The Greens humiliatingly swallow dead tofu rats for vacant baubles 

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
57
2393
Actual Green Party Caucus meeting

Oh wow.

Wow.

I thought it would be bad because I’d heard how weak the Greens were in their negotiation, but I had no idea it would be this bad.

How humiliating is this deal the Greens begged from Labour? It’s worse than I feared.

Deal done: Greens accept ministerial portfolios

The Green Party has accepted Labour’s Government-forming deal, which includes their two highest ranking MPs receiving Ministerial portfolios.

A spokeswoman for the Green Party confirmed that more than 75 per cent of the 138 party delegates assessing the deal have voted to accept it.

The delegates have been negotiating the deal for close to four hours.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

A spokesman for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed the vote in a statement moments later.

I warned the Greens that unless they went in hard and demanded transformative change and threatened a civil war they would get sweet FA, and they’ve managed to get even less than that!

The Green strategy team are chequers players trying to play chess.

Apparently Marama’s and James negotiating tactic was to get on their knees and beg.

You don’t get nuthin by begging, and they got nuthin..

No policy gains, just a couple of vacant baubles of office.

The Greens repeatedly get screwed over by Labour in a never ending cycle of abuse that started with Helen Clark and you kind of feel like someone should step in and intervene now.

Labour gain the inoculation and political camouflage they want and the Greens get nothin.

The wider membership who thought they would be consulted haven’t been, it was just representatives of the wider membership who voted so expect some backlash on that.

The Greens gained the result they did at the Polls because Left Labour voters threw them a lifeline for their much more radical policy agenda and the Greens have sold that out for some baubles.

I’m already regretting voting for them again.

Jacinda’s tepid incrementalism will not be challenged by the Greens, it will be supported by them.

As the climate crisis events explode over the next 3 years, as welfare reform goes no where, as housing stagnates, as poverty spreads, the Greens will sit alongside Labour like a parasitic twin unable to think for itself let alone change things.

It is rapidly becoming apparent that Labour and the Greens are not the political vehicle for transformative change. With Labour too focused on preventing Covid from exploding in NZ and the Greens now gagged, no forward thinking vision on how to transform things will be articulated.

It’s a Labour + Green supported Government, that gives them after specials something close to 60% of the fucking Parliament and yet they STILL CAN’T be transformative?

The Greens will continue being politically irrelevant until Chloe and Steve Able are the new leaders.

 

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57 COMMENTS

  1. Why be so hard on the Greens ? I think that this is as good as could be expected, and it is good politics from both Ardern and James/Marama. I wish them all well. At least we have the real chance of a good Government for once. Long may it last. Good bye and good riddance to the Natz.

  2. It appears on the outside that there is a civil war brewing in the Greens as the membership realises Labour has played a Bret Hart sized screw job on them. Labour’s strategy here is to paint the Greens into a corner knowing fair well under the current leadership there won’t be an aggressive bite back. This is the Labour way they have always treated support parties with contempt.

    Bomber welcome to our dilemma on the right. Politics has been thrown out the window for the race and retention of the pragmatist centre.

    • Hard to think of anyone more on the outside of the Green Party than yourself Frank! There is no civil war presently brewing in the GP (unless among some of the 20-odd delegates whose obstruction was outvoted by the other 120). The primary scenario for a real breach in the party would be if it was to be swamped by new members with ulterior motivess. But they’d have to be joined up for 6 months (and not be members of another political party) before they could vote, so that’s not really an imminent concern.

    • The electorate played a screw job on the greens – the electorate voted Labour. The Greens are equal to Act. Oh, except they have people on the same planet as them in Government.

      Regardless of motivations and how we want people to act and how they should act to save the planet, all over the world they are all over the shop with voting compared to traditional expectations.

      Maybe next time around Act will have 11 MPs and the Greens 1.

