Let’s make sure the Greens get well over the threshold

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The Greens hold the key to this election. If the Greens don’t get 5% and leave Parliament its unlikely Labour will be in government. If the Greens get 5% (or 6%, 7%, 8%, 9% or 10%) the prospects for a Labour/Green government are good.

There are enough Green-friendly voters out there for the Greens, like last time, to make double figures. It is just that this time the “Jacinda-effect” has swept many of them into Labour’s court. If these Green-friendly folk voted on policy alone I’m sure the Greens would get over 10%.

You just need to look at the Greens’ fully-costed policy manifesto, released on Monday, to see that the Greens have bolder policies than Labour.

Under Green policy, less well-off people will benefit from the 20% increase in benefits and student allowances, and a drop in the bottom tax rate to 9%. By contrast, higher earners will pay more of their share with a 40% tax rate on a $150,000+ incomes, not to mention a capital gains tax. Free bus services for under 18s and much stronger protections for renters will also help low-income people.

Everyone knows that the Greens have the best environmental policies. Climate change is to be addressed with a simple but effective carbon tax (rather than the present full-of-holes Emissions Trading Scheme). Also helping is the Green plan to plant 1.2 billion new trees. Fossil fuel energy is definitely on the way out under Green policies, helped by a ban on new off-shore oil prospecting – which Labour unfortunately won’t support.

The Greens have also been more bold than Labour in international policy, unequivocally opposing both the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the recent sending of more Kiwi military personnel to Afghanistan.

Most of the former Green voters who have switched to Labour still have sympathy for Green policies. I hope some of them realise the stakes and switch back by Saturday. It’s good to be optimistic, as I am, that the Greens will get well over the 5% threshold. But optimism alone is not sufficient to ensure the Greens parliamentary presence, and flowing from that, a Labour/Green government. Make sure you vote Green.

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44 COMMENTS

  1. The problem is that it is not much use swapping votes between Labour and Greens. We have to gain votes from the soft National vote, something which is looking less and less likely because of National’s concerted lying.

    • True, and the Greens did not do enough, well did not succeed enough, to get more formerly uncommitted potential voters enrolled and vote. Unless there is a rush tomorrow, we may have less young people vote than even last general election. So only winning some soft swing voters who may have been inclined to vote Nats again, that may in the end make a difference, for Greens and for Labour. But it should actually be Labour that has more ability to win swing voters over from the Nats, as they have policy that is not all that radical at all, when closely scrutinised. Shifting votes between Greens and Labour will NOT do the job.

  2. Have already done the two ticks Green

    Was disgusted by Ardern last night —Greens just get the first phone call, but nothing more than that —she basically threw us under the bus

    • She didn’t throw the Greens under bus. They were trying to trap her into saying she would not talk to Winston. I’m sure the arrangement with the Greens is as it was.
      D J S

    • Rubbish. What do you want, coalition negotiations to take place with Mike Hosking?? Get a grip, Hosking and English would’ve torn her to bits. They’re both hostile to her.

      At least e know where we stand with Labour and the Greens. Not so with Winston Peters.

      We party-voted Green as well, to give Labour a good coalition partner and to keep up the focus on child poverty and the environment.

        • Yes and we know where we stand with National right? National seem okay with corruption, lies, bribes, poverty, 450 texts, imaginary fiscal holes, homelessness, shit the list goes on and just so we can get some sought of balance, Congo in the Clouds, I think one particular National minister still has some historical beneficiary data to answer too.

        • And a National government is ok with defrauding beneficiaries of their entitlements, and signing legal documents with false names and signatures, to say nothing about lying throughout this campaign. Do you really know where you stand with them

  3. I would like to see all opposition parties including Greens to call for a fight to take votes from the National party not the left.

    • @ CLEANGREEN, Unfortunately Greens lost that ability when they became more focused on social issues plans as a priority rather than the environmental issues.

      That’s what has propelled voters back to Labour and unfortunately put off the soft Natz Green voters. I’m not talking about the Metiria so called scandal – but just a wider focus off Environmental Green issues this election by the Green Party. Also Greens added shiny beautiful people to the list higher than some who have proven records for actually DOING Green issues.

      However in spite of that, I’m 90% inclined to party vote Green. I’m voting for their environmental vision in parliament with a Labour government and the Greens different point of view on the environment and issues like TPP which are very strong.

      Saying that I prefer Labour’s clear immigration stance and more cautious approach to taxation. Hopefully Labour will get in by a landslide to stop the tax routs under National, not just add taxes to existing taxpayers already paying their share and use the money (with the Greens ideas) to implement a UBI for those who need it.

      In short though, without the environmental controls being introduced that the Green Party champion it’s just rearranging a dwindling supply of money in a country we no longer own and control, with an ambulance at the bottom of the planet.

