The latest Roy Morgan Poll is suggesting that the Greens have hit 15.5%.
I know.
How is that even possible?
Part of me wants to believe it because I vote Green and it would be lovely to just once not be losers but the other part of me lives in the real world where any association with the Greens tends to be toxic.
The thing that supports a 15.5% polling is that Roy Morgan was the closest on Election Day to predicting that election and they were one of the few polls that picked a rise in the Green support.
So are the Greens really polling 15.5%?
If that rise is occurring, it will be because the Greens have been invisible of late and have gone into stealth mode.
The alienating middle class woke bullshit they have been poisoning the political spectrum with has disappeared and they aren’t saying or doing anything.
It’s called, ‘Morganing Up’:
‘Morganing Up’: Where a previous social media activist goes from woke drama queen to respectable UK liberal newspaper columnist in an attempt to look more mainstream and less alienating in election year.
This new policy of just being silent until the election is driving disgruntled Labour voters to the Greens without appreciating how hopelessly alienating the Greens are.
This cloak of invisibility also hides James Shaws and Marama’s failures on climate change and homelessness.
Let’s put aside the possibility of NZ First ruining any Green advances and just focus on the Green capacity to actually bring transformative change to any possible Labour led Government post the election.
The Greens lack the strategic and tactical skills to force a negotiation with Labour. Their 2020 pitch was Marama and James going into a meeting with Jacinda with Marama having a sheet of paper with the question, ‘why not?’ on it.
I’m not joking, they figuratively got on their knees and begged ‘why not’ as a negotiating tactic. That gained the Greens two Ministerial baubles where they couldn’t really do much.
I argued that they should have stayed outside the Government and pressure Labour that way, but the Greens took the Ministerial Baubles and have little to show for their 3 magic beans.
If the Greens are in a position to really muscle Labour, do they have the strategic brains to maximise that leverage?
I think we can all look at the phantom coup staged this year after Matthew Hooton breadcrumbed disgruntled activists into dumping James Shaw with no follow up plan as an example that the Greens are still Connect 4 players trying to play Chess.
The electorate is disgruntled at the total lack of delivery by Labour, the Greens must appeal to that electorate by constantly referring to the ‘First 100 days’ where a stack of progressive policies will be rammed through Parliament to take effect as quickly as possible for people.
Jacinda may be kind and she may really want transformative change, but if you don’t come to Wellington with a clear plan as to how to force the Bureaucracy to implement your manifesto, then transformative change becomes a virtue signal of aspiration rather than actual policy.
Kindness becomes Neo-Kindness that aggrieves rather than inspires.
The Greens must avoid this by clearly telling voters now what they will force Labour to pass in the first 100 days so that the Wellington Bureaucracy can be thwarted. Unfortunately the Greens are socially connected at the hip to the Wellington Bureaucracy and have all the offensive capacity of slow growing moss.
The last chance for Left progressive policy is a list of bottom line first 100 day laws to force Labour into being more Bernie Sanders than cautious Grant and Jacinda are confident to attempt.
Here’s what a Labour/Green Government should be committed to passing in the first 100 days of the 2023 election…
1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help. The slow incrementalism touted by favourite public sector foot dragger apologist Max Rashbrooke isn’t good enough because the lower middle classes are feeling the same pinch thanks to mortgage rises and universal school lunches and breakfasts would help them as well.
2: 50 000 State Homes for life built using the best environmental and social architecture standards using the public works act to seize land and immediately start building satellite towns using upgraded public transport hubs plus Renter Rights – (rent freezes, end accomodation payments, long term tenancy arrangements)
3: Free public transport plus vast infrastructure upgrade for climate crisis.
4: 30% stake holder in a new Government backed supermarket operation run to provide lower food prices for kiwism better prices for supplies and better conditions for workers.
5: GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and essentials like tampons, toilet paper, condoms, oral health plus a sugar tax.
6: Free Dental services for everyone through public health.
7. First $10 000 Tax free
8: Windfall profit Taxation focused on corporations and banks while bringing in a financial transaction tax
9: Offer nurses, teachers and Drs free education and living allowances in return for bonded time in our health and eduction systems.
10: Properly funded public broadcasting with TVNZ advert free and merged with RNZ alongside properly funded journalism through NZ on Air with more money for the Arts and Science. If you can’t have good public journalism, the right wing media will destroy these other 9 advances.
…Kiwis have to see a progressive Government ACTUALLY doing shit in the first 100 days or they won’t believe any change is coming and when you consider the economic maelstrom we are entering, the most vulnerable amongst us will be screaming for real change.
If we on the Left don’t offer voters real solutions to their material problems and instead prefer to micro aggression police the latest middle class virtue signals of hate speech, militant pronoun demands and screaming everyone is racist, we are fucked politically in 2023.
We need more real economic solutions on the Left and far less pronoun policing.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to Corporations.
