The Greens decided on a very important change in their Chief of Staff this week by replacing Ken ‘wild man’ Spagnolo with Andrew ‘smooth operator’ Campbell.
This has set off concerns that James Shaw is suddenly stamping a lime coloured heel of authority all over the Greens.
Probably not.
Shaw scares Labour enough with his talk of working with National to inoculate the Greens from being sidelined by NZ First & Labour in 2017. Before Shaw, Labour could always believe the Greens will take any old crap they and NZ First offer them to gain a minority Government, but in Shaw the Greens have a leader who has no real problem offering that confidence vote to National if the deal is sweeter than what Labour and NZ First offer.
To do that effectively, the Greens don’t need the chess like strategy of Spagnolo who has tried to negotiate the impregnable Labour Party sandpit for 8 years, they need a slick communicator who can coax soft blue voters across to the Green Mothership. Andrew ‘smooth operator’ Campbell, is one such slick communicator.
IF the Greens form some sort of deal with National in 2017, it won’t be the Greens who willingly walk into John Key’s arms, it will be the Labour Party and NZ First who force them to.
“Wild man” you say? have you ever met Ken Spagnolo?
Yeah, having met him once, I lol’ed at ‘wild man.’
Also – smooth operator? Is he a jazz saxophonist or something?
Well – that’s politics – and if the Greens are going to be constantly led down the organic garden path by Labour primarily – perhaps they would be better off and far more effective in curbing National than not being there.
Certainly as a counterbalance to bad Act and the outside Dunney.
As well as doing that – it’d be a wake up call for all concerned in parliament.
Each and EVERY party concerned.
“if the Greens are going to be constantly led down the organic garden path by Labour primarily – perhaps they would be better off and far more effective in curbing National than not being there.”
That is precisely what the Liberal Democrats thought when they went in with the Conservatives in the UK in 2010. When the next election came the Conservatives threw everything at eliminating the Liberal Democrats seats. The result was that of the 57 seats they held in 2010 they lost all but 8 at the last election and are now effectively dead.
THe Greens would be crazy to go there. Its toxic.
Yeah…I tend to agree…its like water and oil.
Ticked you positive for that one because that’s my gut feeling too.
Scary thought Martyn,
Greens are a strange lot nowadays, as in 1999 they were strong with policy and clarity but today they must be intentionally hiding lots of their real modal transport agenda to attract National votes as national has only a road freight policy.
Just look at the UK manifesto on transport and the NZ Greens policy on transport.
http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/assets/images/policy/pdfs/Transport.pdf
UK Has a full comprehensive modal freight policy of at least eight pages.
While NZ Greens has only a third of this devoted to modal freight task using rail, road, coastal freight.
The only thing we liked was the NZ Greens “Fair cost of transport” policy which factors into the cost of each mode by costing all “external Effects”.
National have cut this cost out of their transport policy all together, and Labour was trying to have included in 2008 before the election then. NZ First have the most comprehensive transport policy of all opposition.
https://home.greens.org.nz/policy/transport-policy
It is laughable that anyone would think the Green Party would ever be a support partner for creepy Key and his toxic National Government.
Indeed – even though it might sound good on paper or strategically or any other way one try’s to cut it….it still doesn’t sit right.
Though the principle is working within to modify and adsorb….still…the Greens and National ???…….
If they ever did they would lose 60% of their vote at the next election.
I remember the working with first term Key government that got them caned at the next election, are they sure they want to go down that track again? They need to think green and blue make shit brown!
Eh? The Greens started working on a few projects of mutual interest with National in 2009 and went up from 9 to 14 MPs in 2011. By your logic, they should do it again.
while not advocating the greens go with the tories –
– it is worth keeping in mind that a look at an international ideological-spectrum from left to right..brings two surprises..
one is that the national party is more ‘left’ than the american democrat party..(which just emphasises how screwed america is..)
..the other is that on that spectrum – you can barely slide a playing-card between neoliberal national party and neoliberal labour…
..they really are very close to each other..
..so theoretically on purely ideological-grounds..the greens should be open to that option..
..but two things stop that happening – one being most of their support would melt away – but it wouldn’t even get to that – as the party would not approve such a deal..the internal constitutional checks and balances would put the kibosh on that idea.
..and then you look at the tory possibilities/personalities – key – and those rising to the top behind him – and you go ‘ew!’…
..so it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon..
..but don’t forget..ideologically you can barely slide a playing-card between the tories and the tories-lite – labour..
…and it’s hard to tell who hates/ignores the poor more (c.f. labour ’14 election-policies..)
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