Right wing environmental sock puppet party launched

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, February 11th, 2019 - 195 comments
Categories: climate change, Conservation, Environment, national, Politics, same old national, sustainability - Tags: ,

No friends National’s sock puppet party has now been announced.  And it involves the usual suspect:

https://twitter.com/vernontava/status/1094421499434328065

Don’t get me wrong.  I think we do need to work for a truly sustainable environment.  But I am pretty sure that this particular entity, if it does get off the ground, is not interested in working with all sides of politics.

Because in its website it spends a bit of time talking about principles and philosophies but then engages on a full on attack of New Zealand First and the Greens.

The site says this about the party’s beliefs:

Our primary focus is on environmental matters such as clean water, sustainable oceans, protection of our native species, dealing with climate change; and these all have economic, social and cultural dimensions. A society with dramatic inequality is not sustainable. We need to move our economy away from polluting and environmentally destructive ways of doing things; by embracing technological and scientific innovation we can become wealthier, creating higher paying jobs for New Zealanders, all while treading more lightly on the earth.

We can save the environment AND become richer!  The phrase “snake oil salesman” comes to mind.

It then says this about NZ First:

The coalition arrangements of the current government allocated billions of dollars to political trophies and slush funds – the price of NZ First support for a Labour-led Government. We have also seen the scrapping of important environmental initiatives like the mandatory installation of cameras on fishing boats because the fishing industry are key NZ First donors and supporters. MMP should deliver better outcomes than this.

While a valid comment it belies the claim that Sustainable NZ wants to work with all parties.

But then for some peculiar reason it gets stuck into the Greens:

The Green Party has made a deliberate decision not to use the leverage that comes with the number of MPs they have in Parliament. Instead of negotiating with both major parties, they have made a decision to always support the formation of a Labour Government meaning that Labour can take them for granted. This is no way to get the best deal for the environment.

Having given away their negotiating advantage, they are in a weak position to demand funding for cleaner beaches and rivers, for modern sewage infrastructure in major cities, for sustainable management of our fisheries, a major upgrade in predator control, nor for the significant increases in science and research funding that will underwrite a modern, sustainable economy.

The Greens have a historic tendency to be suspicious of scientific innovation – particularly in biotechnology – and hostile to business. New Zealand deserves a political party that will work together with the innovators in business and science who will lead the way through the complex and interconnected sustainability challenges of the coming century.

What a load of bollocks.  The Greens have negotiated with National and achieved policy wins in the past.  Russell Norman floated the idea twice of a National Green coalition during campaigns and each time Labour’s and the Green’s polling was hurt.

But a party with such strong social justice principles as the Greens are never going to go into coalition because they are so unalike. One party is dedicated to inequality and is happy about pollution as long as its farmer mates can keep making profits. The other is totally opposed to these.

There is considerable work currently going into cleaning up our beaches and rivers, and on improving infrastructure.  And if there is a suspicion of business and science it is because big business has led us into the mess we are currently in.

I will confidently say now that if this party ever gets off the ground it will never think about coalition with Labour.

Shame really because our environment does deserve as many champions as we can manage.

195 comments on “Right wing environmental sock puppet party launched ”

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  1. Visubversa 1
    11 February 2019 at 8:16 am

    That is what you get with greasy, wakajumping, opportunists. There is a place in hell, right close to the main burners, for people who sign up to a political party, swear allegance to the policies and eithics of that party, and then, when the don’t get what they want, or are not treated with the deference to which they think they are entitled, they hop off to a party with the complete opposite.

  2. solkta 2
    11 February 2019 at 8:28 am

    It seems to me that if such a party were to ever make it into parliament they would have the most power by working cooperatively with the other ‘green’ party. As a block these parties would have the most power. So logically it would most likely end up supporting a Labour government if it truly was prepared to work with either side.

    • Dennis Frank 2.1
      11 February 2019 at 8:44 am

      You ain’t wrong with that line of reasoning. My reading of Vernon is that he is authentic in what he says/believes – but I don’t claim more than a brief acquaintance.

