If TOP can woo Kennedy Graham as a candidate – they hit 5%. Will Gareth Morgan be the Queenmaker?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
25
0

If TOP can woo Kennedy Graham as a candidate, they will hit 5%.

Look at the language used in todays press release…

The Opportunities Party has paid tribute to Kennedy Graham and David Clendon for their service as New Zealand MP’s.

Both these men have served with distinction in Parliament and worked hard to advance the causes of conservation and environmental protection which are so vital to the countries future. I also admire the principled stand they have taken in resigning as candidates for their current party.

Any party interested in making genuine progress on environmental issues and social justice would be lucky to have them as part of their team. The issues these men have progressed remain important to many New Zealanders and are a central part of TOP’s evidence based policy solutions.

… my understanding is that there has already been back channel contact between TOP and Clendon & Graham. There may even be a possible meeting occurring.

If Labour continue to climb, and TOP can get Clendon or Graham, Gareth Morgan might be the Queenmaker, not Winston.

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25 COMMENTS

  1. lol…brilliant…King Winston and Queen Gareth

    …actually TOP has some very good policies eg Universal Basic Income

  2. Hooten floated the idea on RNZ this morning while spitting his usual venom.

    If Gareth signs them up then this has been a total ambush of the Green party and they were never real believers in their parties fight for social justice.

    It will be a disaster if we dont have the Greens in government.

    • “If Gareth signs them up then this has been a total ambush of the Green party and they were never real believers in their parties fight for social justice.”

      Huh?

    • They will go with either, they’ve been very clear on this. Frankly, their policies are far more in line with the left as the left-wing parties have policies which more closely align with the evidence, e.g. climate change, drug reform.

      • They are LIBERTARIAN so yes climate change and drug reform, thumbs up. BUT they don’t believe in a minimum wage, “intends to slash the tax rates on salaries and wages”, and will “gifting Housing NZ stock to these community housing providers” – yeah – very Left isn’t it.

  4. Winston certainly wont go with Nactional….and his vote will be higher than Gareth’s

    ….so Jacinda has better be nice

    Winston for PM

    • “Winston certainly wont go with Nactional”

      And you know this, how? Are you in telepathic contact with Winston, are you, Buzzard?

      As for Graham and Clendon, TOP is welcome to those two traitors. At least he’ll know who he’s signing up.

      Once a traitor, always a traitor. (Hide the knives, Gareth.)

  5. This is complete nonsense:
    “Both these men have served with distinction in Parliament and worked hard to advance the causes of conservation and environmental protection which are so vital to the countries future. ”

    Kennedy Graham has never belonged in the green Party, his a social conservative and a blue-green.

    The other one moved from Auckland to Keri Keri so he didn’t have to do too much work.. after all auckland is where it all happens and the Greens wanted more Auckland based Green MPs.

    Principled, my god they are on their high horse that is all. What is more they didn’t go through due process and give the 48 hours notice they are supposed to.

    I wonder if either of them have ever paid cash to a tradesman?

    Gareth Morgan has no real idea about their abilities. I do think lots of TOPs policies are great, his comments on rentals yesterday were very good – e.g. rentals for life, no moving, no being booted out cause your landlord wants someone else in. But Gareth I am sure would prefer the Nats.

    • TOP requires experience in parliament that money can’t buy. Gareth would be made not to extend an olive branch to Clendon and Kennedy.

    • The weakness of the rental for life in this present environment is the 40,000 houses in Auckland already empty because the speculator owners are making more money by far from capital gain and renting them out is just a nuisance and a liability. Without controlling the speculative incentive somehow adding that huge disincentive to letting will greatly exacerbate the empty house syndrome. Renting will be worse not better.
      D J S

      • Just as Gareth Morgan himself owns 8 rentals in Wellington and has them empty, hedoesn’t want the carpet mucked up and renters are a pain, he only has them for capital gains purposes.

  6. No way TOP will pick up the Green old-timers. They’re not exactly leading lights of new-thinking and intellectual radicalism.

    To do so would bring no new votes while staining Morgan with the Black Spot of political opportunism.
    Get real.

  7. Two nobodies whose fifteen minutes of fame resulted from them leaving their rather lengthy positions—is certain to raise a party currently well below the threshold, into parliament?

  8. Sorry to sound dumb but how will having them in TOP help it reach five percent? They are only list MPs and won’t be after the election unless they are on TOP’s list. They have no power personally to attract more votes to TOP.

    • Doesn’t sound dumb to me! What I am missing is why either of them would want to sign up with TOP?
      D J S

      • Because Clendon will never ever be able to get another job that commands the salary that he currently ‘earns’ gets rather.

  9. Gareth Morgan can have them.

    Just watch your back, Gareth. These are “principled” men, after all…

    For Brutus is an honourable man;
    So are they all, all honourable men–

    – “Julius Caesar”, W. Shakespeare

  11. WAKE UP FOLKS!

    Missed this?

    Ah – the real reason why Gareth Morgan is standing?

    Seen this?

    (27 July 2017)

    Tweet by Gareth Morgan:

    “Let’s be clear, for progressive voters, the major issue this election isn’t #ChangeTheGovt it is #AnyoneButWinston #nzpol

  13. Some reflections on TOP policies, and why the are not to be trusted, besides not wanting to change the government… TOP effectively want to privatise the media (with selling off TVNZ and making RNZ compete for funding with private providers), allow developers to have fast-track consents and to pay their way into destroying ecosystems, and have an ETS that has been widely shown to fail in lowering emissions (major world institutions state this now, the UN, the WTO and the EU is having second thoughts – they are all recommending a carbon tax instead now…), and then their UBI fails in it’s potential effectiveness as it only replaces benefits, not adds on top of them (so no increase)…, with being anti the living and raising the minimum wage, showing they do not take poverty seriously (note that in Finland the UBI trials have partially worked because they have a living wage there…), their asset tax also needs house prices to be high if they want to actually generate much revenue from it, these on top of them giving away state houses to private providers (ala neoliberal deregulation)…

  14. This reasoning, Gareth recruiting the two to get TOP over the threshold, probably can’t apply to this election. Electoral law defines list electability in terms of party membership and list registration by a certain date and nobody here has researched that (including me). If there is a small window of time left to do so, I bet negotiations are proceeding behind the scenes at a rapid rate right now! But no, the two guys have agreed to remain as Green MPs till the election – and the chances of them breaking that agreement are too slim, I suspect.

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