Naive Greens hoist by their own petard
Question Time for the Greens caucus: What were you thinking?
When a holier-than-thou attitude comes back to bite, it stings that little bit more. The Greens may have thought they were taking the principled stance in handing over their questions in Parliament to the Opposition, but all they have done is prove their naivety when it comes to Government.
Leader James Shaw’s argument – that it’s the principled way to prevent the time-wasting exercise of asking ‘‘patsy questions’’ in the House – might have comforted the Greens until National asked its very first question of the Government: ‘‘In the spirit’’ of the nostrings-attached deal that was struck.
National climate change spokesman Todd Muller immediately turned the cannons on to Shaw, to grill him on his commitment to a sustainable movement away from fossil fuels.
It was unsurprising. National is there to hold the Government to account and no amount of contortions from the Greens will convince anyone they’re not part of that Government in equal share.
If you want to believe in unilateral disarmament go right ahead, but don’t go handing your weapons to the other side.
The Greens’ fit of sanctimony barely registered on the public index of politicians with integrity, but it ticked into the red on Labour’s bemusement barometer.
The Greens look like they don’t know how to handle Government. They have a proportionate allocation of Questions given to them each sitting day, and there was no reason they could not use them to hold Labour and NZ First to account themselves.
If maintaining a level of independence as a smaller party was the intention, that would have made for a far stronger message than giving their small arsenal to a party that is openly vowing to drive a wedge between the Greens and NZ First.
The decision doesn’t rest solely on Shaw’s shoulders. This was apparently a caucus decision, made without the normal consultation process the party goes through because the MPs decided it was a Parliamentary issue, not a party issue.
There might be a strong argument both ways for that, except the party as a whole now has to mend the image of disorganisation that such a strategic misfire brings.
The Greens membership do need to get their heads around not being consulted – they’re in Government now, and that level of democracy will not work on many decisions.
But there seems to have been little upside to their Question Time experiment. Far from lighting a fire under democracy, the party has sparked a wave of eye-rolling.
The gulf between the caucus and the party’s base has widened, many furious with the decision to throw any kind of bone to National.
Those who may have thought the olive branch could be a softlytaken first step toward working with National in the future are likely suffering from wishful thinking. The deep-seated hatred within the Greens’ rank and file for the colour blue will not go away in a term, if at all.
Rather than being swallowed up by the ravages of Government, the Greens face a much less dignified fate if the party’s MPs can’t a find a way to reconcile railing against authority with being in a position of authority.
The kind where they’re hoisted by their own petard, multiple times over.
The Greens look like they don’t know how to handle Government.