Why I Joined the Green Party

Week four of the news drought and still the muse is unamused at the menu. Instead, here's something off the menu from last year. It is the introduction note I sent to the Greens after I joined the party:

I recently joined the Greens on Winter Solstice, after Russel Norman's realpoliltik dropping of the QE policy. That showed political bravery and pragmatism from the Greens, both in suggesting new policies, and dumping old ones that can't be sold to the public. Next year's election is pivotal to the long term future of New Zealand. Booting QE clears the deck for a clear and concise platform to take to the people next year and seek their mandate.

The Greens MPs have shown to be an outstanding Opposition to the Key government, with a better bang for buck ratio than the rest of the Opposition parties combined. Putting aside a few speed wobbles, the party is changing up and consolidating its base, without losing its purpose. I can well imagine expanding on that success, eating into the Maori and Blue Green voting blocs, as well as Labour's bloc and the General Enrolled Non Vote.

But enough flattery. Let me introduce myself. My name is Will. I was born in Palmy on a political animal farm. My first political battle was when I was eight, accidentally leading the faction of Labour Party kids on a school playground at lunch time on Election Day 1978, as a plane flew overhead trailling the banner "Labour is Winning!".

Labour didn't. The old man's Labour lost the Manawatu electorate contest to National's Michael Cox, although Labour's Joe Walding regained Palmerston North after the narrow loss to National in 1975. The lesson here? Every seat is marginal, given the correct circumstances.

Since then I have scrutineered, stuffed envelopes, leaflet dropped, petitioned, databased, policy wonked, and generally volunteered across part of the political spectrum. In chronological order: Labour, Act, Libertarianz, Act, Labour, ALCP and now Greens. If that seems a bit messy, it makes more sense when mapped to my position on the Poltical Compass, which defines me as a Left Libertarian. In short, Ayn Rand was a nutjob (Please excuse the perjorative term. I just wanted to annoy the NSA/GCSB).

I voted Greens in 2011, partly as a protest to Labour's disarray, but mainly because the Greens offered a better alternative team and platform. As a Half Deaf, I was especially pleased to have helped Mojo Mathers enter the House. There is still a long way to go for Disability Rights, especially as National mimics David Cameron's welfare crackdown on the sick and infirm in the UK here in NZ.

I intend to not only vote Greens next year, but hope to encourage others to do so as well. Now more than ever, there needs to be a party that stands with the people, not just giving them lip service such as the main two parties continue to do.

Born to the Purple

Congratulations to Lewis Holden for becoming the Nat candidate for Rimutaka. I first met Lewis during the NZ Flag campaign, and later got to know him on the occasional times I'd turn up to Republican Movement meetings. Nice choice, Nats. Lewis goes head to head against Labour incumbent Chris Hipkins. Skippy and me crossed paths at Vic Uni, so this election marks the first occasion where Facebook mates square off against each other for a seat.

Labour's candidates Rob McCann and Tony Milne are also known quantities. Rob McCann is an old school mate from way back, who ended up in the public service. He's the true Labour heir to the Otaki electorate, after Darren Hughes pulled the wrong pin and Mitchell jump-seated the last election. I hope Rob unseats Nathan Guy there. Doing so would raise the IQ of both Labour and National caucuses.

Tony Milne was (former Labour Chief Whip and current Labour Party Secretary) Tim Barnett's Mini-Me back in the early 2000's when I began learning the art of lobbying the hard way over drug reform. I met them for a short consultation in Auckland, where I was informed that Peter Dunne has rooted the numbers after the 2002 election (after the worm, which was after Corngate, which was after everything else). Tony Milne is well-suited to run for Christchurch.

But it becomes evident that Labour's Got Talent is picking from an ever-decreasing puddle. The student activists and broad union base has dried up, and Labour is resorting to fellow travelers in the political or media classes; career politicians and bleeding heart journos. It could be, it might be worse. Lacking any unifying principles beyond autocracy, NZ First and the Maori Party have reached for weather presenters in the search for Beta demagogues to keep up appearances.

If Labour can't stop Spinal Tapping around in the wilderness and disappearing in a raspberry cloud of self-indulgent alienation, this fate or worse awaits. They're already onto their third lead singer in six years, and their fifth drummer, Matt McCarten, has joined the band after the last drummer exploded in shingles. Matt McCarten's drum solos are known for their originality, not their longevity.

