Waatea 5th Estate  – Left Wing Jedi Council debate the Labour-Green MoU

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Joining us tonight to discuss the Labour Green Civil Union and what it actually means for the 2017 election, the Left Wing Jedi Council comprising of…

In studio, former Green Party Campaign Strategist, former Alliance Party MP, former Internet Party leader and current owner of ethical and living wage seafood restaurant – Laila Harre

One of The most respected voices in NZ unionism – the General Secretary of First Union – the legendary Robert Reid

Former Alliance Party candidate, political media blogger and lecturer at AUT School of Communication – Dr Wayne Hope

Former Green Party MP and human rights activist – Keith Locke

And on Skype – one of the best political commentators in NZ – Otago University Politics guru – Bryce Edwards

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Brillliant Martyn,

    Great line-up and glad to see Laila back and Robert Reid is awesome also.

    Go get these Nazional scoundrels removed from power next year.

  3. Interesting episode. Think it would have been better to invite Little, King and Turei and Shaw to the panel first to get a much better idea of the union. i.e. hear it from the horses mouth – especially when the panel was in agreement of the main focus should be a change of government.

    Hope we have that episode.

    I also think that it was a bit negative from the left. Yep it was clumsy but to change the government there has to be this strategy of co operation.

    I would have preferred a bit more positivity about it from the commentators.

    I agree the most with Robert Reid about their needs to a vision. That is far more important than some dull neoliberal style costings because the National party will twist it and make it about that and the left message and vision never gets out.

    I say, don’t cost anything, whatever they do avoid housing and increased taxes otherwise it will be about National for tax cuts and Labour/Green for tax increases. People can’t even afford the cost of living now, so bringing up more costs is not going to go down well with middle NZ. No one wants austerity.

    What they should point out is that with 8 years of intensive immigration of importing in hundreds of thousands of ‘skilled people’ for our massive ‘skill shortage’ John Key’s government has still have only built 1000 houses (while selling 2700 state houses) but we need hundreds of thousands more houses and roads to house and transport the ‘skilled people’. And Christchurch is still a mess.

    Talk about creating the crisis that did not used to exist. If they had done nothing we would be better off by a long way.

    There is plenty of money for spying, corporate welfare, roads and offshore tax avoiding corporations and individuals from National.

    As for Winston Peters it is in his interest to keep away from Labour and Greens so he can pick up the rural votes. So the left commentators should stop bringing it up. As long as strategy talks are going on behind the scenes that is all we can ask for.

    To help get the change of government the left commentators need to go easy – the clues are already there about policy with the alliance. The right lie and never cost anything properly – why should the left show their hand early.

    At this point Labour and Greens can not do any worse than National so I would vote for them without any policy especially if I knew Winston was in there as a sort of even keel and would like to see Hone Hawawira back. That is MMP in action a broad range of MP’s working together.

    At the rate National are going we will not have a health system, free education system, sovereignty or superannuation by 2017 so with that threat the main points is get out NZ to vote anyone but NACT or the Maori Tory’s.to save the country from further ruin that has rained down on us for 8 years.

    • Well said Save NZ. Yes, that was the first thing that got my attention, where was the Labour representatives in this panel? Wondered if this was supposed to be more of a beat up than what it turned out to be. But it was still negative, and i found that difficult to understand. I didn’t think the MOU was clumsy at all though. There were only 2 of the panelists who got it and that was the General Secretary of First Union Robert Reid and Green MP and Human rights activist Keith Locke. They understood it was a “start” that it was the “first step” The rest of panelists expected way too much, and imho they were silly and unrealistic to think like that. Labour and the Greens didn’t need to show all their cards at this stage, they didn’t need to “produce a fully costed shared policy platform” from the outset 18 months out from a general election, there’s plenty of time to build on this MOU announcement, Labour and Greens will be taking note of the reaction, policies come later, at election time.

      By the way, Bryce Edwards is not one of the best political commentators, he looked like he was flapping at the start of the discussion. He doesn’t want to see John key and his National government gone, Bryce has always been a supporter of it. I do agree however, that the obvious ones who will not benefit from this MOU will be Peter Dunne and the “tory” Maori party, personally, I would very much like to see them kicked out of parliament permanently. It’s curtains for No friends National and their sole Act, they’re out !!!!!

  4. What was really surprising was Martyn’s question to Green MP Keith Locke about Metiria Turei retiring from the leadership after the election. Haven’t heard anything like that, has anyone else? Would like to know what gave him that destabilizing notion. Was Martyn just being naughty by doing a bit of stirring?

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