    • Civil war? 85% of the Greens vote for this deal and a civil war brewing? Shit with 85% unity its a powder keg…

      On the other hand you’d be lucky if 15% of the National party could even tolerate each other. When was the last time National had agreement like that? Are they not far more likely to implode given Judith clearly has no intention of standing aside and the losers who lost their seats are hanging on for grim death on the list blocking new blood? You bet you they are!

    • No.
      The Greens are Owen Hart.
      On the morning of the 23rd May 1999.
      Only they won’t get $18m in compensation for the fall.

  3. Stuff happens. Marama is sporting a high maintenance hairdo and gone more gupscale fashion-wise like Paula land Judith. Stuff happens.

    She might be able to affect domestic violence; she sat on Owen Glenn’s sortie into that issue, and that may have achieved something – if nothing but discourse on linguistic changes to the nomenclature of nether regions, and how white men should self- delete, and how the whole damn lot of us – bar Maori – bear responsibility for an Australian nutter murdering innocent people one autumn day in Christchurch. Less divisiveness would be nice.

    • Hi Snow White, I did a search to try and find out what you have been referring to, regarding Marama, as you have mentioned it a number of times now and I would like to understand.

      The only thing I can find that seems onto it is this speech: Maramas Speech at the Chch Shooting Auckland Vigil.

      Parts of it are a bit jarring. Is this what has been bothering you about her? Or is it something else?

  4. If this government is to fulfill its promise to the voters, a turbo charger is just what this government needs

    When I wrote, ‘Goodbye Greens’ in 2023 I should, also have written goodbye also to Labour in 2023.

    Both parties fortunes are tied to the their covid response. 

    As Mathew Hooton succinctly pointed out, business as usual is not what New Zealanders, (of all persuasions), voted for.

    Labour’s 950,000 supporters from 2017 remained loyal not because of progress on housing or child poverty, but because of the Prime Minister’s leadership through the pandemic. Roughly 250,000 previously blue voters joined them, with many believing Ardern had literally saved their lives.
    Mathew Hooton

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/matthew-hooton-jacinda-arderns-line-on-the-greens-and-the-cabinet-minister-she-must-remove/F7PER26YFZWQTKO3AO5765ZOBU/

    It hardly needs be said; A full blown return of the virus will doom both Labour and the Greens.

    Covid has changed everything.

    Business as usual is not an option.

    After decades of corporate featherbedding and bailouts, it is now time for the people and the environment to be bailed out.

    It is time for the Greens to demand it.

    It is time for the Government to deliver it.

    Failure is also not an option.

    • ‘Failure is also not an option.’

      Really?

      I’d say failure is guaranteed, especially now that we are past the inflexion point on practically everything and the only strategies that could make a difference -permaculture and powerdown- aren’t even on the radar.

        • However, bearing in mind that we are in the worst predicament in all of history as a consequence of the policies implemented by numerous governments over many decades, surely failure is the standard result of government action.

          Are you saying failure is not a choice because it is a predetermined certainty?

          Certainly everything that matters -the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans, the amount of ice around the world, biodiversity, the amount of micro-plastic in the oceans and in our bloodstreams, indebtedness, overpopulation, general health, overconsumption etc. -will all be in a worse state tomorrow than today.

    • “When I wrote, ‘Goodbye Greens’ in 2023 I should, also have written goodbye also to Labour in 2023.”
      Jacinda will be NZ PM for as long as she chooses to be.
      Her response to covid was another demonstration of her leadreship qualities , not some aberration. Covid didn’t create something that wasn’t there, it further demonstrated something already in evidence.
      If you watch her interviews and press conferences you are watching someone very well informed on whatever she is asked, very thoughtful very intelligent and very frank. It does not seem to me that she has any strongly held views on neoliberalism or socialism and this gives me hope that she will be flexible and pragmatic with how her government deals with major international events that seem to be in the pipeline.
      We will see what we will see.
      D J S

      • Yes yes yes David. However please look at the pricks in her cabinet. All right wing arseholes . Ignorant uniformed ( by and large there are some exceptions)Parker, Nash, Woods, Robertson, Twyford, Clark .Spinless self serving ego tripping do nothing career politicians. None of them (maybe Parker)could make a longterm visionary plan and implement it if they tried. Not that they would. Wouldn’t want to be accused of failure now would they? Heaven forbid they would Commit to something specific.

