Forget ideas of a greener shade of blue
There has been one daring proposition in recent days: “What about a National-Green Government?” The fact that the suggestion has sparked a national conversation suggests that, even if the proposition has no legs, a lot of people would like it to grow some.
Bluntly, it will not become viable any time soon for a variety of reasons.
First, the Greens’ constitution would not allow it, and the machinations required to change the constitution would not be able to be completed before the November 23 legal deadline for Parliament’s recall. The Greens framed their constitution in that way expressly to signal their profound opposition to pretty much everything National stands for, as they see it.
Those like Vernon Tava who have tried to promulgate a blue-green wing, or a more politically open orientation in the Green Party, have either left or given up.
As MP Julie-Anne Genter told Nat-Green hankerers in an RNZ Backbencher audience the morning after the election, “I don’t think you understand how profoundly anti-environmental this Government has been.”
The rejoinders came: why not get aboard and change National? With seven seats, this is hardly realistic. Even at their peak of 14 seats, National could have mowed them down on most substantial policies.
The only realistic way for environmentalists to influence National is to join its growing blue-greens wing.
There is no discernible appetite in the Green Party to coalesce with National. There’s a reckoning certainly to come within the Greens over whether its environmental progress has been hampered by its insistence on hard-left/socially progressive (nomenclature optional) social policies, a question piqued by the catastrophic impact of former co-leader Metiria Turei’s benefit bombshell. But the Greens’ core supporters have always coupled red and green policies, and would doubtless counter with: why not ask National to modify its hard-right social policies?
A further practical difficulty: if Green seniors did explore some formal relationship with National, they wouldn’t last long. Kennedy Graham, the one Green MP to date to champion an open mind regarding National, resigned over the Turei kerfuffle and remains an outcast.
Optimists will continue to contend that MMP is designed so even parties at daggers-drawn can quarantine differences to get really important stuff done, and what’s more important than the planet? And they’d be right – but not yet.
If this election interregnum tells us one thing so far, it’s that our MMP system has not got its trainerwheels off yet.
3. A Labour-NZ First-Greens government:
National’s “three-headed monster” scenario would be the ultimate in fast MMP evolution. Multiple accommodations like this happen in Europe and Scandinavia with little melodrama but those voters have had decades to get used to coalition Lego.
Could we trust three parties in the same Cabinet to act with sufficiently heroic restraint and tact to avoid the appearance of instability and flakiness – while also striving to optimise their respective parties’ support, necessarily at the expense of the others’?
The pitfalls of the Labour-NZ First option would be replicated, with a few additions. The Greens would be righteously hard to satisfy on the scope and pace of climate change and pollution remediation.
It’s also time to acknowledge the addition to Parliament’s ranks of some holy terrors – most of whom it’s too early to pick. Suffice it to say Labour has Willie Jackson and Tamati Coffey – the latter will be photo-bombing the Mars Curiosity Rover with glee after his surprise seat win; neither man is strong on tact, modesty or reticence. The Greens’ forthright new MPs, notably Chloe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman, are not likely to shy from trenchant criticism of the new pale Green administration.
Worst risk: the public always sees this as “the coalition of the losers”.
4. National minority government, NZ FIRST with the balance of power from the cross-benches:
This could be NZ First’s best bet, but it’s least likely because, based on past experience, most voters expect Peters to make a deal that puts him at the top table.
Still, leading the party that would get to say yay or nay over National’s every move could turbocharge NZ First’s relevance, especially with the purifying effect of staying in the Opposition.
No baubles. No Crown limos. Just its version of what’s best for Winston’s eternal “hundreds of thousands of forgotten New Zealanders”.
National would love this, but not crazily. Endlessly having to humour Peters, the certainty of unfulfilled policy programmes and a potential voter verdict of “get stuffed!” are distinct drawbacks.
For NZ First, there’s the “wag the dog” risk of being seeing to wield disproportionate power, for which it could ultimately be punished.
Still, there’s also the possibility the hand-braked National-lite could become more popular than the fullstrength version.
But, it could also be that neither major party can come to terms with NZ First and an impasse leads to …
5. A new election:
This is the unanaesthetised root-canal option for everyone, not least voters, who would punish whoever was seen to be the primary cause of it. This is why a hustings rerun is the least likely outcome.
It could, however, re-emerge as a possibility at any time under scenarios 1-4 if key party relationships break down.