Talking with people who have first hand knowledge of the negotiations, it’s not looking good.
There is a deep feeling within the Labour Party that the Greens aren’t intellectually up to it and that they could be a ticking time bomb.
To give you an appreciation of how little Labour respect the Greens intellectually, consider how David Parker didn’t even bother to ask the Greens for their input to the fertiliser levels for clean rivers and instead had Russel Norman quietly do it for the Government.
Labour think the Greens are flakey on the environment and there is a fear that the Greens will go down some woke rabbit hole and that Green activists are so alienating online that Labour will get tagged with the culture war splash back.
There is also the fear that whatever crumbs Labour offer will get publicly rejected by the Green membership, the Greens have tried to mitigate that by lowering their consent thresholds.
Now, while I agree with Labour that the Greens are flakey on the issues that actually matter and are far more focused on fringe woke stuff, and yes their Green activists online screaming at everyone are the most alienating in NZ and yes if you offer crumbs the Green membership will embarrassingly slap it down B-U-T
there is more at stake here dammit.
It is FAR smarter for Labour to include the Greens inside the tent, than outside it.
Global warming isn’t going anywhere and Labour will need to inoculate themselves to their weak reforms so keeping James as Climate Change Minister is smart, likewise including Chloe as an associate Minister for Youth keeps her momentum inside the Government, but Labour will need to offer something genuine to the Greens to get the membership onside, and lowering the voting age to 16 would be a big enough win for the Greens to ignore the lack of anything else.
If Labour ostracise the Greens now, it will shatter the current Green leadership and allow the far more radical critics on the environment and economy to come forward and that could cause Labour enormous grief over the next 3 years.
The radical in me hopes this is the outcome if Labour offer crumbs with no transformative change.
The Greens had leverage here for something meaningful, it doesn’t look like they’ve managed to use that leverage very well.
Let’s hope that can change in the next 24 hours.
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Alternatively, if Labour ostracise the Greens now and shatter the current Green leadership and in doing so pull back the curtain on the woke lunatics that are the core green activist base it will allow Labour to pivot further to the centre and hold that ground in exactly the same way as did the Blair and Clark governments.
It would seem that the Greens are destined to be used as a foil by Labour to prove the latter’s sensible centrist credentials.
From a Blairite / Clark perspective, what is better? Engaging with a minority of woke nut bars and upsetting the majority or holding the centre ground so that a third term is far more likely and with it, actual lasting change (albeit incremental and not the so called transformational fantasy so popular on this site).
Labour will likely come back humbly in 2023, when they will need Green support to get a third term.
Unless Labour is pushed by community action and organisation, they will cling to neo liberalism throughout this term, with a few incremental moves at best. Will Fair Pay Agreements be instituted for example? Will the minimum wage go to $20? Will the NZ underclass ever be genuinely retrained now that there are no longer 300,000 migrants sloshing around?
Greens should salvage some pride and remain out of Govt., change their leadership, and be at the centre of ongoing Climate Strikes, and helping organise a mass community campaign to retire neoliberalism once and for all in 2023.
Yes, Tiger Mountain, this looks like a good overall strategy for the next three years. We should not forget that the Green Party has a reasonable standing on sub-national levels which certainly could be enhanced further.
We may also increasingly anticipate unforeseen events across all areas of natural disasters. So, local Disaster Risk Reduction, and local preparation and management measures on community level will gain more and more importance.
Especially linked to local health infrastructure and communication. Local food security and preservation. Local education and training.
A very valid and useful range of political opportunities for the Green Party is awaiting… absolutely no need to cling and focus on ministerial posts and the national level.
The future is green, or it is not at all.
Agree Manfred. People are easily distracted by the 24/7 news flow. The Green 2020 Policy is very good considering it is aimed at Parliamentary level politics.
And it is indeed a Green future or no future!-unless living like something out of “Mad Max Fury Road” appeals…
Bingo!
Labour are arrogant. Fullstop. Always have been, and their strongly neo liberal views will not bend to any political party now they have a majority. The Greens are farting against thunder, not their fault as such.
