| Politics Jane Clifton
The Greens’ swipe at “racist” NZ First doesn’t rule out cohabitation.
Two’s company. Three’s a Government. Or, in the case of our Opposition parties, a perennial Opposition fight club. Thanks to Greens co-leader Metiria Turei’s surprise attack on New Zealand First this week, maxillofacial specialists will be having a bonanza from the incidence of jaw-dropping.
After months of tactful Green tiptoeing around Labour, and vice versa, in order to persuade voters a change of government would not mean a super-taxing, car-banning vampire-nanny state of composting-toilet terror, Turei’s act of wilful brand vandalism would have dislocated the mandible of a seasoned front-row forward.
It wasn’t as though the offending remarks just slipped out or were goaded from Turei in the heat of battle. This was a premeditated broadside: that NZ First and leader Winston Peters – upon whom, let nobody kid themselves, a change of government depends – were racist, she said.
Although it’s hardly the first time this charge has been made, coming so belligerently from the Greens it was tantamount to a declaration of war. When Turei later accepted that the Greens would still work in a coalition with NZ First, without for a second resiling from the racism charge, the offence could only be considered redoubled.
What are voters to infer? The Greens think NZ First is despicable, but they’re still prepared to hitch a ride to government on its shirt tails?
Turei’s aim was to settle apprehensive Green supporters who find the thought of a hook-up with the more socially conservative NZ First distasteful. This is a demonstrable problem for the Greens. Late last election campaign, an ill-founded but headline-grabbing suggestion the Greens were open to working with National did immediate and lasting damage to the Green vote.
GREEN IS GREAT
It’s vital for the Greens to sanctify their values to the satisfaction of their often high-minded voters. But Turei’s onslaught was more a daring variation on having one’s cake and eating it too: flourishing one’s dead rat but affecting to be too fastidious to swallow it. In MMP politics, even devout vegans have to get a bit of deceased rodential protein down themselves and pretend to like it. Turei may have made Green supporters feel less sullied, but she may also have badly damaged the credibility of the whole Labour-Green-NZ First alternative.
Voters spook at overt signs of instability and internal squabbling. What may in practice be healthy diversity of opinion and policy differentiation among potentially fraternal parties can just as easily be perceived as evidence of disunity and lack of competence.
This deliberately lit bonfire of animus, fanned with inevitable huffing and puffing from Peters, was also a further indication that within that grouping, there’s some fairly wacky alternative maths going on.
The three parties have long seesawed around the point of getting a parliamentary majority over National and its usual allies. On paper, they’re in with a shot. But a parliamentary majority doesn’t guarantee a viable governing coalition. One party needs to get a credibly big vote share to have the moral authority to lead the coalition. At less than about 35%, voters would question whether that party had a mandate to lead.
On long-established polling trends, that party would have to be Labour, which these days struggles to pass 30%. Only if Labour can fatten up will the Greens get into power. Things can change, but there’s as yet no reason to suppose either
In MMP politics, even devout vegans have to get a bit of deceased rodential protein down themselves.
the Greens or NZ First will overtake Labour. So it remains the Greens’ life raft, to the point where every vote the Green Party scores off Labour is another vote short of the Beehive.
Turei’s attack on NZ First is at least not a direct vote-rattler for the three non-amigos. It’s unlikely the Greens lost votes to NZ First off the back of it, or vice versa. But it came with a remarkably graceless lack of acknowledgement that the Greens will almost certainly be beholden to Peters in a change of government. Unless vote trends change massively, the alternative grouping cannot take power without NZ First, and it’s likely to have the heft to marginalise the Greens if it chooses. It’s not as though they have the revenge option of voting with National.
ON THE SAME PAGE, ALMOST
A further confounding dimension to Turei’s tactic is that although they may not be an ideal team-up for the Big Brother house, NZ First and the Greens sing from a veritable booklet of common hymns. They favour monetary reform, remain resistant to free-trade deals, champion regional development, would restrict foreign property investment and until last week were even on the same page regarding immigration.
This is another issue on which the Greens have run foul of their supporters. Last year, they argued for slowing immigration, saying we cannot build sufficient infrastructure to accommodate current rates of population growth, a problem with attendant environmental risks. The party joined NZ First in citing immigration as a driver of housing pressure.
It was then assailed by supporters fearing a muddying of those messages with NZ First’s more anti-Asianfocused appeal, so the party has now backed off its policy. Yet the only material difference between the Green and NZ First approaches was one of emphasis. Both proceed from the conviction that our population growth was not planned, or planned for, and is fuelling unproductive, consumption-led economic growth at the expense of actual prosperity.
At this rate, the parties will policy-differentiate themselves into a further term or two of Opposition. Still, with Labour’s moribund polling, the change-of-government scenario is probably a non-starter anyway. Given the dramatic swoops and dives of overseas political fortunes, some local politicos are getting cabin fever at the stable state of polling here.
Commentators feel obliged to overdramatise even the margin-of-error variations from poll to poll, fearing New Zealand is being outshone. As Australia looks set to lose yet another prime minister, our parties’ relativities seem set in concrete. In this climate, some have tried to drum up excitement by insisting NZ First is about to overtake Labour.
This is hyper-extrapolation of poll trends – need we let massed toothgrinding add to the oral-surgery waiting lists?
Things can change, but there’s as yet no reason to suppose either the Greens or NZ First will overtake Labour.