        • Why don’t you say what you really think. By the end of 3 years of this none achieving government this rant will seem tame.
          I love this country that took me in and I really hope I am wrong and they prove me wrong with fewer children in poverty more people in warm dry affordable houses secure jobs the list goes on.

        • Lets not be too fickle.
          Winston kept National out of Govt and we had a Coalition. Labours policies, the Green’s policies and NZF policies had some commonality in what they didn’t stand for.
          Winston was reputed to be a handbrake on areas of Labour and Green aspirations.
          So now that situation is passed then Labour will have to show its colours.
          If it plays it right it will get things started and perhaps be a part of a continuing Govt in 2023.
          If they get it wrong then 2023 will probably see a NACT govt back and nothing useful for NZ will be done and a lot undone.

          But getting it right is judged by the public after the onslaught of MSM at Labour’s every turn.
          Who owns MSM and how much of the public is owned by MSM BS.

          There is a lot you don’t see. The US is putting pressure on Australia and NZ to confront China. So far NZ has not complied whilst Australia has and it will cost them.

          If Labour achieves what I would like it to then there will be repercussions from the US as there was when Kirk instituted his brilliant superannuation scheme.
          The CIA has never helped or supported Labour but has given National directions, finance, organised campaigns and supplied a fleet of aircraft over months, along with other support several times since the early 1950s.
          The CIA has permanent offices and staff in NZ keeping an eye on how far we stray from where they want NZ to be.

      • ‘If you watch her interviews and press conferences you are watching someone very well informed on whatever she is asked, very thoughtful very intelligent and very frank.’

        The reason she comes across as well informed and confident is because NO ONE ASKS THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!

        Such as:

        How do you reconcile your stance of ‘getting serious about climate change’ with promoting the consumption of fossil fuels and promoting other sources of life-threatening emissions?

        Bearing in mind that we are living in a post-peak-oil world. can you explain why your government is spending money on increasing our dependence on oil?

        Where does the money to pay the interest on loans created out of thin air come from?

        Then watch Jacinda flummoxed and utterly lost for words because she has no answers.

        • “Bearing in mind that we are living in a post-peak-oil world. can you explain why your government is spending money on increasing our dependence on oil?”
          This question could do with a bit of explanation in itself AFKTT. Not the observation that we are living in a post -peak-oil world, but that jacinda is increasing our dependence on it. She is promoting electric transport options and other alternative energy projects. Admittedly nothing that is going to make much difference, but as you know doing enough to actually reduce our consumption of fossil fuels let alone end their use is not something that can be done in a democracy. Particularly a neoliberal capitalist democracy. The necessary change in everyone’s lifestyle will never be acceptable to an electorate that can vote for someone who stands against it.
          It will only be when the oil is really running out and costing everyone’s salary that changes will be made, unless as you would insist we are all cooked by then.
          jacinda will try to do what is possible. Not what isn’t.
          “Where does the money to pay the interest on loans created out of thin air come from?”
          As I’m sure you understand there has never been a mechanism for producing money to pay interest. It has locked money inflation into the system from the year dot. And the thin air loans are realy fiat money and the interest doesn’t have to be paid any more than the loan has to be paid back. Unlike bank loans where if principle and interest are not payed or payable on a large scale as at the moment the banking system must eventually implode.
          D J S

  5. ‘The Greens repeatedly get screwed over by Labour in a never ending cycle of abuse that started with Helen Clark’

    Yep. That’s because ‘Labour’ isn’t Labour; it’s a phony construct of neoliberalism, geared to fucking the planet and screwing the masses.