The Geeens should stay on the sidelines and attack Labour policy at will. That’s what I voted for. Not to submit to the mean red machine and effectively be silenced.
“It is FAR smarter for Labour to include the Greens inside the tent, than outside it.
Global warming isn’t going anywhere and Labour will need to inoculate themselves to their weak reforms so keeping James as Climate Change Minister is smart,” YES you Green Party supporters are between a rock and a hard place on the current “flaky” young Green Party aren’t you just.
Martyn; Like I said before we as the old school 50’ish folks who actually began the green Party as ‘first members’ in 1999, when similar late 40’ish aged solid members like ‘Jeannette Fitzsimmons’, ‘Rod Donald’, and ‘Sue Kedgley’ were fronting the party it was regarded as a far more respected party then, – without odays more radical “flaky” side as we see they have now.
But untill the todays’ Green Party restore the “balance” between ”yound and older members’ with a more sensible governence, I and others do not see the Greens being taken seriously till then.
Cleangreen – It may be that Green identity politics diversions, and a co-leader feeding racial divisiveness, were part of a strategy to keep themselves out of governance, from a party knowing that it is out of it’s depth. But Labour may be unwise to too closely espouse erratic or unpredictable individuals. They’re just too big a risk. They could even be plants – pun unintended – that’s been done to Labour before – back in 1984.
There are some great idealistic Green people at flax roots level, but it’s the Maori Party who I would be relying on for environmental issues at this stage.
Labour needs that grief from the left in the next three years. Net zero carbon by 2050 means death.
Labour is behind the game, Greens are behind the game.
The left that is ahead of the game needs to give both arseholes or we are toast by 2030.
Already 1.3 degrees if you go back to the original late 18th century as start point.
Nature is racing ahead of us and gaining, so we have to think beyond all the current targets by isolating the cause.
Half of NZ pollution is coming from methane which has a shelf life of 10 years but rolling out over the next decade will be enough to cook us.
And it is not even factored into the current pathetic plan.
The rot the set in when Pakeha stole Maori land is going to get us before we even wake up.
So which on the left are ahead of the game? Do tell.
Those who reject the game of carbon trading and making net zero-carbon by 2050 the goal which both Labour and the Greens signed up to in the Zero Carbon Act.
Net zero is a con trick to ‘green’ capitalism allowing it to burn carbon by abusing carbon sinks that could extract existing carbon from the atmosphere.
Those who insist that land use in NZ must make a rapid transition away from methane and not allow owners to profit by emitting a gas that is 84 times more damaging than CO2.
Those who know that we have only a decade to avoid hitting 2 degrees and an unstoppable climate collapse.
Those who realise that none of these and other actions are possible through a parliamentary system that was invented to defend private property and profit.
Those who draw the conclusion that a socialist revolution is the only way out or our existential crisis allowing those who create the wealth and pay the price for capitalism’s failures to exercise their inherent power to rescue humanity from extinction.
If the Greens take a small part inside the next Govt, then would not more of the same be expected. Watered down Green policy to appease the bloody “middle”. That’s what will happen. What use is that?
David Parker is smart….personally I have far more faith in him than the current flakey pretend carpetbagger Greens.
( Agree Greens are a liability for Labour)
It is time environmental issues were NOT just associated with the Green Party
( remember under the Green Party jurisdiction, NZ water was allowed to be taken out of precious aquifers under earthquake prone Christchurch!… by the Chinese!… to be bottled in plastic bottles!)
Environmental issues are so important they should be publically recognised and devolved to include ALL political Parties
….Environmental and climate change issues they should be the prerogative of ALL political groupings ( Not just the Greens)…and especially that includes rural people/voters and the Maori Party
Environmental and Climate change issues MUST include rural licensed gun owners and back country 1080 opposers ( who now vote ACT not Green)
100% correct Red buzzard; – well said, ‘you nailed it’.
Good call RB.
I was musing during my run today, what emissions it might have saved on the weekend shooting a wild pig and supplying protein for the family for 1 week by expending 10-15 liters of diesel and some physical effort.