It's academic as far as I'm concerned. I joined the Green Party last Winter Solstice. While I might not agree with all the ingredients that go into the Green Party sausage factory, what comes out at the other end in the way of policy doesn't make the public violently ill. Take their latest policy to get kids to school without SUVs, for example. The NZ Herald yummed it up, Hooton reckons the Nats will probably grab the idea, and there's not a squeak from the Soccer Mums. Anyone who can defuse a Soccer Mum has my respect.

The Greens aren't looking to be a minority coalition partnership with Labour. They know that if Cunliffe had a choice to rebuff the Greens and go into government with NZ First, he would do so. Longer term, the Greens are aiming for a majority. The Greens equivalent of Labour's Rob McCann, Wellington's James Shaw, has been likewise pushed up the provisional Green Party List. McCann and Shaw are both organisers. They make shit happen.

So Labour and the Greens both know what's ahead and what's at stake. In the adaptability stakes, my money's on the Greens.

State Schools and Free Lunches

The NZ Herald's latest meta-campaign is drawing attention to the high cost of 'voluntary' school fees in Auckland. It's far from the most expensive state school in NZ. Thanks to the National government, that honour belongs to one of NZ's newest state schools, Wanganui Collegiate:

The former private school is asking $10,900 a year for day students and $21,850 for boarders, about 10% more than it charged last year.

The privileged are always first in line for a free lunch at National's buffet. Meanwhile, the Greens have just announced free lunches and a range of welfare measures aimed at the poorest schools.

Cake for the wealthy or bread for the needy. Your choice, NZ.

Trotter's Windmill

Some time ago, I promised I would read Gordon Dryden's Out of the Red, after Chris Trotter waved it about as an example of the lost art of journalism. I've only read about a third of it so far. For example, I haven't yet got to the part where my old man tells Norm Kirk to lose five stone weight in order to improve Labour's chances of winning the election.

However, Trotter is still harping on about the Greens dropping Quantitative Easing as we type. In the hope of getting him to stop plucking at this particular spent thread, here's what Gordon Dryden had to say about printing money (pg. 80):

"In our post-election interview almost a year earlier Mr Muldoon had listed West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as the world leader he most admired. Schmidt's well up on my list too. And the German leader had said just a few weeks earlier that the major cause of inflation in the world was the overwhelming majority of countries printing extra money that was unmatched by increases in goods and services."

Trotter's tilting at windmills if he thinks there's a snowball's chance to resurrect any lift for QE.That dirigible has crashed. Any chance Sancho Bradbury can pull the Don from that wreckage?

Groundhog Interrupted

Bryce Edwards seems to have taken a page out of the Glenn Beck School of Rhetorical Trolls by parsing his latest Politics Daily summary by with byline, Is the Green Party losing its soul? This pot of Solstice shit-stirring has been brought about by Norman dropping the hippy dippy Quantitative Easing Policy, a sane and pragmatic step which has forced me out of my hole prematurely to defend.

Back in the the early days of MMP, when I was a volunteer research assistant in the Act Party's Bowen House offices, I devised a not-so-dubious theory that the minor parties acted as experimental stunt muppets for policy. If the policy stuck to the wall of public acceptance, the dominant parties of National or Labour would adopt them as their own.

This theory has been borne out since then. Everything from from Act's Treaty Deadlines to the Greens' Insulation Scheme has been grabbed by mainstream politics. It's not such a stretch. The main two parties do it all the time, cannibalising each other's policies, from universal welfare benefits to local council amalgamation.

When a party fails to sell a policy, it is shelved. Printing money was a kite that rightly got shot down. No harm in admitting defeat there. The Labour Party are doing it all the time, saying sorry for everything from GST off fresh fruit and vege through to duplicitous stances on Sky City's brand of hospitality. I'm especially looking forward to the apology for Clayton Cosgrove.

Nup, it's nothing but realpolitik from the Greens, and good on them for adapting. It pays to recognise which way the wind is blowing.

