The Daily Blog Open Mic Sunday 31st May 2015

1. Does the election of James Shaw to the position of co-Leader in the NZ Green Party signal a step to the right for the Party,

   It’s not a question i care to attempt to answer here and now, with the selection being won by only a handful of votes from Kevin Hague there is tho a possibility of a deep schism appearing within the Green’s,

   James Shaw will have to develop a clear and concise picture of where He sees the Green Party sitting within the political spectrum which is understood across the Green voting electorate as a whole,

   There is a danger inherent in chasing the votes from the upwardly mobile, the blue-greens if you will, that a large swathe of the Party voters will begin to view the Party as having been colonized by the Neo-Liberal clusterf**k that would seem to have captured the majority of New Zealand politics,

   Shaw, as should the rest of the Party, take note that much of its vote in Wellington, and elsewhere, would feel like Aliens among the Green colonizers of the Aro Valley, and, i am sure the good residents of that valley would feel likewise if transported in the opposite direction,

   The danger for the Party being of course that should ‘the message’ from the Party change markedly in seeking that blue-green crossover vote there becomes apparent a provocation for those of us who have long fought ‘the market’ in its dominance over labour to simply take our ballots elsewhere…

   • I dont see a danger of going poodle Blue with James Shaw….Shaw has said he wants to include a wide section of New Zealand society in the Green Party and movement…including Maori, Pacific Islanders and Asian….

     http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=207583&cat=978&fm=newsmain%2Cnarts

     “The National Party is a behemoth of money and skilled strategists and power,” he said.

     “The Green Party’s strength comes from its members, and if we’re going to contend with such a formidable adversary, we need a lot more of them.”

     Mr Shaw also said the party needs to be more representative of modern New Zealand.

     “People vote for people they feel a connection to. If we aim to govern the country then we need to represent it,” he said.

     “That means more Maori candidates, more Pasifika candidates, more Asian New Zealanders, more farmers, more business people, doctors, lawyers, more of almost everyone.”

     Mr Shaw later told reporters his comments didn’t indicate that he thought there needed to be a clear-out of some of the party’s current caucus members.

     The Green Party is celebrating its 25th birthday and despite expanding its support base during those years, it has never had a spot at the cabinet table.

     “Clearly there’s a group of people who are connecting with us at the level of our values and our policies, but they still have some reservations about us,” Mr Shaw said.

     “I see it as my job to help overcome those reservations.”

     Mr Shaw said while he’s not keen on a formal coalition with National, he is open to working with them on issues where there is common ground.

2. You might or might not be right Chooky, but, ”more Doctors,more Farmers, more Business people???, heaven forbid the Party should be promoting ‘more grassroots green activists’ to step up to it’s ranks of MP’s,

   Lightening bolts accompanied by bursts of thunder would surely ensue should the Party begin to seek the services of the odd manual labourer, office cleaner,beneficiary, or, any other form of humanity that has spent 20 years face to face with the daily grind of life living with the lowest of incomes as inductees into the ranks of it’s MP’s,

   Despite the Parliament being full of them, Doctors, Farmers, and, Business-people that is we definitely ‘need’ more of them right???,

   Reading between the lines of James Shaw’s speech to the Party’s AGM i get the sense that He sees the future of the Green’s as being a party of ‘professionals’, carbon copies so to speak, of Himself, ‘doing’ Green to the electorate as viewed through the filter of those professionals,

   In effect, and, obviously this is only my opinion based upon scant evidence, to seek more Doctors, more Farmers, more Business-people to be the ‘future’ of the Party is to seek out the green-tinged ‘winners’ from the past 30 years of the Neo-Liberal experiment,

   Such ‘winners’ i would suggest will have scant regard for the other arm of Green Party philosophy, ‘Social Justice’, and, the danger here for the Party is that those of us, while practicing ‘greens’ in life-style, who lean politically more to the ‘left’ and thus our ballots are cast more in favor of the Party’s social justice policies, will, as the ‘professionals’ colonize the Party simply migrate our votes elsewhere,

   Perhaps my analysis of what James Shaw might bring to the Green Party is too harsh, it could be said that the departure of both Nandor and Sue Bradford were both prior moves away from the ‘grass-roots’ toward the ‘professionalization’ of the Party and James Shaw as co-Leader is just another step in a natural progression,

   However, i do believe that ‘green’, if you will excuse the following expression, as a ‘brand’ has a hard ceiling as far as an attractant to
   voters goes, and therein lies the ‘rub’ for James Shaw and the future of an expansionist Green Party,

   The stark choices???, become more relevant to the upwardly mobile ‘professionals’ of the middle class???, or, seek that increased relevancy by representing, and thus providing representatives from and of the ever growing cohort of those who do register to, but, do not vote….

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