How much transport/farm diesel did it save instead of buying the same in town after growing the equivalent plant or animal protein on a farm?
It also had a conservation benefit.
Why are we burning jetfuel flying helicopters dropping tonnes of non selective poison or culling high value tahr and soon deer to rot when we have wild animal resource we can manage which does have benefits?
Deer and tahr in the wild at low and moderate densities are spread out and have none of the intensive farming issues of nitrogen leeching or pugging on crops, and minimal damage to vegetation at those densities (granted wild pigs are more destructive).
What is the carbon footprint of helicopter culling, and poisoning -how much methane do 20 000 tahr emit rotting together on a hill or in a pristine creek? Every animal killed to rot not hunted and eaten also has to have its equivalent raised or grown in Vegas on a farm to supply the protein.
Sometimes the “green” solution is worse than what they are trying to fix, like selling land to foreigners to plant fire prone pine trees in a warming climate, while spending millions on wilding pine control.
Fingers crossed plastic Chinese water bottler / foreign owned pine tree/ helicopter air time/ record poison user shootem-to-rot Sage is not near our environmental planning after current talks.
I agree.
Eugenie Sage signed over hundreds of thousands of hectares of our land, of the body of Aotearoa, to China. Most of that to be erased of all native wildlife, all remaining flora and fauna, all pasture, all sensitive land… all these were handed over to China.
Minister of Conservation she was. How is that land “conserved”? How will any native plants or animals be protected? What controls has she specified for the new OWNERS!!! of our land!!!
Of our children’s land? Not any more. What will they have to say about it in the future, I wonder, when they are trying futilely to deal with the firenadoes that are now being readied, being built like future pyres all across our land.
How dare they!!! How dare they sell out our land from beneath our feet, to foreign interests. And then to claim they are somehow “conservationists”.
My message to everyone in the present government of Aotearoa NZ:
STOP SELLING OUR LAND!!
The body of Aotearoa is NOT YOURS TO SELL!!
You are holding it in trust, to care for and to protect, for present and future generations. You, and we all, are guardians of this land. It is entrusted to our care. You cannot sell it to foreign interests!! It is NOT YOURS TO SELL!!!
Good day Martyn – I’ve been reading your work for many years now, and may I just say, please grow up. Comments like ‘the Greens are flakey on the issues that actually matter and are far more focused on fringe woke stuff’ are immature and, in your own terms, self-contradictory. For you immediately go on to say “Global warming isn’t going anywhere and Labour will need to inoculate themselves to their weak reforms so keeping James as Climate Change Minister is smart.” If you and your readers were to take a good hard look at the Greens comprehensive policy portfolio, you’d appreciate they are an innovative and progressive and much-needed party. Please, let’s grow out of cheap shots.
Kia ora Alex. Go fuck yourself.
wow…. what witty repartee
Alex Stone The Greens, as you say, are a much needed party. I supported them for many years. Then when they began behaving badly, I dumped them.
When a country has politicians who appear overtly hostile to sections of the population, and not necessarily rationally so, and who try to turn people against each other, it’s pretty bad – possibly dangerous. I’m not talking about parliamentarians waging war on each other.
ALEX ARE YOU UNDER FORTY?
Alex Stone; – Perhaps if not, then tou need to grow up your self as I am 76 and joinedthe green Party when I was in my fifys and that was a good Partyy then so you need to grow some years of depth and breath to understand that this Party is not a Greeen party but an “idealist party”
When I jined the green party it was a combination of three other dying parties, and the Youth Green Party are definately in the camp of the “idealists party which was the vlves party of that day.
Jim Anderton’s “Alliance party was somewhat another idealist paty but none other was then a real Green Party with environment at ntheir core as they should be today.
Somone decided to highjack the green Party anduse it for ‘Idealism”rather than the environment.
The Greens “policy” is one thing. Their record is another.
