The embarrassing weakness of the Greens and their public transport policy

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
50
1496

Nothing helps explain the feckless weakness and intellectual cowardice of the Greens more than their sudden u-turn on public transport.

So over run by woke identity politics, the previous Green Party position on Public transport was an identity politics bingo card of the oppressed…

Free public transport for students and under-19s

The Green Party today announced a game-changing plan for public transport in New Zealand, with free fares on buses, trains and commuter ferries for all young people around the country, as well as a commitment to fund and build a congestion-free network in Auckland.

The Green Card will provide universal, 24/7, free public transport for everyone under the age of 19, and free off-peak public transport for tertiary students at university, polytechnic, wānanga, private training establishments, and people training through apprenticeships. All people with a disability on the supported living benefit will also be eligible for free public transport.

…instead of proudly proclaiming free public transport as the actual policy, the Greens limited themselves and the actual effectiveness of public transport by limiting free public transport to their favourite list of the oppressed.

Rather than actually having the intellectual spine to make the argument that universal provision of well funded public services is a crucial means to combat climate change AND inequality by including ALL the poor people and ALL those who want to make a change, the Greens limited themselves to just their list of woke virtue signals.

NOW they see that the desperate need for public transport has changed not because of middle class green political aesthetics but driven by the naked brutality of free market capitalism.

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The Greens can’t even get it right when they are right.

This lack of vision on the Left to appeal to the Broadchurch tent rather than the tiny pure temple is humiliatingly basic. It shows they don’t have the intellectual muscle to make the argument for universal services and defend it.

This sudden realisation by Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party that they have to actually impact the material well being of people as opposed to pronoun semantics, militant cycling and aggressive te Reo pronunciation would be funny if we didn’t have 25 000 on emergency housing wait lists, 50 000 homes living in poverty, 200000 kids in poverty and entire generations locked out of home ownership.

 

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50 COMMENTS

  1. Look here, the Greens have vanished off the face of the earth for months now and they are polling higher than they have done, in months!

    Anyway I’m triggered by not being a student and been discriminated against so I’m starting a group and demanding counselling!

    • I am feeling triggered too! It’s trans (port) exclusionary policies are ageist and probably sexist, racist and homophobic as well

      Time to cancel the Greens! That will show them!

      • Anker. Relax. If you board any bus chanting, “ C..t C…t C…t to the driver then they’ll let you on for free. Try it, and report back. Thanks.

        • Argh yes Gentle Annie! Thanks for reminding me of the one things the Greens have achieved….reclaiming the c..t word

    • X-ray I am quietly confident that if you are a masked lycra-clad hermaphrodite albino of indeterminate age you should score a free pass. If you’re not, you need to take it up with your parents. It is not the Purples’ fault if you were born in the wrong time and the wrong place anyway. Stop whinging, dump that apple cider, and always say “No” to drugs.

      • I think all is left for me is to self I’d as a young student. Should work on public transport shouldn’t it

    • X-ray “ The Greens have vanished off the face of the face of the earth for months now”. This is why they are polling well, because nobody is seeing how useless they are.

    • I’m setting up a charity/organisation with a woke name and woke face the enjoys doing nothing and going to committees and being a victim.

      Meanwhile I control the charity/organisation to make money out of your next trigger by getting some lucrative government hand out, while virtue signalling what a great person/charity/organisation I am.

      “As part of its response, the Government announced an unprecedented $1.9 billion spend to support mental wellbeing as part of its 2019 ‘Wellbeing Budget’.

      But almost two years after He Ara Oranga, problems remain.”
      https://www.newsroom.co.nz/mental-health-system-far-from-transformed

      Lots of money, lots of talkfests, things getting worse.

      Yipee that’s social capitalism, we are growing our market of social problems, more spend, less results.

      • I am not sure why they are putting money into a mental health commission. That’s just more bureaucrats. Need more therapists and mental health nurses. Increase the actual workforce

      • Likewise. At the moment, only Social Credit holds any appeal from the policies on offer.
        Where have all the actual Left parties gone??
        All that remains are different flavours of neoliberal.

    • Michal it took you 20 years to figure out the Greens! LOL You’re an outlier because their base is arts and humanities students, so this policy move is them pandering to their base.

  3. It’s not just the greens gazing in to their belly button, how on earth could any reasoning adult have thought building an $800 million cycle bridge to appease a small group of Lycra warriors made any sort of sense to the country?
    It’s the child-like understanding of how the world works I find most fascinating with Labour/greens.

