[nl]

I'd say the Australian greens are closer to the democratic party in the US or the liberal democrats in the UK. So I'd put them center left on average.

Um, no.

The Australian Labor party would be on the center-left wing of the US Democratic party. Even the strong right wing faction of the Australian Labor party is well to the left of the "Blue Dog" Democrats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition). For example, one member of the right wing faction of the Labor party is the federal health minister (Nicola Roxon - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Right#In_Victoria), and her biggest policy is a take over of state-run health systems by the federal government. No blue dogger would support that, and I doubt it would get majority support within the US Democratic party.

Both Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are right faction members (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Right#In_Queensland), and they came up with the mining tax! That isn't exactly a centralist policy (by US standards anyway)!

The Greens are well to the left of Australian Labor on both social and economic issues. I suspect they are close to the UK Liberal Democrats on social issues, but to the left of them on economic issues.

[dmharrison]

I guess what I was trying to point out is that they're not the crazy greens social enviro anarchist party that you'd tend to think of if you heard of the 'greens' for the first time (generally). They're 'closer' but I agree I wouldn't consider them equivalent or overlapping on an absolute scale. The US center being quite different from the Aus center of course, but normalising across countries is bound to result in a loss of direction.

I do wonder if voting wasn't so constrained to party lines what we'd end up with though.

[nl]

I agree that they aren't a crazy greens social enviro anarchist party, but I think many people might be surprised just how left wing they are. Their economic policies include things like:

only allowing losses from an investment to be offset against income from the same investment;

introducing a tax on extreme wealth applied to the wealthiest 5% of people.

return the company tax rate to 33% and broaden the company tax base by reducing tax concessions.

etc etc

http://greens.org.au/policies/sustainable-economy/economics

Having said that, I'll probably be voting green (and have before). Not sure about my preferences, though.

I wish there was a socially progressive, economically centralist party in Australia. Pity the Australian Democrats collapsed.