    It’s ‘the crew of the Titanic using their power (revolvers) to keep the third class passengers below deck in the rapidly-flooding compartments whilst the wants of the first class passengers are attended to.

    Americas Cup says it all.

    “Labour” is high-level incompetence and denial-of-reality, geared to ensuring no lifeboats are launched when an orderly filling of lifeboats was possible. It is failure to construct life-preservers from bouyant materials as the ship goes down. And telling the orchestra to keep playing, even as the hull lists badly.

    • ” Yep. That’s because ‘Labour’ isn’t Labour; it’s a phony construct of neoliberalism, geared to fucking the planet and screwing the masses. ”
      100% There is no left wing party in NZ those left behind will stay that way including our young people who haven’t a hope in hell of buying their own home but will be slaves to the parasite landlord rentier class or be financially shackled for life by mortgage debt. All because labour can’t levy a hefty CGT excepting the family home and beach escape. Plus Shonky importing immigrants.

  6. NZ had a choice. ACT/NAT or Labour/Greens. Thank fuck NZ went Labour/Greens. I think this is something to celebrate instead of denigrate. Climate change and poverty are now being described as ‘baubles’? Fuck the lot of you.

    • It has been called the ‘Covid Reset’

      From the covid-19 crisis has come the biggest chance to achieve something really transformative for the future of the environment and the people of this country since the Great Depression and the founding of the Welfare State.

      If Labour, (and the Greens), fail to act on the massive mandate for change that they have been handed by the voters, if Labour (and the Greens), continue to refuse to bail out the people and the environment. If the Labour Government, (and Green Party silence), allow corporate bailouts and handouts to Comalco, and Air New Zealand, and Sealords, and other big corporates, at the expense of real change. Then the electorate will become jaded and let down and will look to more populist leaders.

      We have been here before. The adoption of neo-liberalism by the 4th Labour Government and the continuation of those polices by National Bolger administration gave rise to Winston Peters populist New Zealand First party..

      The same thing in the US, betrayal of the White Middle and working class Americans by the both the Republicans and the Democrats saw the rise of Trump

      The next populist leader in this country will likely not be as benign as these two.

      To avoid this sorry fate, instead of business as usual, we need a Green New Deal.

      The hugely expensive pumped hydro project may be a good idea, but if Tiwai closes it will become an unneeded huge white elephant.
      Even if the government continue to subsidise the aluminium smelter at Tiwai, the pumped hydro think big colossus will still become a white elephant eventually when Comalco inevitably gets tired of milking the taxpayer and closes Tiwai anyway.

      !/ No more subsidies for Comalco

      2/ No more cheap labour sweetheart deals for Sealords

      3/ Give our fisheries a break while we train up New Zealanders to fish this resource more sustainably

      4/ No more subsidies for Air New Zealand, instead switch this money to retraining these workers for the low carbon economy and cheap surface transport.

      5/ Dump the multibillion pumped Hydro boondoggle, instead use the money to connect Manapouri to the National Grid.

      A Green New Deal now!

      No more subsidies for failing and rapacious corporate industries.

      • Good points Pat – butttttt… the ‘hydro battery’?? Though expensive, the construction of the lake should pay for itself by doing away with carbonised electricity generation, as long as the reticulation issues are resolved. Of course, it would also get rid of the privatised energy rort of spilling water so that more expensive coal and diesel fired generation to determine a higher charge out price and higher returns for the investors. Potentially, it should have an even greater national benefit. The generation of low cost on-demand electricity to iron out the peaks would only be effective if generation and reticulation is natrionalized. What a wonderful Trojan Horse and kick in the backside of neoliberalism.

        • Bring the partially privatised ( by jonkey) energy giants back under govt control where the are answerable to the people.
          The corporate model of douglarse has serious liabilities built in for the Kiwi user of electricity in the form of higher prices.
          NZ needs to reduce power consumption yet no suck program is mentioned by any of the govts for 80 years.
          Electricity is consumed unnecessarily particularly by high profit industries and wealthy households. Do we need heated swimming pools?
          Pricing can be used to help poorer families while a scale of unit costs can be charged depending on the number of units per person per day are consumed, with higher rates of consumption attracting heavy penalty rates.

