Australian greens launches national campaign

The Australian Greens party held a meeting at the National Convention Center here on Saturday to launch its national campaign for the federal election on Sept. 7. Party Leader Senator Christine Milne used her speech at the campaign launch to warn of the risk of the Coalition taking control of both houses of parliament. "Australian voters do not want any party to have absolute power in the parliament," Milne said. The latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll showed Labor's primary vote has dropped two points in the past fortnight to 35 percent while the Coalition rose a point to 47 percent. After preferences, this gives the Coalition a 53 percent to 47 percent lead. The Greens' support stood at 9 percent in the Aug. 19 Newspoll. "There's no doubt we are the underdog, the David to their Goliath. The Greens rely on volunteers and people power, not deep pockets," she said. Milne admitted that the Coalition is on track to win the election and therefore called on voters to give the votes to the Greens to prevent the Coalition controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Three years ago, the Greens added six senators to their existing three and Melbourne's Adam Bandt was propelled into the lower house, where he helped form minority government with Labor. However, it will be much harder for the Greens in this election as both the Labor and the Coalition have announced to prefer the Greens below other parties. "The minority government is an experiment that has comprehensively failed," the Coalition said in a statement last week, "The Labor-Green minority government has delivered record debt, rising job losses and over 40 new taxes, including the carbon tax." Kevin Rudd, leader of the Labor, also made clear that his party won't enter into any agreements to form a minority government if the election is tied. At Saturday's campaign launch, the Greens leader again elaborated the focus of the party's policies, including a much compassionate approach to solve the asylum seekers issue and a more radical stand on environmental and climate change issues. "This election, like never before, is about who you can trust," Milne said, "Trust to care for people ... and to care for the environment." Milne also took the opportunity to announce that the Greens is going to introduce a Clean Air Act. Under the act, a network of air quality monitors would be established in the right places that would provide real-time results on pollution sources.