Alternative Presentations - Green Party Humans

Colin James looks at the Green Machine in his latest column for Management magazine. If I was going for this Green Party Campaign Manager position, this is would be my gimmick (to the tune of Eurythmics' Missionary Man. It renders well in NZSL too):

Well, I was born a Labour Party baby
I was raised a Labour Party kid
But if I had a Hillary bill
For all the cred they've killed
I'd have a Parnell palace
Just like John Key did
Hey!

My Dad, he told me good
My Dad, he told me strong
Stick with Progressive Labour
And you can't go wrong
But there's just one thing
You must understand
You can fool your brother
But don't mess with the Green Party Humans
Don't mess with the Green Party Humans
Don't mess with the Green Party Humans
Don't mess with the Green Party Humans
etc.

Unfortunately, the CV is in disrepair, and I fear I'd say something offensive during any interview, so I won't be applying. May the best human win.

New Greenbacks

Green Party Finance Spokesperson Russel Norman today unveiled the party's new monetary policy. The Greens want to pay for the earthquake rebuild with a new currency that can only be used in the Canterbury region.

The Otautahitan Bob, or Bob for short, will be printed in quantities yet to be determined by the Green Party Economic Wiccan Circle. Norman insists that the new currency will not be inflationary, yet will help exporters become more competitive somehow.

NZIER economist Shamubeel Eaqub has dubbed the prior Green Party policy not so much voodoo economics as Zombie Mugabe Economics. Economists have yet to stop laughing at news of this latest Green policy long enough to comment.

To Get Down

It's mid-winter and there's next to no local news. In the Hospo World, the biggest fuck-ups always happen during the slow times.

Parliament is in recess, as Cactus Kate demonstrates with this Speaker's Tour photobombing of the Diamond Cross-Examination (second row from the back):



The Higgs Boson has been finally nailed by practical as well as theoretical physicists. Good on them for that. What with this one fundamental doubt removed at great expense, now is not a good time to pick a fight with physicists:

In what appeared to be the sole negative tweet of the night she lamented to cost of the research involved: “the cost is depressing, $4 billion or thereabouts, only if it makes a real difference.” In later tweets she referred to the “cost to some other priority”, “the sacrifice it required,” “what is not done, who is not fed, who is not saved,” “tradeoffs,” “trying to justify this cost to the people I work for,” and “you can’t deny that something else is sacrificed in the choice [of research].”

Her comments were quickly criticised by a number of local people and, in the end, I think she realised she had made a political mistake.

So much for the Exercise of Vital Powers. I expect more geek from my Greens.

Pressure

John Armstrong reports from the Green Party's AGM in Silverstream. Good to hear they're working on some protocols for when (and no longer if) they become a potent force in government. The lot of them are governmental virgins, and will face a baptism of fire and pain when they finally lie down in the Beehive and on the Cabinet table.

Labour are still lost in La-la Land, currently looking at raising or lowering the Super entitlement age, depending on the time of the day. Mallard and Little are playing Clowns to Crusher's Keystone Cops. I can't even remember what their Shadow portfolios are any more. Cunliffe still thinks he's the second coming, and there's a cadre of Believers and Enablers still clutching his sandal as a sign of their faith in his miracle powers.

The Greens aren't going to leave all that political territory go to waste, especially when Labour is defending it with all the discipline of the British army on LSD. In all likelihood, the next coalition government with be co-led by Labour and Green party leaders.

In at the deep end. Will they sink like all the others, or will they swim? Don't get delusions of flying when you haven't even packed a flotation device. At least they're getting some swimming lessons in before getting into the Captain's Bunk.

Leftfield Ambitions

The heavens have been good to us in the last week. Auroras in Wellington during a full moon, for example. More full moon fruit dropped today with another Werewolf unleashed.

Gordon Campbell has a thorough interview with David Shearer. Expectations on Labour's medium term growth are suitably lowered. The Post-Helen hangover shows no sign of lifting. No wonder Met Turei reckons the Greens have space and time on their side to become equal partners with Labour in terms of the party vote.

A Trip to the Vatican / You Don't Know Jack

New Zealand's Parliamentary Services is a bit like the Vatican, in that it is a weirdly anachronistic land out of time with its surroundings. Proportional Representation might have brought NZ into the House, but the House is ruled by the Timaru Freemasons circa 1952.