NZ will find out on Friday. Guessing the future best left to those with time on their hands. But seeing as I’m having a coffee after washing the van before mowing the lawns then hanging the washing from the long weekend sojourn to the Hawkes Bay, I’m hoping for confidence and supply with associate ministers outside cabinet. Probably Shaw (climate change), Swarbrick (youth Affairs) and Sage (Environment). They will be told who is in charge and to tow the line with a ‘no surprises clause’. JAG to miss out due to abhorrence shown to her by motoring public (unfair in my opinion, probably more about her accent and gender). Davidson and Genter will have to settle for working to increase the Green vote over next 3 years. Any collapse of the Greens will come back to bite Labour in 3 years or 6. ‘NZ votes Labour when they need them, and votes them out when they don’t’ (M J Savage?). I don’t particularly want a Labour vs the rest scenario under a MMP regime. Christian, Libertarian, Bash the Poor, Market forces Gun toting National ACT Govt will be really nasty next time round. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
It’s hilarious that Labour thinks the Green’s aren’t up to it intellectually given the poor quality of their MPs. Yes they have Jacinda, Grant, Megan Woods, Andrew Little and Chris Hipkins but beyond that it’s pretty slim pickings. I’m not saying there aren’t people with big brains in there but it doesn’t seem to translate into useful performances.
Nailed it.
Seeing that the election was essentially a referendum on how Ardern/Labour handled the COVID pandemic to date, it was disappointing to watch the Green vote grow.
Ardern called it the COVID election. National tried to make us remember the pre-COVID failures of housing, public transport and poverty – as though they cared about those issues before. But we weren’t listening. Especially to a party churning through MPs and leaders, before being left with Collins as the only/last option. She just made it easier for people to opt for Labour (if you like Jacinda) and ACT (if you hate Jacinta).
And the better that Labour looked in the polls, people starting to consider shifting their vote to the Greens. WHY? NZ can do with A Green Party, but not THIS Green Party.
The crash of the vote for National will force a rebuild. The Greens however, increased their vote and took an electorate. Within their echo chamber, they will be feeling encouraged and emboldened. No need for change within. Which is what could have happened if they dropped below the 5% threshold, or came back with four or five MPs based on winning Auckland Central.
Labour has already made clear it wants distance from the current Greens, probably making a deal with the familiar faces (eg Shaw) for the sake of future relationships between the two parties. But if the Greens do walk away into opposition, does that really hurt Labour? To be honest, it is more beneficial politically to be criticised by the likes of Davidson, Ghahraman and Menendez March than to be praised.
Yes excellent.
I agree Martyn.
If I was the PM I’d keep the enhanced confidence agreement, let the green mps keep their portfolios and give chloe and Marama a portfolio to give them experience and to keep them in the tent.
Id go with ten policy areas where Labour had policy overlap with the greens (transport, education, environment, welfare, housing , electoral reform etc) and build the confidence agreement around that, I’d get them on board for renewables by 2030, public transport reform and enact the welfare working group, put a levy on water exports, dental reform for poor people and an exploration comitee for a ubi and work with the greens on the future of work.
If I was the Greens I’d agree to these on the condition that we allow ourselves to constructively criticize the govt, get powerful rules in some select committees.
If the two parties can come to an agreement like that it wouldn’t alienate labours voters because the greens are kept out of cabinet and the greens would have some genuine wins and portfolios to thump the policy wins in place and criticize the govt where needed, it shows that the two parties are a block that can work together and makes the left look like a stable unbeatable super block come 2023.
If Labour is smart they’ll keep the current arrangements and utilize the greens experience and allow Shaw and Eugene to hit the ground running rather than getting a new minister aquatinted with the portfolio. If Labours dumb they’ll offer a consultation agreement with no portfolios and no policy concessions which is not a consensus agreement
Exactly.
The Complete Greens Election policy Left Labours for dead which was more of the same same old same old.
If Labour was smart They would leave the Greens the means to work on those policies to work into their own.
After all it is not just climate change that gave the Greens the extra votes to get 2 extra seats and Chloe Swarbrick Auckland Central .
Yes, Geoff, I hope they’ll do that too (allow them to work the best of their dual policies in together). I hope so. We’ll find out at the end of next week.
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