Bewildering as it is to write and for reasons known only to Gaia, the Greens thought releasing on a bloody Friday after the greatest political upset in the Western World the announcement that the brilliant Chloe Swarbrick is joining their ranks was a good idea.
It’s like trying to play a ukulele at an AC/DC concert.
It’s currently the 7th story in the NZ Herald list of political stories.
Slow clap starts now.
Chloe is a brilliant candidate and the fact the Greens got her is further proof of just how useless the bloody NZ Labour Party are.
This should have been put out on Monday and it should have focused on the Trump win and been a possible antidote to that. Instead it’s her talking about the Auckland Mayoralty and doesn’t go much further than that.
Real swing and a miss stuff.
Dumb move from a Political Party that always seems to show all the tactical strategy of moss.
I’m a Green supporter but I feel the Greens do under estimate the importance of leadership figures to electoral success.
They always undercut all bids so to speak.
When you when office you’re taken into the back room for a run down on who really runs the country. The business leaders.
There is a saying in the army that the sergeants run the army well the same goes for politics. Business runs New Zealand.
Tough lesson to learn for the uninitiated.
Sorry mate – don’t see it myself. The Labour Party don’t need any more out of touch parasites, oops sorry I mean politicians than they already have. She was complaining the other day about how hard it is to be an unemployed lawyer. Didn’t really chime with me.
given the amount of lawyers we are training iam not surprised and with the advent of bit-coin the block chain and smart contracts there is going to be a big reduction in the need for lawyers iam sort of on Gareth Morgans side we are going to need a ubi and tax reform to tax capital instead of income.we are already seeing librarians and bank staff being layed off due to technological change.
It was looking like she was at the start of a great career? Now she has joined the Greens … its over before it has started.
I hope she’s got some decent pants to wear while she sits on the fence for the next 20 years. Shame?
I think you misread the original post Takere. Chloe joined the *Greens*. They’re the ones who’ve been criticizing and fighting neo-liberalism since they were formed, while Labour have been doing its dirty work whenever they’ve been in government since 1984, and weakly criticizing neo-liberalism when they’re out of government. It’s nice to see them start to come off the fence a bit, although Little is still keen to point out they’re a “free trade party”, so still keeping half a cheek on that fence.
Clearly this timing is being modelled on Mr Trump’s path to the white house, which could be summed up as ‘every time he was written off, he won’. National were so busy doing their quiet Friday dump (we’ll see what it was in a moment) that they failed to notice the grenade being smuggled into the parliamentary opposition.
Had it been left till Monday the natspin would have queuejumped it and taken the credit for doing so.
This is much more subtle, like a pawn move in chess whose significance is overlooked until it’s too late to save the game.
Possibly so, George. On the other hand, I also wonder if the Greens becoming as Machiavellian as Martyn suggests they should be would also involve the corruption of the quality that gives me more long-term belief in them than in any of the common, pragmatic, and therefore corrupted larger parties.
Oh stop talking strategy & tactic GH. The Greens are a “Populist” party with a colour for a name!
I’m afraid I have no more patience for them to do anything worthy…they’ve had plenty of training time, served their apprenticeship and have failed.
Time for them to vacate the big house ….
I find her, well, boring. But she’ll get the Grey Lynners and Ponsonby living tertiary students vote.
Greens seem to be on a highway to hell (along with Labour). Greens are now glued to support ceiling. It’s a party which will loose relevance as others take over.
I look forward to her boring style in meet the candidates meetings.. I think she’ll be eaten up and spewed out. Central Government politics is 100 x rougher.
Metiria should be looking over her shoulder and about time.
I’m not really a cheerleader of Chloe I have to say. She was propelled by National youth loving Spinoff and many including this blog into the limelight and her fresh face and youth may have mean’t some people failed to examine her policies which are more Green Lite, development focused and ACT.
I sense that their might be conflict by old school Greens voters who actually care about the environment and don’t want every scrap of land being covered in houses propping up lazy immigration and thinking that saving the environment is about a cycle lane in Auckland, making poorer areas and people pay congestion charges and “help a developer, help save poverty”.
Chloe isn’t a person out there in the forests saving the environment, doing community service or protesting against the establishment.
This is someone who is the youth member of the establishment who has a social marketing firm, fashion line and is the darling of the MSM.
Sorry fucked up again in the urban fog of central Auckland if you think this candidate represents the authentic hopes of Green voters or even the richer home owning Green voters or the activist.
Sadly I like the Greens and feel they have the best policies apart from housing where they are doing a democrat IYI fuck up, taking from the middle class to give to the poor and rich migrants, while not actually knowing anybody poor outside of 2 people or a lobbyist for them in Auckland.
