Sustainable NZ Party launches with promise to boost conservation spending by $1 billion
New Zealand’s newest political party, Sustainable NZ, has launched today with a promise of increasing Conservation funding by $1 billion over four years in a bid to halt the extinction of native species.
Leader Vernon Tava said the funding could come from New Zealand First’s $3 billion provincial growth fund.
And he has endorsed the use of gene technology to help reduce predators.
He described the party as a “full-time environment party”.
“Until now, if you had wanted to vote for the environment, you have had to support a party that has been a clearing-house for New Zealand’s left-of-Labour activist movements, often putting social justice ahead of protecting the environment.”
Hilariously climate change doesn’t even mention in their focus, it’s all bullshit conservation which is meaningless if the environment that biosphere is living in is getting killed off.
The point of Sustainability NZ for National is not to get over 5% and join them in Parliament, it’s to take just enough green voters away from the Greens so as to sink them under 5%.
The two reasons National signed up to the Zero Carbon Act is because it doesn’t do anything and so that they can pretend to believe in climate change, Sustainability NZ allows them to ignore it altogether.
If we had a Green movement that wasn’t more focused on meaningless consensus and middle class identity politics, they could see this challenge off from Sustainability NZ, but because of the shrill alienation the Greens manage to create, this could be the plot to rob them of any representation post 2020.
Matt McCarten’s strategy for Labour in the 2017 election was to undermine National’s support parties to create the space for a win. It took Labour 3 terms to realise that strategy, it’s taken National one term out of power to adopt it.
Another shiny bonced politician declares himself essentially a Nat. Mr Tava will be playing a spoiler role for NZ National at the very least.
Perhaps he can rub skulls with Mr Luxon in a back room like some frat boy ritual…
Blue/Green seems attractive to some people that really should know better, but the actual Greens and Labour certainly do not help themselves by clinging to that neo liberal consensus.
tweedle dum and tweedle dee
a scary thought .
Bomber
I formed the first party under MMP – when my safe Tory seat of Hobson was abolished under MMP.
I had a mathematician on my electorate board who produced stats which suggested no party would ever win in its own right – under MMP. History has vindicated Merv.
Whether blue of red, each major party needs a minion.
WE READ HISTORY TO HELP US UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY AND WHAT TO DO NEXT.
Here’s a strip from wiki:
Meurant had led the New Zealand Police’s high-profile “Red Squad” during the controversial 1981 Springbok Tour. He became a National Party MP in 1987 and won re-election as such in 1990 and in 1993. Meurant often clashed with the leadership of the National Party over Maori policy, and was regarded[by whom?] as one of the leading dissidents within the National caucus at the time[when?]. Eventually, in September 1994, Meurant decided to break away from National and to establish his own party, adopting the name “Right of Centre” (or “ROC”). The acronym represented Meurant’s right-wing economic philosophy of privatisation of government assets.
The new party was originally conceived by former National MPs Rob Munro (formerly a lieutenant-colonel in the New Zealand Army), lawyer Graham Reeves, and Meurant. Munro and Reeves had lost their National seats in 1993. Meurant remained in Parliament but was an implacable critic of Prime Minister Jim Bolger. To some extent the new party represented an opportunity for the former MPs to re-enter parliament. However, as the 1996 general election loomed, Munro retreated to obscurity and Reeves returned to the National Party fold to contest the unwinnable Tukituki electorate seat for National.
Meurant held the view that the new MMP formula for delivering parliamentary seats precluded any single party from achieving an outright majority (except in the most exceptional circumstances). Misguidedly, he anticipated that Prime Minister Bolger and his trusted aide, Finance Minister Bill Birch, (now Sir William Birch), would recognise the mathematical inevitability of the MMP formula and embrace Meurant and the former National party conspirators, in a post-election coalition.
