It’s not just the Press Gallery who are increasingly irrelevant, Duncan Garner’s (or ‘The Dunc’ as I like to call him) confused and bizarre column today for Radio Live! just seems about as out of the loop as Pluto is to the inner solar system.
I’d like to challenge The Dunc on a whole range of assumptions he makes in his column...
“…if Labour is to govern after the next election it will need a three-way coalition including Winston Peters, with his New Zealand First Party, and the Greens. And that’s tricky – really tricky.
Because on last night’s polls they won’t have the numbers for a two-party coalition. So you add in the Greens – and even then that’s no certainty. But that’s the scenario.
A lift in support could still see a three-way coalition of the left. It’s technically possible and that’s what John Key is telling everyone too.
So, under this scenario what happens?
Labour and NZ First agree to a formal coalition and shaft the Greens, forcing them to support a centre-left Government on confidence and supply. They don’t get Ministerial jobs or they get very minor executive jobs outside of Cabinet. It’s entirely possible. And Winston Peters will be able to tell NZ he saved us from the Greens.
The Greens have been consistently shafted by Labour for years, but they are a tougher bunch now. I can’t see them putting up with this, but, then again, would they have any other choice?
What will the Greens do faced with this scenario? Will they put up with being shafted again? Or would they allow National to govern in some way? Surely not. Would they?
…if only The Dunc read The Daily Blog as much as he reads Whaleoil, he wouldn’t be making such embarrassing calls. As readers will be fully aware, TDB has raised the issue of the Greens and NZ First months ago and the issues brought up then I am told have been taken on board by all concerned.
To give The Dunc a remedial class, the animosity between the Greens and NZ First is personal. The Greens feel aggrieved for 2005, Winston feels aggrieved for the manner in which Russel Norman twisted the knife on him during the Owen Glenn affair. How to breach this divide has been the subject of much talk internally and solutions have been reached. That solution is David Cunliffe, yet Duncan’s conclusion is that it’s David that has to go.
David’s appointment of Matt McCarten as Chief-of-Staff shows he understands and respects MMP far better than The Dunc seems to.
What is Winston looking for in terms of policy and how agreeing to that request opens the door wide for the Greens seems to be a blog The Dunc missed. Months ago I was very doubtful the Greens and NZ First could work together, now I’m certain they could.
We have so few left wing media pundits with any actual connection to the internal debates within the new Left political bloc on any media network now, that we get these weird concoctions by corporate pundits put forward that seem to have no basis in reality.
That kind of “analysis” contains the minimal amount of roughage that can be safely digested by the Radio Live audience.
NZ First is as constrained as is the Green Party.
Peters has two options; coalition with Labour and the Greens or sit on the cross-benches.
Coalition with National cannot be an option – not unless Peters has forgotten events between 1996 and 1999, when his Party was torn apart by factional infighting and public odium at supporting another National government (when Peters insisted in the 1996 election that “National was not fit to govern”).
So his hands are tied as well.
Duncan Garner would do well to bone up on his recent history…
Huh, of course a coalition with National is an option. All Peters cares about is his pay rise and being chauffeured around in a Ministerial Limo. He’ll retire before the 2017 anyway, so what’s he got to worry about?
I completely agree Tamati.
Winston will make an agreement with whoever gives him the biggest baubles.
After the election all promises to the electorate that Winston made will be quietly forgotten.
Two elections ago National attacked NZF to drive their vote down beneath the 5% threshold, lose a coalition partner for the left and waste left votes. Winston spent 3 years out of parliament because of it.
Do you really think Winston will forgive and forget?
Notes additionally that one of the major sources of animosity (that *directly contributed* to 2005) was the time Greens Co-Leader Rod Donald compared Winston to Hitler and NZF policies to those of the Nazis.
I believe Winston’s attitude was something like “well if that’s what they think of us, I guess they don’t want to work with us, then”
Garner’s just a vacuous lightweight and fits Radio Live’s intellectual level perfectly.
It’s easy to be a blathering repetitive dick head. Much harder to actually have to think deeply and critically about things and engage the brain before the mouth !
” we get these weird concoctions by corporate pundits put forward that seem to have no basis in reality.”
Unfortunately they influence the voting patterns of people that are too lazy to read beyond the corporate puppet media. The sheeple you often refer to Bomber, who make up a large portion of those who do, and most of those who do not, vote
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