          We all pay for excessive use with loss of environment, the cost of transmission and infrastructure.

      • I agree that the government should immediately stop pouring precious resources into dead ducks, in the vague hope that something good will eventually come of it…or simply out of cowardice -unwilling to bite the bullet and start doing the right things for the future of the populace because its easier [in the short term] to prop up failed businesses than do something genuinely innovative.

        I’m not holding my breath for anything other than more of the same that got us into this mess (not Covid-19, which was just the trigger for the loaded gun).

  7. Political parties are never the vehicle for transformative change. They can never achieve anything serious unless there is a serious people’s movement forcing their hand. When will we stop putting out faith in politicians?

    • Absolutely correct Aaron, the anti nuclear movement, the anti apartheid movement and the anti GE movement, all a ground swell that politicians followed, politicians never ever lead.

    • People have been saying Labour has no handbrake to blame now, but Jacinda pulled out the new handbrake at her first opportunity in her winners speech, where she claimed the mandate of the people to carry on doing what they were doing.

      Don’t rock the vote… I mean boat.

      In other words continue hiding behind covid, and do nothing of significance, nothing revolutionary, and nothing visionary.

      Hugging the middle of the road with all their might, with an occassional tweek here, a window dressers tinkle there, and a reaction where and when required to keep who ever is shouting loudest, (read professional lobbyists) quiet.

      Aunty Helen tells her if she keeps the handbrake on she will see a third term, so long as the whole shaky, frothing, debt fuelled property ponzi behemoth that Helen and JK governed over can hold together one more term.

    • Labour 1984. There was no people’s movement pushing for the enormous change they inflicted, blitzkrieg style.

      • Jase you are right and jonkey partially privatised the corporatised state energy giants when 67% voted against it in a referendum.
        So a groundswell has to be present, growing and felt over a period with riots on the ready as needed.

  8. I don’t see the agreement as a humiliation, nor do I regret giving my vote to the GP. Disappointing maybe, but there was no leverage, unless the special’s results are completely ridiculous (and hope won’t change that). I don’t think that we’ll be seeing either Shaw or Davidson standing down anytime soon. Maybe 2022 for Shaw at earliest, I reckon it’d be Tuiono over Abel in that contest if it happens before next election anyway.

    But some pros, besides the Ministerial salaries for the co-leaders (especially the potential for Swarbrick to chair a select committee, preferably on cannabis reform):

    10. The Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence will be the lead Minister for the whole of government response on family and sexual violence with the mandate to coordinate Budget bids in this area…

    13. In addition, the Labour Party will support the nomination of a Green Party Member of Parliament to be the Chair of a Select Committee, as well as a Green Party Member of Parliament in the role of Deputy Chair of an additional Select Committee.

    14. The parties will cooperate on agreed areas where the Labour and Green Parties have common goals:

    a. Achieving the purpose and goals of the Zero Carbon Act through decarbonising public transport, decarbonising the public sector, increasing the uptake of zero-emission vehicles, introducing clean car standards, and supporting the use of renewable energy for industrial heat.

    b. Protecting our environment and biodiversity through working to achieve the outcomes of Te Mana o te Taiao – Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2020, protecting Kauri, building on pest management programmes, and taking action to minimise waste and problem plastics.

    c. Improving child wellbeing and marginalised communities through action on homelessness, warmer homes, and child and youth mental health.

    • Ergh! I don’t know what happened with my formatting there. Probably trying to blockquoe text rather than using just using quotation marks. Apologies; that is bad for the eyes.

      • It’s GREAT that those points are so highlighted. Co-operation, agreement, and these common goals are going to be vital for our future.