    These aren’t “normal” people who went to birthday parties with their friends at school or played rugby netball or soccer.
    These are the oddballs who sat by themselves who you felt sorry for who wore berets or funny clothes and no one wanted to sit next to.
    Now they are running the universities and the government, their Twitter bubble tells them they are always right and they are both triggered by their earlier bullying, and utterly clueless about normal social behavior.

    They are incapable of seeing the big picture because they have never been part of it.

    • KC, What actual policy changes would you like to see being brought in?
      (Other than your gun-stuff – please – that’s been rammed into the ground already.)

      What real changes do you see as being helpful for the future of this country and for the people who live here?
      How would you like to see things change – in specific rather than general (‘blah-blah’) terms?
      You must have some thoughts on this, or you would not be expressing such exasperation at what you do see happening. But just saying “Not this, not that, not anything of that…” doesn’t show the actual changes that you would like to see.

      • For you Kheala, the policies I would implement as PM:
        *Enshrine our bill of rights as unbreakable.
        *Sale of all farm and forestry land to non permanent residents or citizens illegal.allow overseas leases and tax them.
        *Sale or extraction of water for sale for anything other than NZ domestic use illegal
        *restart oil and gas exploration and local sourced cleaner coal for Huntley.
        *One person one vote, remove all reference to “partnership” in law as it doesn’t exist in the treaty.
        *remove all co governance agreements as undemocratic and against the spirit of the treaty
        *Iwi corporations to pay tax like other kiwis.
        *Reform trust law to pay appropriate tax.
        *increase benefit rates substantially
        *Crackdown on gangs number one police priority.
        *capital gains tax on any house or property not the primary residence
        *First $20 000income is tax free
        *incentivise all hill and high country farmers to plant 10% of their farms in mixed but especially late maturing native bush.
        *political campaigns to be publicly funded, no more donations.
        *increase military spending especially on anti ship and anti aircraft missiles, ships and aircraft
        *stop widespread use of aerial 1080 poison but retain its use in bait stations
        * government cullers and contractors to reduce feral deer numbers in areas where it is needed as part of a scheme where carcasses are processed and meat sold cheaply or supplied to people who are struggling. Widespread trapping and ground baiting by these people.
        *retain Marsden point refinery – nationalise it if necessary.
        *10% of NZ coastline to be made marine reserves.
        *ban bottom trawling
        *ban shellfish dredging – commercial and recreational.
        *commit to a defence pact with Australia and the USA
        *RNZ/TVNZ merger to include more funding for online presence, all must be bound by a strong neutral charter to give balance, or be sold.
        *immigration capped and foreign student numbers capped.
        *funding of universities dependent on training kiwi students for roles we need, defund courses and lecturers that are not being taught in a politically neutral fashion or are being rorted as visa scams.
        *reduce long haul heavy truck numbers by making them pay their fair share for road maintenance, fund rail and sea upgrades to take the extra
        *fire every single employee at NZTA and start again
        *cap the number of spin doctors any agency may employ.
        *reduce the number of MPs

        That will keep my government busy for the first 100 days anyway.

        Hope that helps 🙂 Our issues are so much deeper than which in-group gets a free bus ride.

        • Wow. I’m amazed at how similarly I feel about some/ many of those (not all, but a surprising number).

          And I’m a ‘Lefty’ and you’re a ‘Righty’ – how about that.
          Maybe we’re not all so far apart after all.

          • There is a bunch of stuff all kiwis want that no party is giving us at present. Supermarket, electricity reform also needed.

            I’ve only ever voted right once in my life, I think the rise of woke identity politics has blurred the lines of right and left.
            It’s them vs us unless you happen to be one of the niche in-crowd while their team is governing.
            People have finally noticed.

          • Well my takeaway is that neither of you is a cardboard cutout lefty or a a cardboard cutout righty, and that you both favour practical, evidence-based policy.

        • *restart oil and gas exploration

          Restarting oil exploration – for me that’s an absolute no-go.
          That’s the past, not the future.
          The harm caused by ocean oil spills negates the benefits of some of the other points.

          • Be practical Kheala. The all-renewables future is still a log way off, and we’re burning Indonesian coal (the dirtiest fossil fuel) to charge our E-vehicles. Surely burning our own gas would make more sense.

            • Yes – we do moly aren’t at a point when we can just stop using fossil fuels -we need energy independence as much as possible in a world of unreliable supply.
              Sovereign wealth fund on oil worked well to help Norway eventually electrify a high proportion of their vehicles via subsidy.
              Bad stuff can pay for good stuff.
              And yes gas is a lot cleaner than oil or coal and could be used more over the transition.
              It’s always going to make more sense using our own oil and gas as much as possible than getting it shipped to us and burning it anyway.