But Meurant had mis-read the animosity Bolger had for him that, in the final analysis, condemned Meurant’s party to oblivion. Though history did vindicate Meurant’s belief that the MMP formula would not deliver an outright winning party at the polls. In fact, in 1996, the Bolger government finally accepted the inevitability of Meurant’s claim and reached a pact with ACT, the second political party to be formed under MMP. ACT had been formed by former Labour Finance Minister Roger Douglas (now Sir Roger Douglas). National withdrew its candidate from the Wellington Central electorate to ensure ACT’s candidate, Richard Prebble, would succeed in the election. This provided ACT with an electorate MP to offset its failure (as happened with all minor parties in the first general election under MMP (including the Christian Coalition) to reach the 5% threshold of votes to qualify as a political party with “List MPs” in parliament. This manoeuvre enabled Bolger to cobble together a coalition with ACT personalities whom he preferred to Meurant.
Prior to the 1996 general election, however, and prior to Meurant resigning from National, Meurant came to an arrangement with Bolger whereby Right-of-Centre would not oppose the National Party government in votes of confidence and supply; in exchange, Meurant would keep his governmental post as Parliamentary Undersecretary for Agriculture.
Until the emergence of other dissident National and Labour MPs (who formed the political party United with a base of seven MPs), Meurant actually held the balance of power and this allowed the National government to maintain its majority in the House.
Meurant built a political party largely on the provincial farming network of Federated Farmers (former president Lumsden was a candidate) and Meat Board representatives (Tim Britton and John McCarthy were both candidates).
In September 1995, Right of Centre clashed with the National Party when Ross Meurant was sacked as Parliamentary Undersecretary for Agriculture. This came as a result of Meurant’s accepting a directorship of Prok Bank, a Russian-owned bank registered in Vanuatu. Prime Minister Bolger believed that this directorship was inappropriate for someone holding an executive post in government, and requested that Meurant resign the directorship. Meurant refused, and was sacked as Parliamentary Undersecretary. Despite the tension this generated, Right of Centre continued to support the National government.
As the election loomed, internal disputes in Right of Centre occurred. In February 1996, Meurant rejected pressure from the executive of the party to abandon right-wing economic policies in favour of the more traditional and socialist provincial New Zealand policies. Meurant refused, claiming he alone had garnered substantial monetary donations from wealthy individuals, and on the promise of right wing economic policy forming the basis of the new party.
When the executive of the Party overruled Meurant and refused to return political donations garnered by Meurant on the promise of right wing economic policies, Meurant left the party and became an independent, following the path of most former independent MPs: to political oblivion. After the general election of 1996, the remnants of the party amalgamated with the United Party.
WE DONT HAVE TO LIKE HISTORY BUT THE ABOVE IS WHY WE HAVE NZFIRST AND ACT AND GREENS AND HAD NEW LABOUR AND ALLIANCE AND WHY NATZ HAVE NOW GOT BLUE GREEN
BUT I DONT THINK IT ILL WORK – UNLESS NATZ GIVE THIS PARTY AN ELECTORATE SEAT.
OTHERWISE THE GREEN VOTE WILL BE SPLIT AND THERE WILL BE NO GREEN OR BLUE GREEN IN THE HOUSE
Based on Meurant’s theory, the Greens vote will be split and neither side will get 5%
Unless as he says National give blu greens an electorate seat, Greens are gone.
May I suggest here the Labour give an electorate seat to the true Greens?
Logic
Defiantly a flop!
I wonder what Vernon Tava dreams about at night. Making a difference in the fight to conserve New Zealand’s once-pristine environment? Or getting his bum in one of those comfy parliamentary chairs and staking his claim to a fat pension? Knowing my sole reason for being was to prop up the smirking abomination that is the National Party would likely give me nightmares. Perhaps Vernon’s made of sterner stuff.
Or, they cut a deal in a susceptible electorate a la Epsom to get the new party over the threshold via coat tails.
The “green” space is becoming a crowded sector with TOP in there as well.