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A small thing maybe with regard to item 9 on your list, why do nurses, teachers and others have to pay back their student loans, while doing valuable essential work, while athletes doing silly things such as throwing a metal ball or knocking a ball into a hole don’t?
What sport throws a metal ball and you are saying that athletes don’t have to pay back student loans?
Shot putting and I’m saying that grants to “elite athletes” should have to be repaid and grants/loans to people such as doctors, teachers and so should not.
Tertiary students pay a fraction of the cost of their education.
I believe tax-payers have given each doctor an average of about a $million when they have finished training. Their own contribution to the cost of their training is about $50,000 (including specialist training). This qualification pretty much guarantees well-paid work anywhere in the world. Often, somewhere else is exactly where they go without a thought for what they have been given.
I’m sure Ian Powell could provide exact figures for the cost of training and the proportion of new doctors staying and working in NZ, and for how long.
I certainly agree that we need to tithe the doctors and nurses we train for a few years and I’m happy for the small part of the cost that they bear to be written off as a result.
But it is important to understand that NZ is already very generous to such students.
The doctors trained here should/could be bonded to the public health service for 10 years. Give them an option after 5 years to buy back the remainder of their bond for $1million (the cost 9f their training) if they want to head overseas for bigger bucks. Double the number of doctors we train so there are always enough local doctors for our people. And set up a NZ Doctors organisation for overseas aid and send govt paid Docs to third world countries to do real work rather than giving Dollar Aid to governments and politicians.
The whole principle of user pays for tertiary education is flawed and follows the neo-liberal model. It is driven by the politics of envy. President Biden has already written off a large chunk of student loans and our government should follow suit.
I totally agree with Martyn about broadcasting too. What’s more I think NZ on Air should be abolished.
maybe you should listen to Chloe Swarbrick for some perspective on your mellifluous piece of meme-ery.
https://fb.watch/gRAOrtuQPs/
I have no idea if you were replying to me or someone else on the thread, or what your point was.
I watched Swarbrick. Damn that woman is a Good communicator – but I still don’t understand your point.
No comments show the interest in Greens .They have no policy and would like to see us be stay at home Kiwis eating lettuce and chanting .
Silly comment Trevor, the greens have been to the front on climate change policies and various socio-economic issues. National has found a few buzzwords chanting bureaucracy and mandatory at every opportunity and refusing to put out any policy probably because their allies ACT would magnify any ideas Nat’s have and bleed even more of Nat’s support.
Trevor Eating kale and avocado, lettuces are for hugging and head gear.
Could not agree more.
The Greens are cannibalizing the Labour vote due to diasaffected Labour supporters unable to bring themselves to support either National or ACT.
Sadly, as Labour continues to decline the Greens will benefit.
Proving that Ardern is not only the greatest asset that National and ACT could wish for but now also the Greens.
Time will tell.
I have concluded Labour are in terminal decline, now less than a year out. Based on the past 5 years and Labour seemingly unable to figure anything out, this time next year I have no reason to believe anything that is troubling the government now in housing, health, crime, poverty, dysfunction, will have improved. Perhaps inflation may have reduced but the damage has been done. Add to that 3 Waters, that has set some sort of record for submissions, that I fully assume Labour will ignore, and they’re toast, I’m picking low 20’s.
So regardless of the Greens defying logic with this seemingly rogue poll result, it’s not going to matter.
I guess the less obvious the Greens makes themselves, the more appealing they are to voters with short term memory issues!
The Greens could do well if they all resign and get replaced by normal sane sort of people. Genter can stay, and maybe Sage of the nice name and countenance. That’s it.
Terry Baucher, in response to calls for GST to be lowered generally, or at least taken off food, says experience shows any reduction in GST tends not to be fully passed on to the consumer, but pocketed by those in the producer-retailer chain. ‘Next time you hear calls for tax changes for ostensibly very sensible reasons…. In tax, even with well-meaning policy, there are always unintended consequences and tax is not always the most appropriate mechanism. Sometimes direct action, such as giving payments to those affected … is the best approach.’
What is needed is not reducing GST or exempting food, nor a tax-free first $10,000 of income; what is needed is a UBI, a tax-free unconditional basic income for everyone that would more than cover the cost of food and its GST.
https://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/118430/te-wiki-o-te-t%C4%81ke-%E2%80%93-gst-lesson-uk-thousands-here-could-be-potentially
One way or another there is a similar phenomenon to the US mid term elections going on in Aotearoa NZ.
There is underground New Gen movement that Mi-cockskin, HDPA, and the rest of the tory twats on ZB have little appreciation of.
More cycle ways from the Greens will be great. Then we solve Obesity epedimic at same time. I love seeing Green party members in Lycra riding fast on the hills of Wellington.
most of the lycra wearing cyclists I know are overweight conservative wannabes trying to pedal their way out of the dissonant hole they live in.