  9. I am no fan of Davidson and her style seems more fit for being in opposition than being a minister. It is always easier to shout what you would do than to actually deliver. But now, not only is she a minister, but she has taken up tough portfolios. With COVID dragging down the domestic and global economy, her roles are not going to get easier.

    Never thought I would say it, but good on her and I wish her luck.

  10. Shouldn’t be news that the current Greens are not transformative. But hopefully this term they will do something for the environment if they pull finger and by doing so help the economy….

    With Covid, pollution is even more of an issue around the world and NZ has become reluctant to be a leading environmental county in the last 25 years, and more a country giving away natural resources to overseas interests due to our government stupidity and transferring NZ wealth both metaphorically and financially offshore.

    Being fairer with natural resources are a really big way to help the planet, overfishing is a big example in NZ which encompasses many areas of fairness, such as slave labour being used instead of local labour, Covid being introduced into NZ that local community bears the costs and brunt of, destruction of the ocean floor and marine life, and stopping the relentless manufacture of products like plastic, destroying the natural environment.

    reports are mixed where it is all coming from and who is producing it.

    The US and UK produce more plastic waste per person than any other major countries, according to new research.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/30/us-and-uk-citizens-are-worlds-biggest-sources-of-plastic-waste-study

    In 2018 approximate 513 million tonnes of plastics wind up in the oceans every year out of which the 83,1% is from the following 20 countries: China is the most mismanaged plastic waste polluter leaving in the sea the 27.7% of the world total, second Indonesia with the 10.1%, third Philippines with 5.9%, fourth Vietnam with 5.8%, fifth Sri Lanka 5.0%, sixth Thailand with 3.2%, seventh Egypt with 3.0%, eighth Malaysia with 2.9%, ninth Nigeria with 2.7%, tenth Bangladesh with 2.5%, eleventh South Africa with 2.0%, twelfth India with 1.9%, thirteenth Algeria with 1.6%, fourteenth Turkey with 1.5%, fifteenth Pakistan with 1.5%, sixteenth Brazil with 1.5%, seventeenth Myanmar with 1.4%, eighteenth Morocco with 1.0%, nineteenth North Korea with 1.0%, twentieth United States with 0.9%. The rest of world’s countries combined wind up the 16.9% of the mismanaged plastic waste in the oceans, according to a study published by Science, Jambeck et al (2015).[6][27][28]
    All the European Union countries combined would rank eighteenth on the list.[6][27]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution

  11. I dont hold much hope that this term will be transformative at all sadly.

    The NZ Green Party has now highjacked the ‘alliance party/values Party/Social credit combo models and taken ownership of them.

    So the fact is that that we now have not got the true ‘Green party’ of the ‘Global model’ which shows after you compere the UK Green Party poliy against the NZ Green party watered down ‘Global Green model’.

  12. My Facebook post on this subject and boy is it causing a shit stir.

    Labour will do next to nothing on issues towards beneficiaries .
    Labour will continue to screw over long term health welfare beneficiaries along with minimal attention to pharmac.
    Labour will do nothing but suck up to its new found neoliberal million dollar home owners and the likes and national party swinging women voters.

    Labour have less than 12 months to fix the above or there will be major ructions on the streets I can see it coming a mile off .

    The petition to double the meds budget has reached 77,000 doubling in number of signatures in 6 weeks.
    This petition went from 74067 to 77,000 today (30th Oct 2020)
    I would say the signers will reach in-excess of 200,000 before christmas.

    People are fed up with being denied access to long term health benefits
    People are fed up with having to break up relationships to get those pathetic benefits.
    People are fed up with being denied access to meds while bullshit huge amounts of money are spent on unnecessary things.
    People have seen the way labour are talking of sucking up to the center left / right while those at the very bottom get screwed over every single day.

    What labour have offered the greens is a slap in the face to all those people above, especially when you consider the totality of the Green parties policies towards the above and the Labour parties total lack of any policy at all towards the above .

