The climate is changing - but Green vote dries up

Pre-election polling supported this view, suggesting that the Greens were gaining support and would comfortably win the seat of Melbourne in the Lower House.

On polling day, however, the Greens primary vote was essentially static.

In the Lower House, the proportion of Green votes went up marginally from 9.73 per cent to 10.04 per cent.

In the seat of Melbourne, where the Greens were expecting to claim their first ever Lower House seat, they improved but still only received 27.41 per cent of the primary vote.

In the Upper House, provisional figures showed the proportion of Green votes fell from 10.87 per cent to 10.34 per cent, while the total number of Green votes also fell from 314,697 to 291, 456.

That's 23,241 fewer people who voted Green in the Upper House in 2006 than 2002.

According to the Greens own explanation of the election result, the Green vote suffered because of a Labor plot and from the stupidity of the electorate.

The front page of the Greens website says:

The Greens were polling so strongly against Labor incumbents in two inner-city seats that Labor was forced to parachute in Peter Garrett, who sent a letter to every household misrepresenting the Greens’ preferences.

Mr Garrett's direct mail letter highlighted the fact that the Greens had chosen to issue a "split ticket" how-to-vote card in those seats, effectively directing half of their preferences to the Liberals.

Dr Brown released his own letter to voters, telling them: "Peter Garrett is not Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett, or the Australian Conservation Foundation's Peter Garrett. "He is now an anti-Green campaigner."

Similarly, a letter to the Herald Sun on November 28 (quoted by Dr Brown in Federal Parliament) attacked both Peter Garrett and the people who chose not to vote Green.