, and it seems clear that without Les running our vote would have been much higher, probably well above what we got in 2006.

The viciousness of the ALP campaign against Twentyman, with the Greens mentioned in passing, demonstrates that Victorian Labor can't seem to resist running for the low ground when they feel threatened.