Alternative Green Budget could kill Labour

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
41
1379

By jove I think the Greens have got it!

Co-Leaders announce plans to launch Green Budget this year

Green Party Co-Leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics.

“New Zealanders care about each other and the planet we live on. Our Green Budget will lay out the plan for an economy that respects and protects those things, instead of exhausting and exploiting both,” says Green Party co-leader and spokesperson for Finance Chlöe Swarbrick.

“Poverty, and all the social ills that stem from it, doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from a tolerance of extreme inequality. It comes from the privatisation of profit and the socialisation of cost.

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“In December, we released He Ara Anamata, our Emissions Reduction Plan, which showed how we could reduce emissions five times faster than the Government’s proposed ‘plan’. It showed we can not only reduce the cost of living, but increase quality of life.

“Our Green Budget will build on that to continue to show precisely how a different world is possible, and entirely within our reach,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.

“More and more tamariki continue to fall through the cracks and live below the poverty line, as a result of this Government’s choices; the choices to gut housing for our most vulnerable, to gut school lunches, to gut our health system and put growing pressure on our health workers,” says Marama Davidson.

“We all depend on each other when times are rough. People want to care for each other – manaakitanga is part of human nature. This is the core value that will underpin our Green Budget.

“Our mokopuna deserve better, and we can deliver better by channelling community power and finally putting people and planet ahead of profit,” says Marama Davidson.

The tiny, tiny, tiny turn out to the ‘These Queers Bash Back‘ protest must have been a wake up call to the Greens that the identity politics tide has gone out.

The reorientation to the economy is where the real votes are, not one family living in poverty are sitting around the kitchen table cancelling each other for missing pronouns, they are trying to work out how the hell they are going to pay the bills!

The Greens did real damage to Labour in the last election.

Labour’s pathetic ‘GST off fresh fruit and vegetables’ only infuriated voters in Auckland because such a spineless offer made Labour sound like they had no idea of the pain caused by the cost of living crisis.

That hurt Labour’s voting chances with the working classes, but what also smashed Labour to pieces in Auckland was that massive revolt many Labour voters in Auckland’s middle class suburbs who had always provided huge political muscle got up and walked away from Labour and party voted Green BECAUSE the Greens wealth tax was far superior to Labour’s weak nothings.

The polling has lulled Labour into a false sense of security because this Government are so awful, that has meant Labour still have no new ideas while the Greens are presenting a very clever alternative Green Budget.

Progressive economic policy is desperately needed, Labour are missing in action, the Greens are taking the fight to the front line.

I warned Labour they better step up or Chloe would seize the opportunity.

Chloe has seized, Labour have choked.

 

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41 COMMENTS

  1. “. . . walked away from Labour and party voted Green BECAUSE. . . “ they couldn’t stomach either a third term OR voting National.

    Credit where credits due.

  2. Bravo the Greens. Chippie’s ‘Captain’s Call’ to scrap the wealth tax was like a kick in the guts to Labour’s base, still hurting from the fall out from the covid crisis.
    If Labour really want this to be a one term government they need to embrace similar economic policies.

    If the Labour Party are listening to their constituents, they would realise that their constituency are not content with National-lite. Even if National-Lite is marginally better for you, if National-LIte is so good, you might as well vote for the “the Real Thing”,

    https://www.creativereview.co.uk/its-the-real-thing-coca-cola/#:~:text=Coca%2DCola's%20'It's%20the%20Real,brand's%20advertising%20and%20communications%20strategies.

    Coca-Cola’s ‘It’s the Real Thing’ campaign was a way of consolidating the vast swathe of changes being made to the brand as it entered the 1970s. Coke’s then brand manager, Ira C Herbert, heralded it as a new direction that “responds to research which shows that young people seek the real, the original and the natural as an escape from phoniness.”

  3. `Alternative Green Budget’.

    May kill Labour but it would completely destroy the New Zealand economy in doing so.

    No win win there.

    • Hey pdm February 27, 2025 At 7:34 am
      I noticed you had a few typos in your comment.

      `Alternative Green Budget’.

      May kill Labour but it would completely destroy the billionaire economy in doing so.

      No win win for billionaires there.

      There y’ go, fixed it for ya.

  4. Neither the Greens nor the Labour Party are electable in their current forms. They’re only looking reasonable in the polls because Luxon is so bloody awful, but he will be gone by Christmas.

    • Wrong.

      The Greens are looking reasonable because they have developed a policy platform that is constantly being expanded and developed over the last 3 elections.
      People are waking up to that fact and realising both Labour and national are empty shells of piss and wind.

  5. Their State of the Nation speech gave me a sense of hope for our future.

    It was a real pleasure to watch. I highly recommend it if you haven’t already.

