Member for Eden-Monaro Peter Hendy said the two parties had done a “dirty deal” to swap preferences in 139 of 150 federal electorates.

He said this preference swap put an end to “the Labor lie” that the Liberals would do a deal with the Greens and his party has put The Greens last in every seat they contest.

“This confirms that Labor is captive to the Greens and that given half a chance, they would sell out again and do another deal with the Greens to form a minority government,” Dr Hendy said. 

“It’s the height of hypocrisy and shows that you can’t trust Labor.

“A Labor-Greens-Independent minority government would be a disaster for Eden-Monaro.” 

However, his claim was strenuously denied by Eden-Monaro’s Labor candidate Mike Kelly and The Greens’ candidate Tamara Ryan. 

“I say this clearly and unequivocally – Labor is not interested in doing any deals,” Dr Kelly said.  

“If the Liberals and the Greens want to do deals, that’s for them.

“Labor is preferencing progressive parties above the Liberals and putting One Nation last everywhere.” 

Ms Ryan said such a claim “hints at desperation from the Liberals”.

“We put two independents before Labor because we thought they had better policies on climate action and more humane asylum seeker policies,” she said.  

“We’ve put Liberals after Labor, because their policies are so at odds with the interests of ordinary Australians.

“So long as LNP continue to force health care and education austerity cuts, attack unions and penalty rates, benefit companies and the ruling class with tax breaks, cut funds from domestic violence shelters and Community Legal Centres, force cuts to CSIRO, undermine the LGBTQIA+ community and deny First Nations People a treaty, we will continue to fight back.” 

She said Dr Hendy claiming a Labor-Greens minority government would be a disaster for Eden-Monaro was political fear-mongering which needed to stop. 

“Political parties should present their policies for assessment on their merit, not make politics more sensationalised and harder to understand,” Ms Ryan said. 

Dr Kelly said in terms of local preferences, Labor tried to accommodate voters in the most effective way possible to help them fill out the ballot paper.

“We are fighting for every vote, in every corner of the country,” he said. 

“If the people of Eden-Monaro want better schools, if they want Medicare to stay in public hands, if they want good jobs, if they want multinationals to pay their fair share, if they want real action on climate change – they should vote Labor.”