      So for anyone thinking of wasting their vote to TOP or not voting because they hate the system – DONT DO IT – send a little message to the Natz by VOTING GREENS OR LABOUR!

      ( apart from electoral vote National in Epsom to get the biggest Natz controlled trougher party out of parliament. )

      • I hope you do vote Green. Labour will be more inclined to follow through on climate change and other environmental policy if the Greens are there holding them to account.

      • I can’t help but note the irony of criticizing the Greens for being…

        “more focused on social issues plans as a priority rather than the environmental issues.”

        …and then going on say…

        “However in spite of that, I’m 90% inclined to party vote Green. I’m voting for … the Greens different point of view on … issues like TPP which are very strong.”

        You can’t have your cake and eat it too CleanGreen. Either you want the Greens to speak up on non-environmental issues like trade agreements, or you want to them to stick to their knitting and talk only about conservation and pollution and stuff. Which is it?

        Personally, I want them to take action on ecological wisdom, social responsibility, appropriate decision-making, and non-violence, all four of which have always been the core principles of their charter:
        https://home.greens.org.nz/charter

  4. If National is the largest party on Election night, then they’ll talk to NZFirst first, along with any other interested parties.
    If a coalition can be cobbled together with Rimmer and Marama (and as we’ve seen in the past, bottom lines magically dissolve when the carrot of power is dangled), then it won’t matter how many Green MPs are sitting in Parliament. They’ll still be in Opposition.
    This is one of a number of articles lately putting the boot into Labour. Judging by last nights Colmar Brunton, they’re taking effect.
    I reckon the Greens should have campaigned on gaining the soft blue-green vote from the get-go. Instead, they clumsily turned off those Remuera organic gardeners, and merely engaged in voter base swapping with Labour.
    The end result of that can only be 3 more years of corruption, pollution & privatisation (PPP’s, Landcorp etc).

    • There’s an argument that the greens should never have taken on a strong left/right position given that the protection of the environment is not only as relevant to one side as the other but is also by far the most important issue for mankind now, and every other kind as well. By taking a high profile position on some current devicive social issues, they have doubtless gained some support in some sectors but lost it in others. The effect on their overall support is hard to guess, but the effect on their environmental message is inevitably compromised .
      However for better or worse that is where they now are ,and labour needs them. It might not much matter if they get 6% or 17% , whichever it will mostly come out of labour, but labour sure as hell needs them to get over 5%.
      D J S

      • Agree about the greens and them taking on extreme left positions. If they wanted to gurther green issues they should of stuck to thst and they could have then been in the teepee like the maori party actually getting things done. However they did morph out of the extreme left socialist unity party through the alliance so were never going to be anything other than have a fundamentally extreme left vore

        • It’s pretty brave of the worker to alert the labour inspectorate to an environmental issue that will see them getting fired on the spot – and perhaps deported.

          Just like it’s fairly foolhardy of the electrician to report the chicken farmer when he’s out on the job (inspections by the public are not legal on private property and rare formal ones are scheduled, giving the battery hen farmer time to remove the rotting corpses).

          You cannot have animal rights or a functional environmental policy without worker protections and outside oversight of animal welfare. You know that; you just don’t believe in anything.

          This is a dumb and transparent attack line and hopefully the Greens mock it for what it is.

            • Cheers Brigid.

              Concerned citizens like animal rights campaigners should not have to be forced to commit crimes like trespassing to uphold the law. Nor should workers and especially those with precarious immigration status have to implicate themselves in order to uphold the law and protect their rights.

              The National government has a long track record of cynically passing legislation under pressure that they never intend to enforce. Nathan Guy’s lies today about cameras on fishing boats are a good example of the party’s tendency towards having a public policy position and a private policy position. The contempt shown for democracy and tje public’s intelligence in such legislative desembling is very disturbing. Nathan Guy should bugger off already and take up that position on whatever board he has been chasing this past few terms.

    • I’m picking between 10-12% for the party vote or the Greens lately they have been hovering between 6-8% but I think they will get a few more some of the undecided ones.

  5. There are two things wrong with the Green agenda:
    1. Capital Gains Tax.
    2. The neoliberal policy of ¨running surpluses¨

    • Can you explain point 2? Do you mean that any surplus in cash = a deficit in environment and/or social spending?

      If so, I disagree. There is plenty of money, it’s just all hoarded by a few. We could all be wealthy if we dismantle the rich, or super-rich.

      The productive output compared to work hours in this country is woeful, which means that much “work” is pointless.

      • A party which says they will run surpluses are saying that they will hold government spending at a less than optimum level. This is generally a harbinger of austerity policies.l Though I accept that this doesn´t always happen, I believe there is always reason to be suspicious.

