Yes, its whether you are engaged in purely pragmatic deal making, treating the votes you might attract as bait to swap for the votes some other micro-party might attract, or distribute your preferences by political affinity.

It didn't matter in South Australia in the end, as the Green was the 5th Senator brought over the line on Labor preferences, but in a strong performance by labor in which Labor was the 5th Senator, it would have cost the Greens a seat.

The Greens in SA received preference flows from the Sex Party (Civil Libertarian) and the HEMP party, which makes sense on political affinity when the remaining parties are the ALP, Nick Xenophon's paternalistic wowsers, and the Coalition and Family First on the right. Preference flows by political affinity for Wikileaks would have seen similar preferencing, possibly with Nick Xenophon ahead of the ALP depending on which took a less bad position on internet neutrality.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.