Greens candidate plays kingmaker

ROBERT BURTON-BRADLEY

As the contest for the seat of Sydney approaches its climax you could have been forgiven for thinking it’s a two horse race. Liberal Shayne Mallard and independent successor to Clover Moore, Alex Greenwich, seem to be watching you on every street corner and both campaigns are heavily active on social media.

And yet Chris Harris, the Greens Candidate for the Sydney by-election who sits in third place according to recent polling, could actually play a decisive role in the final outcome.

It’s been a dramatic couple of months for Harris. Despite the Greens vote halving at last month’s local government elections and the loss of one of two Sydney council spots, Harris was, until recently, looking like the strongest challenger to Mallard.

It was thought Harris had a good chance on getting across the line on Labor preferences. But when Labor decided not to run a candidate, Greenwich began looking like the most likely winner, with Harris relegated to third place behind Mallard. Things were not helped when former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally endorsed Greenwich for the seat.

Despite these setbacks, Harris is a politician who is genuinely committed to campaigning on issues affecting the electorate regardless of the final outcome. Chief among his concerns for the inner city are proposed changes to community consultation on new development in a new planning green paper being considered by the O’Farrell government.

“What this will do is will actually disempower local communities, any comments will need to be made right up front when very complicated planning documents and studies are presented to them and at the moment that just doesn’t happen now,” he told the Star Observer.

“People just won’t engage at that level. What people want to know is what’s going to built next door to them or in their street or a new bar three doors up that’s going to be trading till 5am.”

Dubbed “the queerest electorate in Australia” by ABC election analyst Antony Green, Sydney has the highest proportion of LGBTI voters of any seat in Australia.

Harris is the odd man out in this race – both Mallard and Greenwich are openly gay – which ironically leaves the straight Harris in the minority.

However, Harris is quick to point out that the Greens have a long track record on pushing gay rights policies, and had the first openly gay politician to be elected in Australia: former leader and senator Bob Brown.

“Gay rights is an important issue as we have the largest LGBTI population in Australia here in Sydney and the fight to have equal rights is just not won yet,” he said.

“Marriage equality is the headline campaign at the moment, but there are other issues such as the gay panic defence – used to excuse people for reacting in a violent way to LGBTI people – and also there is still discrimination in the system allowing small business and religious organisations to discriminate based upon sexuality.”

Sydney is also crying out for more public transport according to Harris, who criticised the recent plan unveiled by the government as wrong for the future of the city.

“The government’s got to get real and stop pandering to this notion that everybody wants to use a car, it’s just not possible or realistic for people to do that,” he said.

“A light rail out to the east, possibly along Oxford St, and a light rail link to towards Parramatta Rd – if they develop Parramatta Rd that’s a logical thing to do. Surface transport works in other cities, it can work in Sydney.”
While pragmatic enough to recognise he is an outside chance in the by-election race unless there is a significant swing in primary votes his way, he also recognises the kingmaker role his preferences will play in deciding who wins the seat.

“We’re asking the voters to vote one the Greens and we will allocate our preferences to the two independents; they will first of all go to Glenn Wall, the other independent from Pyrmont, then to Alex Greenwich. We wont be preferencing the Christian Democrats or the Liberals so our vote will be exhausting after Alex Greenwich.”

Harris said he was disappointed Greenwich had not chosen to direct his preferences to the Greens in return, opting instead to preference no candidate, and said while both he and Mallard had long records of public service, Greenwich was an unknown quantity.

“What does Alex Greenwich stand for? He has no record as a parliamentarian, we know he was the convenor of Australian Marriage Equality, he’s a single issue candidate,” he said.

“How is he going to vote in a parliament on a whole range of things? The public just doesn’t know and I think it’s extremely risky to support a candidate who has no record and secondly refuses to preference other progressive candidates, which means his votes may well exhaust or even go to the Liberals.

“There is a risk now that with him taking this action that we could see a Liberal win the seat of Sydney.”

Ironically, Harris said he and Greenwich live just a few doors away from each other on the same street in Kings Cross.

INFO: Star Observer will continue its profile of the Sydney by-election candidates with Shayne Mallard next week.