  13. Ministers without a ministry. Tokenism. And both leaders now occupied the left is silenced. A centrist government, a centrist alternative and only ACT providing opposiiton.

  14. Arguments on both sides I guess for getting into bed with what’s still an incrementalist, managerialist, 3rd Way 5th Reich Labour Party (probably looking for some ‘neo-lingo’ bullshit language and spin to justify its departure from its roots). And you can’t really blame JA, or any botty else that’s grown up knowing nothing else, and who see the market the market (supposedly the ‘natural’ leveller of all things created under God, and degrees in communications (spin and the art of persuasion) as the be-all and end-all. End of Story (not).
    What gets me is their now trying to put a 4 year term back on the agenda. (Jeez, I wonder why! – because its their easiest option, and I’m hopping a generally still apathetic electorate is not fooled)
    YES (to a 4 year term) …….. OK, MAYBE ………… BUT!!!!! not until you’ve shown a real commitment to respecting the intent of the OIA amongst the polly-class and its enablers: the senior public service; AND to passing legislation that is not in breach of the BORA and Treaty. Perhaps even a more formalised constitution.
    Until then – forget it. Why should an electorate give politicians and their enablers another year when the few fundamental checks and balances on executive power are not respected. They moan about how difficult it is to achieve anything in a 3 year term – well concentrate on ways to fix that first, and in a way that is respectful of the electorate and the fundamentals of a civilised democracy. Show us how bright and kind and transformational and compassionate and concerned for your voters and non-voters and the most vulnerable in sussoighty/the economy you actually are – in this space, going forward.
    They’re probably wondering why people globally are losing faith on democratically elected representatives when some of the things already in place only seem to apply to the peons they rule. And they ask for more!
    I’ve watched the neo-lib agenda (much of it an unconscious programme/bias now for damn near 40 years – the culture, the language, the spin et all)
    For example: “with rights come responsibilities”. Indeed they do. Those responsibilities are just as applicable to politicians and civil SERVANTS as they are to the people that put them in place and pay for their lifestyles.
    Fuk ’em. If Labour, (who I’ve supported my entire life), and their little Green shoots don’t get on with the really basic stuff and at least somehow show they’ve been both transformational and kind, then they’ll deserve an inevitable 2023 outcome. Wooden wannabe in their shoes eh? Whooar. But…..as things stand, we get what we deserve – although all bets on that are about to be off if we keep giving inches and allowing the theft of miles

  15. Amen and women, brother and sister, I said this exactly to my green wife this morning. I feel better all the time for not voting, for the first time. The public got suckered again. IMO the entire theatrical pantomime has moved to the right. In about a decade the Covid Queen will become reargarded as NZ’s O’bummer. Sad, but can’t wait to find out..

    • the entire theatrical pantomime has moved to the right. I

      Are you saying that at the end of John Key’s reign and then the final Nat-wrap that NZ was a more Left wing, equitable, sustainable, unified and generally caring nation, and headed more to the ‘Left’, than we are now after three years under Jacinda’s leadership??

      Seriously?

      Please clarify.

  16. “The Miracle?”

    The miracle
    Not in my life
    Has the god
    Visited in his feet

    You can’t be serious
    Remember
    Let’s do this
    Let’s keep moving

    Making up jokes
    Is no longer fun
    For this written play
    By whom.
    For our Covid Queen?

    The castle and
    The heavenly staircase
    Has shown itself,
    The portcullis and moat is no more

    Storm the gates, the barricades
    Shake the EQC State to it’s roots!
    Rebuild NOT from the past
    But FOR the bottom dwellers,
    And see the miracle in flesh

    This is godpower Princess!
    Will you set fire to the fire economy,
    Finance, Insurance and Real Estate?
    Orr will u sit and watch the table overturned . .

    Once again . . .

  19. If the Cannabis Referendum gets over the line via the specials – the Greens will be hailed as heroes.

    I kind of think it’s gonna pass.

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