  8. Pointing out that the Green Budget was a long time in the making, way before the tiny crowd you speak of, so it’s a false equivalence to draw any conclusion from that, just sniping. I hope you are right about Labour and the Greens. Maybe Greens can become what Labour once was and can form a government with TPM. That would be incredible.

  10. In the US in wake of the invisibility and failure of the Democratic Party leadership to inspire the electorate, Bernie Sanders has stepped up to lead the charge against the Far Right Trump backlash, and the failed neo-liberal politics that spawned that backlash.

    What is notable to me is that Sanders has been joined on the stage by union leaders. (Green Party Aotearoa, take notes)

    Overflow Omaha crowd launches U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour
    Jamie Reiff
    Sat, February 22, 2025 at 8:28 PM GMT
    5 min read

    OMAHA – U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders kicked off his “Fighting Oligarchy” nationwide tour in Omaha Friday night, drawing an overflow crowd of more than 2,500, with hundreds more turned away…..

    Originally set for the Laborers International Union building, the event was moved to the larger Marriott to accommodate a turnout estimated at 2,580 in the ballroom and two overflow rooms. Organizers said hundreds of others were turned away due to space constraints…..

    Before Sanders took the stage, Eric Williams, Omaha Public Power District board member, Precious McKesson, executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party, and Ron Kaminski, business manager for the Laborers International Union Local #1140, spoke about how policies coming out of Washington D.C. create a “dangerous divide” between the nation’s richer population and the working class.

    As the crowd chanted Sanders’ name, the lawmaker took the stage and spoke about how Trump’s actions reflected those of oligarchs. He spoke about how Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires are receiving tax cuts while working-class Americans pay to make up for them.

    Sanders also spoke about how many in power do not understand what it is like to struggle, recounting his childhood living in a rent-controlled apartment.

    No stranger to Nebraska, Sanders has visited as a presidential candidate and high-profile draw for progressives…..

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/overflow-omaha-crowd-launches-u-072804947.html?

    • Go Bernie. Bernie is great – I recommend The Bulwark and the MeidasTouch Network for an insight in to how not only liberals but conservatives are fighting back against the affront to Democarcy and the 1st Amendment that this Trump Administration is. Luxon has done exactly what Trump and DOGE are doing on steroids. Attack the bureaucracy for nickels and dimes whilst paying themselves out with deficit funded tax cuts and bidding up the prices of everything to hold the masses down.

  11. There is a better than even chance that Trump is going to crash the world economy in his second term ,,,, and sooner rather than later with the way king Don is carrying on ….

    Luxon and his NActFist govt of entitled bent bullshitters will be disastrous in such circumstances ,,,,

    We dodged the bullet of the 2008 global financial crisis ,,,, because China kept buying our exports.

    This time around Luxon the slap-headed moron has tied us more tightly to the Five I’s (five idiots) alliance ,,, despite having a blotchy old primate
    with a bad attitude and bad hair leading the show ,,, King Don.

    The Chinese would be quite entitled to tell us to get that not so great white ape to come to our rescue this time around….

    The Greens would be a much better Government to have come the next crash ,,, NActFist will be a pack of rats overseeing dog eat dog….

    Citizens arrests for the rats and traitors sounds like a good idea in such circumstances ….

    And should Trump wreck community s and society in the Usa to the extent that the Peter Thiels and Musk type uber richdecide to come running here,,,. to their Nz bolt-holes or lifeboats. as they call them…

    Then we should arrest them too ,,,,

    ….. “If knowledge is power, how powerful would one person be if they accumulated control of the data collected by the governments of North America and Europe. What if that person was known to support anti-democratic ideology, was one of the largest political donors in the world and had a long record of using big tech for systematic abuses of human rights? This isn’t a hypothetical, welcome to the world of Peter Thiel.”

    https://counterdisinformationproject.substack.com/p/peter-thiel-and-the-privatised-surveillance

    https://www.mintpressnews.com/peter-thiel-gaza-ai-war-white-house/288372/

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-jd-vance-peter-thiel-founded-company-helps-israel-kill-lists-palestinians-gaza

    https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/futuredude

  13. Compulsory Unionism, start, back when, truth, my boss would not do that to me, eh!, union card, understand, your boss would do that, and continues to do, so how bring back that card union, compulsory. How your productive work casual minimum paid, NOT PAYING THE RENT, YET CASUAL,who, we.

  14. It’s simple really: Vote NACT and you vote for full privatisation of utilities/public services and modern-day feudalism. Just look at the UK/USA (and even NZ) for the disastrous results of privatisation. Labour/Greens need to adopt a tax wealth not work policy- the only way to solve many of the problems in NZ is to initiate a redistribution of wealth, period. This should be the number 1 topic/policy.

  15. Go the Greens. I’d be happy to pay a wealth tax. Just a few % off the bottom line while you all scrabble to pay mortgages and rent on over inflated assets you don’t even own, to support the dividends of NAB and CBA stocks.

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