Greens, don’t do the Clinton group think, and have Spinoff, Patrick Reynolds, Gen Z and think they represent voters. Because my guess is, that ordinary voters hate them and their thin self serving policies and will stay home and not vote if this is the new representation of ‘Green’.
If the Greens want to get more votes, they should woo back Sue Bradford. She is an authentic voice that actually get’s real results.
Sue is a genuine anti establishment voice for change and that is what the Greens need because they have lost some authentic heavy hitters and replacing them candidates who represent nothing to do with the Greens and supports PPP’s like Sky Path, but seem to fill some tick box (popular, young, female) is going to disappoint and possible enrage some existing Green voters as well as having nothing to do with Green voters who are young environmentalists and activists.
Greens have ex barrister Metiria who they thought would appeal to young Maori, – didn’t happen.
They have ex Coco Cola James Shaw who is supposed to appeal to the more business friendly Greens – not sure that is happening.
And now they have Chloe who again is so far removed from Green policy as most people know it.
Don’t kill our hope for the future Greens – you need the Sue Kegleys, the Jeanette Fitzsimons and the Russel Normans – not careerists!!
OH FUCK – just noticed that the Greens website has Trains for the Shore as their lead….. is this a really really bad punt to appeal to the rich shorites who don’t normally vote Green, while ignoring the the rest of Green NZ!
The word “out of touch comes to mind” as well as the Intellectual Yet Idiot Class.
To clinch the Labour/Greens win then Greens should do anything they can to secure David Cunliffe as a Green’s leader.
That would also help Labour now they have the MoU. Little and Cunliffe would be a very compelling offering to voters in NZ. Not too radical but a genuine push for genuine change. Both men are authentic so although they are not anti establishment they are still appealing to those who want change.
I have no doubt that Cunliffe is disgusted with politics and would be very reluctant to go back, but what about getting rid of Key and saving NZ – maybe he can be persuaded it is worth the personal sacrifice for the greater good?
Cunliffe as well as everything else can also get Greens that electorate seat.
Cunliffe’s biggest mistake was resigning as Labour leader. That mean’t all those Fuckers from the Natz to MSM and Labour ABC’s won. Cunliffe should go back in, and beat them all because you can’t win all the time and you often win the second time around because you know what to expect from your opponents.
Think what would have happened if Nelson Mendela had let them beat him and and just gone back to Law. Instead he spent his whole life fighting and he not only changed his country but also the world.
Maybe NZ could lead the world in climate change, food production, IT – who knows.
One thing for sure is that NZ under Key is going to become some fucked up penniless foreign owned banana republic under the Natz and Chloe’s cycle lane and making people pay to walk along Sky Path on the North Shore isn’t going to cut it as a vision for change, or a viable future for my kids.
NZ is largely already a “fucked up penniless foreign owned banana republic”
David Cunliffe is leaving NZ politics, his decision should be respected, he won’t join the Greens. People need to move on now.
[…] the Greens could perhaps stop self mutilating the launch of their new candidate and if Labour could possibly stop picking fights with one of NZs most respected TV Journalists, […]
Seriously?? you are blaming Labour now for Chloe wanting to join the Green party? It’s her choice for christsakes.
Yeah. They’re busy trying to breath life into dead corpses there missing what’s going on in reality, National suffer from this in different ways
Rubbish, it’s Chloe’s choice, not anyone else’s to make.
There are three inputs Labour should be most concerned about.
-Energy
-Labour
-Capital
With out energy labour is a statue
With out energy Capital is a sculpture
Labour has to come up with an energy policy that will drive the economy and unfortunately all the talent is moving away from labour and they have attitude
The tides of history makes it inevitable the the Green-Labour alliance will become effectively a single party within the next few years. Cloe has a pretty good chance to eventually lead that party. Look what a good start she has made already with heaps of sneering posts on TDB!
On a slightly nearer future topic, what’s the betting that Michael Wood becomes Labour next leader if they lose the next election?
Not kidding: he seems to tick more boxes than any other viable candidate currently in the caucus. (Former leaders can’t be considered).
God no! One of Labour’s biggest mistakes (besides letting a neo-liberal dinosaur like Goff become leader) is to keep changing leaders all the time. Labour lost two elections with Clark as leader before she achieved enough recognition and trust to become PM. If Labour continue to change leaders after every election loss, they will never be the government again. Little is a competent leader, and if, God forbid, the opposition can’t gather enough momentum in 2017 to defeat the 30% or so that vote National, Labour need to regroup and start working towards making Little PM in 2020.
[…] The Greens released their housing policy in the wake of the earthquake and it got lost in the news. They just can’t seem to catch a break, they announced Chloe Swarbrick’s candidacy right after Trump won and no one noticed that eith… […]
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