For some reason, I tend to get singled out for special treatment whenever I visit Parliament. I try to avoid the place whenever possible, but yesterday I made an exception because I wanted to witness Mojo Mathers' maiden speech.

I should have stayed home.

Sure, enough, security guards were on full alert, following me after passing through the metal detector and Xray gun without so much as a blip. A guard harried and hassled us no less than three times, before we were ushered into the Grand Hall to watch the maiden speeches on TV. The Tannoy volume was set too low and the speaker set-up caused more interference than harmony, making it more than difficult for the average Deaf person to hear without straining.

........

Later on at Back Benches, I encountered my very first arrogant Greenie:

The Green tables booed out Wallace's introduction of NZ First MP Richard Prosser like a rude Occupy mob. So much for free speech and tolerance. But at least most of them calmed down. Not Jack. He talked the entire night. He talked through the MP's talking. He talked through the price of milk debate. He talked through the minimum wage.

The Greens got a massive jump in parliamentary funding. It would be a shame to squander it on jumped-up cunts who vandalise all the hard work that the party has done.

Opening doors and pulling some strings

Artist's impression of John Key during the 2011 Opening Address. Apologies to Gerald Scarfe and Nigel Hawthorne.

If the Opening Addresses and various unfolding battleplans are anything to go by, the Greens have the only elegant formations and thus the higher ground. The Nats are shown as devoid of any imagination. Labour are appealing to their core supporters, reasoning with them not to desert.

Former Labour speechwriter David Slack and MILF-comedian Michelle A'Court are part of the cast of the Green's alternative debate on Monday night. TVNZ might have limited the debate to the two talking heads, but the Greens have re-routed alternatives to The Green Room.

Policies be damned. The tactics are superlative. They might be Morris Dancers, but they're running rings around the competition so far.

Greens fall at the first hurdle

The Nats and Labour have exited the gate for election year with state of the nation speeches. The Maori party had two state of the nation speeches at Waitangi on one day. Act had their day at the Gibbs estate looking at the art and feeding David Garrett and other animals. The Greens have kicked things off by having their candidate Richard Leckinger missing the deadline for the Botany by-election.

Even the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and the Pirate Party have their shit together better than the Greens. Thank you Greens. ALCP will eat your 756 votes, om nom nom. Following on from Russel Norman's by-election bid in Mt Albert, where the Greens outspent the Act party on dollar per vote spending, there's some serious rebooting needed within that party pronto if they want to cut the 5 percent mustard this year. The mind-mongingly bad stunts have to stop at the very least.

Hooray for Turei

Congratulations to Metiria Turei succeeding Jeanette Fitzsimons as Greens co-leader. For once the Greens chose the right Regina.

Mana Mana

Judging from the expression on Maori Party president Whatarangi Winiata's face, it looks like Key has offered them a mana-enhancing offer they couldn't refuse. The hui will have the final word, of course. But from those smiles, there's something solid to sell their constituency.

Meantime, the Greens are locked out with their high maintenance hang-ups preventing them from being anything more than a bookmark for disgruntled Labour voters. As eredwin says in the same thread, the Greens are taking a narrower definition to the consensus politics that Rod Donald saw in MMP. Instead of investigating what, if anything, was on offer from the trader and taking it back to their members, the Greens can sit in puritanical isolation.

Here's some other muppets:

New blood

While it was sensible for Helen Clark and Michael Cullen to announce they are standing down from the Labour leadership after Saturday's election results, what's in store for the other parties? Tariana Turia and Jeanette Fitzsimons have both announced that they won't be standing next election. Pita Sharples, respected co-leader of the Maori party is a couple of years older than Tariana. Will 2008 also be his last election?

With 5 MPs in the House, will the co-leadership remain or will the Maori party choose one leader to lead them all? Since Angeline Greensill missed out winning Hauraki-Waikato, it leaves Rahui Reid Katene as the only other woman in the Maori party caucus aside from Tariana Turia. Maybe the co-leadership will disappear and Hone Harawira will emerge as the heir apparent.

As for the Greens, there will be an interesting contest between Sue Bradford and Metiria Turei for the co-leadership. My money's on Met.