      • Surplus is taxes over and above government spending. So surplus should be subtracted from GDP. Then you can minus admin costs every time the government goes and spends surplus. Business and individuals lose profit when they are taxed, just so the government can spend it back into the economy, on there wish lists.

        To make up the short fall in profits. Individuals have to go into debt to maintain productivity. Effectivitly stacking growth on top of residual debt that never goes away.

        The solution would be for politicos to put there policies up for debate. Collect taxes, spend taxes, and return taxes in the form of tax credits. Instead of bullshiting all the time.

    • What’s wrong with having a capital gains tax, Mike? Why do you feel entitled to have tax-free capital gains while the rest of us have to pay paye, gst, ACC levies, etc??

      • Anyone with a rental property is paying tax on the rental income, and paying the same amount of tax as would be the case if there were no capital gains available. In that sense capital gain is external to the system and there is no reason for any tax to be paid on it, particularly when one considers that the person on the other side of a capital transaction is presumably suffering a loss. Any property not making rental income eg a land banker, or making insufficient income, would be best dealt with by levying a tax on a ¨risk free rate of return¨ as suggested by Gareth Morgan.

        Incidently I do not own a rental property, and have no intention of ever doing so. My opposition to capital gains taxes rests on purely intellectual grounds.

          • Hope you know that there is more than the NZX exchange with witch to trade stocks and bonds from remotely. So I’d just use a foreign brokerage to put trades on from Auckland. I mean technology will always be one step ahead of people trying tax portfolio finance management.

  6. At present the Greens have by and large the smartest most coherently planned progressive platform in New Zealand – a platform that could result in widely beneficial effects on our society, if they were supported.

    The way Hosking and that other guy bagged Ardern last night about the first call to the Greens was a foul setup. What’s wrong with giving first call to the Greens? Greens are at present the third largest party in parliament, and National and Co. act like mentioning their name might cause flower petals and rainbows to rain over the nation and all NZ flags to be replaced by hammer&sickles. Good for ratings with the Fonterra crowd, apparently.

  7. P.S. It really is important to VOTE! Just watched a You Tube video and low and behold an add for the Natz came up saying some lie about how I would get an extra $1000 from the Natz policies or something like that. I unfortunately deleted it with disgus instead of keeping it and sending in a complaint.

    So we don’t have a free or fair electoral system anymore in NZ, Natz are awash with money from their zero tax haven supporters and no doubt routing the rules on spending through targeted lies on You Tube and Google. It’s just a co incidence that they gave their Google board member, Trump supporting friend Mr Thiel, NZ Citizenship.

    If friends of Trump scares you as much as Natz scary, false, targeted, non transparent adds, vote them out!

    • 100% SAVENZ.

      National = corruption.
      National = NZ In’c.
      National = Elitism empire.
      national = death and dispair in NZ.

  8. I would really like even more decisive, radical and sensible environmental policy than the Greens presented for this election, but as there is little alternative, they got my party vote, so I did my bit to keep them in Parliament.

  9. Keith i have donated to the GREEN party and offered support to Metiria at the Cardboard cathedral and WILL vote Green on Saturday regardless of the nationwide vote on September 23rd.

    GREEN GREEN GREEN it is the only sensible vote……..ever.

  10. Although you could say I’m a ‘soft’ Greens supporter, I’ve never been a member, and I know it’s easy to criticize from the outside. But it seems to me that the Greens rely far too much on traditional election year campaigning, targeted at a diminishing number of people who derive their political opinions from the corporate news media. This has been supplemented somewhat by a “social media” strategy, but this just shifts the same marketing-style campaign into a different set of corporate-owned media channels (mainly FarceBook and Twitter), and benefits the 1%ers who invest in NationBuilder more than it benefits the Greens.

    The internet, cheap computers, and free code (“open source”) software now give us the technology to build whole new kinds of political organisation and communication platforms. Platforms that we control, and that don’t leak people’s data to marketing maggots. Platforms that are based on year-round engagement and mobilization, not just trying to “rock the vote” and “engage the youth” once every three years. ActionStation, although also depending far too much on corporate “social media” channels, is a model I think all the political parties could learn a few things from.

  11. The Greens are irrelevant. Nats are members of Forest and Bird and the old Green policy is now mainstream. The Greens know this and have tried to reinvent themselves. They haven’t done a great job.

  12. No problem with their policies, but with their personnel, Ginette Fitzsimon aside. So not exaltant. I miss a leader (but never a hero). No leaders in market research land. The tripe Ardern was preaching toward the end. The only inspiration for me was , in her last debate with geek Bill, her obviously felt love of the ‘least’. I.e. Non-mortgage holders.

    [Published after 7PM, 23 September. – Scarletmod]

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