Nothing wrong with your with your 10 points Martyn though I doubt if 8 will apply as no one out side the Government bureaucracy will be profiting but honestly all are needed.
The only problem is the first 100 days will include the great December January break that the aforementioned bureaucracy takes.
Oh thats when you bring in your team and have them go through the personel dept and the pay roll to find the under performers and come the 4th Mon in Jan send a big musk type signal through the bureacracy that this time you mean business.
I think it’s time stop reporting polls and stick to issues.
Why hasn’t someone called up Health and Safety about the Greens flogging a dead horse?
well, if caring about something other than the economy and the value of shelter is a dead horse then call me Mr Ed.
Free dental services would make a HUGE difference to people’s lives and health. Last time I went to the dentist it cost over 2K and the dental practice seemed relatively busy.
For this policy to work there may need to be an increase in dental providers/practitioners. I suspect NZ’s high meth use and lack of brushing hasn’t helped matters.
So, free dental services – 100% YES, coupled with personal responsibility and encouragement to brush.
Tell me more about these “militant pronoun demands”. I know nothing of these demands.
It seems Kiwis need their faces rubbed into the reality of societal collapse in order to wake up.
Yes it does seem like the greens have shut up as MB suggested they do some months ago and it may have caused a polling aberation. But come election year they are going to be on the spot on tv debates and asked direct policy questions about hate speech and pronouns, older left people (who watch tv) will shy away from a red green govt and then they either abstain or turn in despair to Winston Muldoon.
Not this older left person – Greens are the only party which actually stands for inclusivity and social justice – ditch the unionist and the conservative neo liberals and get on board
roll out Julie Anne and Chloe – game over. I so wish the youngsters in ACT and The Greens had more voice – the neoliberal centrist parties are dinosaurs
I feel contempt for the Greens. The two port folios they were given have achieved SFA.
The rest of their stuff is mostly lunacy.
Marama Davison is particularly problematic in her woke ideological interpretation of things
I was honoured to have voted Jeanette Fitzsimmons in to parliament on the first MMP election in the magnificent Coromandel electorate – long may they continue to eviscerate dyed in the wool conservatives with their brand of inclusivity and social justice.
as the world educates itself the dinosaurs of the world will be left behind – and oh, can’t we all hear them struggling to keep up. I read Alvin Tofflers Future Shock as a teenager and whilst much of it was fanciful thinking there was one clear message that came from it. The rate of change. Some are more equipped to deal with it than others. I’m wary of an extremist backlash that is born of fear and loathing of this shortcoming and I think it behoves us well to keep things civil and inclusive. Whilst we all like to lambast the “other” there is a point, whether you are conservative or progressive, it is not in anyone’s best interest to be divisive or partisan. So with that I say….. go the Greens – lol
The first 100 days have to be what can be done quickly. Back in 1999 it was the end of market rents.
A rent freeze is obvious, but has to become before the election preferably within weeks.
We do not have the capacity to deliver free public transport to everyone (not the trains/track capacity and buses/bus drivers) within 3 terms, let alone a third term. Better would be congestion charging – to encourage commuter cars (more than one person etc) and free up space for an E bike lane. Free train/bus stuff to tertiary students, CSC holders and those on super and otherwise half price only while there is still unused capacity (covid era will pass).
There is also a shortage of dentists. One starts with fluoride in water (albeit .5 level for mine) and free toothbrushes and toothpaste in schools. And yes some sort of rationed out pathway for the poor to access dental care (so low income workers get the service available to those with CSC/beneficiaries).
I’d focus on school breakfasts where there is the need and expand school lunches to more places.
How does one give people free education with an income and then bond people to staying in New Zealand and working in low paid jobs here, refuse to let them leave? I’d increase their cost of study – but none of the debt would need to be paid back if they stayed and work here and also increase their pay up towards Oz levels. So there would be no reason to leave for long, just OE.
Sure a merger of TVNZ and RNZ only makes sense if there is genuine well funded public service broadcaster (at first one and then two channels), which the right here has and will obstruct with a passion. They could continue to offer an On Demand alternative (especially if they enhanced it with current affairs/in depth issue coverage) to Three.
Before using the public works act to seize land for satellite towns (or around some that already exist) to build 50,000 houses (say 25,000 state and 25,000 Kiwibuild) also buy up existing property for income related rental for those in motels. And choose those with the room for a subdivision small build. And also facilitate building homes on iwi land for those who retire.
There are alternatives to a first $10 000 tax free as this is universal – when it can be more targeted via a low income rebate.
The Americans have a progressive tax on corporations, so those making large profits pay a higher rate, a windfall profits tax would be a separate matter. Sure a FTT, why is there no GST on financial transactions anyway? Then there is the Greens wealth tax over $M clear of debt.
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