What happens if Greens made a State of the Planet speech and neither the State or Planet noticed?
Wow.
How underwhelming was that?
I think this has already sunk beneath the media waves.
It’s good to see the Greens have at least read The Daily Blog...
Shaw, delivering the party’s State of the Planet address in Auckland alongside co-leader Marama Davidson, warned those in attendance that a National/Act Government would be the “most reactionary, race-baiting, right-wing government” in decades.
…that’s right, James. TDB has been pointing this out for sometime and have asked repeatedly for your Woke Green Activists to stop providing ammunition for ACT because they will implement the most extreme conflict policies ever.
So you know, how bout your middle class activists stop providing David Seymour ammunition?
Like TDB has been asking for 5 years now.
Is it credible for James Shaw to criticise Labour when he is the Climate Change Minister?
Is it credible for Marama Davidson to criticise welfare reform when she is the Minister for Homelessness?
Not really eh?
The Greens are angry.
So what?
This was always the inevitable end point of taking those vacant Ministerships in the first place.
James and Marama provided Labour with political camouflage by appointing them Ministers outside parliament.
Climate Change and Homelessness is bad?
Well who are the Ministers?
Oh, James and Marama.
See, who cares if they are angry, they are responsible!
The Greens have gained sweet fuck all and have nothing to show for the last 3 years!
The strategy I argued the Greens needed to take in 2020 was to demand 5 bottom lines for the Ministerships or refuse to join the Government and threaten Jacinda with 3 years of attacking them from the Left.
Instead they took the Ministerships with no power and are in the exact powerless position I were warned they would end up in.
So what needs to be done now?
The Greens have to wake up and became far more tactical and strategic.
They should immediately call for a Green Party/Māori Party Election Hui and discuss an agreement between the two Parties to co-operate and present Labour with a united front of 10 bottom lines the Greens and Māori Party would demand in return for supporting Supply and Confidence.
These 10 bottom lines have to be policy within the first 100 days of a new Government so that voters knew these changes and the relief they would bring are worthy of their belief and support after 6 years of Labour providing little.
These 10 bottom lines would need to be Broadchurch Economic Justice, not radical identity politics dogma or it will become an immediate weapon used by the right to frighten the middle.
The 10 bottom lines have to have immediate material impact.
- Nationalise Early Childcare – make a free public option.
- 30 000 New State House Builds
- Ministry of green Works
- Free Dental
- Free Public Transport
- 30% State Supermarket entity
- Universal Free School Lunches and Breakfasts
- GST off food
- Wealth Tax & Financial Transaction Tax
- Implementation of all WEAG welfare reforms
This 10 point bottom line agreement between Greens and Māori Party would see them as a united front in negotiations with Labour so that even if Labour only needed one of them to make the 51% majority, Labour would have to negotiate with both of them without undermining either.
The Greens being angry is all well and good, but they have shown time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time agin that they aren’t very good at the strategy and tactics side of politics.
There is an opportunity here for the Greens alongside the Māori Party to put forward a platform of policy that would make a material difference within 100 days of election and that’s what our voters and supporters need.
Darth Potter is going to be as bland as possible to win the election, and that’s fine because the possibility of a National/ACT Government is terrifying, so the real progress is going to have to be done by the Greens and the Māori Party.
A 10 point bottom line list that most Kiwis would economically support opens up a far larger voting base for both parties to draw from.
There is still time for the Green Fox to jump over the Lazy Red Hog.
The last 6 weeks of extreme weather have highlighted how meaningless being carbon neutral by 2050 really is.
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If a tree falls down in a forest but no one’s around to hear it, did it even happen? It would be like that for any speech by the Greens.
I had to laugh at the eco-activists who glued themselves to a tanker of oil. They were like, “stop oil” or whatever their slogan is, but the tanker contained cooking oil.
Marama is doing a good as Minister of Homelessness as the number increases each day and after the cyclone areas are completely neglected and the local Maree are forced to step in.
“Shaw, delivering the party’s State of the Planet address in Auckland alongside co-leader Marama Davidson, warned those in attendance that a National/Act Government would be the “most reactionary, race-baiting, right-wing government” in decades.”
Yeah, nah. The current Govt have set the threshold high.
Just as Act will not be able to get National to be their cypher, neither will the Greens be able to get Labour to be theirs.
Because neither of the two major parties support partners can go anywhere else, they don’t have the power to demand bottom lines that would effectively destroy the major party.
Obviously the minor parties will get something, in fact something quite substantial, good faith coalition negotiations demand that. However, neither major party is radical, even if their support parties are. Given the major parties are likely to be 80% of the government, they will also get 80% of the policies. More particularly they will dictate the feel and look of the government.
In my view it is on this issue that the election will be decided. Which of the two alternative governments looks the most risky? Will the major party in each of the alternatives look like they will simply roll over to their coalition partners?
I expect that the major media outlets will push the two leaders very hard on this issue. Their answers, and the extent which they are believable, will be decisive.
#11 FULL funding of medications and implementations of the pharmac review.
None of the other 10 items mean shit if you do not have your health or access to medications.
Unfortunately as over the past 30 years, the ineffectual, identity-politics infected Greens remain the only left wing option available for the left-wing leaning vote.
It’s also a sign of desperation when Shaw accuses the ACT party of race-baiting. This is a fascinating claim when bearing in mind that ACT has a higher proportion of Maori MPs than the Greens.