The Greens need to secure an electorate seat and it would be smart of Labour to accede somewhere to do it.
.
Cynical comments, I suppose. By the way, the Sustainability Party does actually mention Climate Change in their policy overview and so forth:
https://sustainablenz.org.nz/our-vision/
https://sustainablenz.org.nz/policies/
They even mention that inequality is not sustainable.
But it is just intended to take votes off the Greens, so to provide an alternative that the Nats can deal with. They will not do more than the Greens, simply want to be ‘business friendly’, so as if the Greens under James Shaw and his present co-leader are not willing to deal with business and make concessions to business (see the BS Zero Carbon Bill).
A Vernon Tava vanity project, I conclude.
Green Wash Party now followed by Sustainability Green Wash Party.
By the way, the Iranians just discovered a new and rich oil field. More carbon to burn, no end in sight. Saudi now want to offer Aramco via an IPO, certainly not to shut oil exploration and drilling down.
NZ SUV drivers can rejoice, more petrol supplies are safe.
Not happy with what I heard, he (Tava) said he is concerned about inequalities but has no policies to combat this instead he endorses nationals flagging social investment approach that uses racist algorithms. In my view he is sitting on the fence and will be lucky to get over the threshold and NAH! we don’t need another environmental party we already have one, the Greens. This is just more duplication even though they claim to be very different.
Michelle
As I said above:
Greens will be extinct if two ‘green’ parities run – unless (a) National give the blue greens an electorate seat or (b) Labour give the Greens an electorate seat.
The total green vote on a good day is 8%?
Divide that between lefty greens and blu greens – neither is going to emerge with 5%.
Maybe that is the strategy behind the blue greens? After all, National have shown scant interest to expand their running mate (to conform with Meurant’s thesis’s above) beyond ACT.
It seems to be that its time Labour started to strategically plan how they survive next elections- especially if the court case goes against Winston.
That’s your view cobaka my view is this new party wont make the threshold they have bugger all policy and they are sucking up to national and we know what happens to parties that become friends with them. See ya later
The new party WONT make it – I agree.
But it WILL if Natz give them an electorate seat.
Hang on a minute-last election we had two green parties (TOP) and one survived-quite easily in the end. The fact that the Greens will go with Labour means that Labour voters can switch to the Greens without losing anything….I think that is what happened last election when the Greens were close to going under 5% and ended up with over 6%.The same will happen again I reckon.
Vernon Tava, in his interview with Kim Hill overuses the rhetorical device , “look” in an attempt to assert his authority in advance of asserting a point. The belief seems to be that if I say, ”look”, it implies that I am now going to give you some inside perspective or a pragmatic truism about the topic .
It is a rhetorical trick, an attempt to seem more down to earth, an attempt to talk like a friendly expert.
John Key used it well, (no doubt on advice from Crosby Textor) Bill English less well and there was an epidemic of National MPs who tried it-Melissa Lee ‘s attempts were ridiculously overdone. Simon Bridges uses it often but prefers the device, “the reality is…….”
Kim Hill was obviously unimpressed.
(Rhetoric-language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.)
I love it when National MPs start crapping on about “hard-working NZ taxpayers” or “Mum and Dad investors”. Always makes me roll my eyes. It’s like slippery turd Jordan Williams of the Taxpayer’s Onion is writing all their speeches.
I predict any electoral support will be from Nats, eating into their base. If that happens, expect Tava to get the hard word to “cease and desist” from National Party HO
Most Greens will be too saavy to fall for this faux “greenblue” scam
Michelle (above) said “Not happy with what I heard, he (Tava) said he is concerned about …”
What Tava is concerned about is being an MP. As an individual he was rejected by both National and the Greens and since they wouldn’t pick him for their teams he has made his own team and his own game. If in doing so the Green Party is killed off and he himself doesn’t make the cut his disappointment will be about the rejection not that any green agenda is harmed.
The idea of National gifting a seat to a reject is wonderful to contemplate.
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