            • Yes, importing coal is daft, and majorly climate unfriendly.

              However “no more oil exploration” in our surrounding ocean is my baseline. I cannot go past that.

            • Norway did it so we can or should?

              Similar reasoning has been used to blow up a several hospitals, to blast live human beings into smithereens. The argument goes something like, “Well the US did it, so mah mayne man Putesy has to have his turn now!”

              Get the similarity or not, it is there.
              One person or nation causes harm and profits by it, so now it’s someone else’s turn. (Not in my books.)

  4. In the real world free public transport creates a supply demand problem.

    For some people PT is their only option. Often its those over 65 (Gold Cards), CSC and students (those with limited incomes) who are without private vehicles.

    So free or half cost PT for all is an option only while their is available supply.

    And people here criticse the Greens for not thinking through the real world issues …

  5. Pretty damning summing up by commenters. When Marama took up time on sexist language as primary importance, she used it up like Homer when he had an audience with the guru and blew
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiDY2nXVLZ0

    And further to show how timely the Simpsons are – they were in Ukraine in 2011 –
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX5DhPeT12E

    And while I’m there. Serious political stuff – about the young Vladimir Putin.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2_EFJLWA6o

  6. I posted this elsewhere, but it belongs here as well.
    In December 2020 our PM declared a climate emergency:
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/431942/climate-emergency-declaration-by-new-zealand-government-includes-commitment-to-2025-targets
    In response to the climate emergency, the govt and pubic sector were committed to “going carbon-neutral by 2025”.

    If they mean that, if we are in a Climate Emergency, then why would they hesitate, even for one day, on making public transport free, permanently.
    “Let’s Do This!”

  7. I mean yeah I support free public transport and I think the govt should seriously monitor the usage and if there’s a big uptake in usage it should be free I’d there’s not atleast keep the half price free. It’s gonna save my working class mates who catch the bus every day 20-30 a week so I absolutely support going further and making it free.

    NZ needs way better public transport, my concern is NZ is like the l.a. of the south Pacific , everyone says they want better public transport but noone especially most of the advocates would ever catch public transport, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. I just wish more of the greenies and lefty’s who say they want better public transport would catch it.

    For those who will never catch a bus or train I think there needs to be more subsidies for electric and maybe even an interest free govt loan for working and middle class.

    Honestly with most of the e car finance schemes as is you’re paying back at a rate of about what you’re spending on petrol a week and eventually the car more than pays for it self

  8. All that National have to do is come up with a few sensible ‘green’ policies, get a few credible people I charge of them, and that’s the end of THE Greens. Who needs the Greens?…they are just a mini Labour.

  9. All that National has to do is come up with a few sensible ‘green’ policies, get a few credible people in charge of them, and that’s the end of THE Greens. Who needs the Greens?…they are just a mini Labour.

  10. yes and who funds the free cost of this attractive scheme – the poor workers – probably it would result on the downside in mediocre heath care /education etc but with the upside of free transport to degraded hospitals, schools, unis, polys etc. As the Strolling Drones once sang- you can’t always get (have) what you want.

  11. ‘cough-cough’.
    One News
    “Current salaries, set in 2016, have the Prime Minister on $459,739 a year, the Deputy Prime Minister on just under $326,697 and the Leader of the Opposition on nearly $288,900.
    A minister in Cabinet is also paid $288,900, while a backbench MP at the lowest end of the scale gets $160,024. ”
    Corporate Jimmy and Marama cunt-word* Davidson must be paid $288,900.00 each then? Is that right?
    @ MB points out : “…25 000 on emergency housing wait lists, 50 000 homes living in poverty, 200000 kids in poverty and entire generations locked out of home ownership.”
    Meanwhile, down on the farm, we have an agrarian primary industry that’s so anchored in the beige ages of intensive, chemically saturated, environmentally ignorant farming practices that it, and they, are not much more than a comedy of errors devoutly played out by mostly woefully ignorant and socially isolated farmers begging the national party to beat them harder because that’s all they know. So yeah/nah oh look? Beer and rugby?
    National, Labour, ACT and The Greens are the same thing man.
    * apols to those who dislike the use of the cunt word but I can’t stoop to the hypocrisy of spelling it ‘c**t.

    • don’t forget they get an extra bite at the cherry for each portfolio they are allegedly responsible for

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