    • soddenleaf 2.2
      11 February 2019 at 12:51 pm

      Well it’s a binary choice, either he greens are the enemy that Dunne won’t work with, etc or a real green party would have its head on straight and work with the polluters, world pillagers and not bat with Labour. Not really, just msm bull. On any substantive descriptive assessment of the issues any green party will embrace the opposite policies of national is peddling. Thats the issue, why does National hate progress, hate the planet, loath cleaner moderate environmentalism, which is all the Green party offers. Greens are the middle ground, everyone else is in some pax with the destruction of the planet.

  3. cleangreen 3
    11 February 2019 at 8:51 am

    Micky,

    100% bang on there. ‘environmentally sustainable’ is just his new catchword.

    Smoke screen technology by erecting a “environmental sustainable” party is all a ploy to ‘trick us into believing what National are about here.

    Simon Bridges is using ‘dirty politics again now’ – by miss-representing’ their Political Party’s past efforts to save our ‘climate from impending catastrophes’ ahead of us now.

    Don’t be fooled people, ‘Tricky Simon’ has tried this already last year; – here are the facts;

    “Simon Bridges on 24th September 2018 last year on News hub said he now wants to work with Jacinda on climate change”

    We at CEAC have no reasons to believe that Simon Bridges will reverse his “anti-rail – pro-road freight policies” in an attempt to help in reducing carbon emissions by at least 488,000 tonnes a year or more by increased use of rail freight to lower all those carbon emissions, unless we see solid evidence of this move back to restoring rail freight written in policies by him laid out before the voters of NZ.

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/09/simon-bridges-jacinda-ardern-working-together-on-climate-change-plan.html
    Quote;
    “Simon Bridges says he and Jacinda Ardern have been working behind the scenes to develop an “enduring” plan to combat climate change.
    He told The AM Show on Monday he’s had one private meeting with Ms Ardern, and National climate spokesman Todd Muller has met several times with Climate Change Minister James Shaw.
    “We talked about whether we can have an enduring framework that everyone signs up to. That’s a different thing from saying ‘the target will definitely be this and we need to do those seven things’.”
    Unquote;

    We at CEAC say this is an un-believable change in Simon Bridges position, he has shown today on News hub as Bridges has been part of the effort to shut down our rail system and push all freight onto our roads that will increase the climate emission gasses five times faster.

    We need rail services to be fully restored to HB/Gisborne now.

    Here is why;

    http://www.kiwirail.co.nz/uploads/Publications/The%20Value%20of%20the%20Rail%20in%20New%20Zealand.pdf
    Facts at a glance:
    • Rail contributes up to $1.5 billion in often unseen benefits to New Zealand each year.
    • The value of rail to New Zealand far outweighs its cost to the taxpayer.
    • Using rail reduces the number of deaths and injuries on our roads by a net 271 a year.
    • Rail saves taxpayers money on congestion, road maintenance costs, injuries and fatalities and reduced carbon emissions.
    Reducing congestion saves $1.3 billion, the equivalent of 100,000 fewer daily car trips and taking 30,000 trucks off the road for an hour a day.
    • Reducing carbon emissions by 488,000 tonnes a year – the equivalent of taking 87,000 cars off the road – saves $8.5 million.
    • Improving safety outcomes saves $60 million.
    • Reducing road maintenance saves $63 million.
    • Rail is also an important and sustainable economic contributor to the regions and links New Zealand to export markets overseas.

    Rail according to this report will save us $1.5 Billion a year and cut climate change emissions according to a rail study his Government produced back in 2016 and kept under wraps when he found out the truth in his report his government had ordered in 2016.

  4. Dennis Frank 4
    11 February 2019 at 8:55 am

    Seems fair enough, and a reasonable basis for scepticism. Hard to see it as anything other than a re-run of Guy Salmon’s rationale for the bluegreens a quarter of a century back.

    But I do believe Vernon is sincere about being open to working both sides. National’s lack of political nous in respect of their ongoing failure to market the bluegreen brand is key to the situation. I presume that paranoia is the explanation: they’d lose half their electoral base.

    Russel Norman did advocate smart-tech Green thinking. Vernon seems to have formed the opinion that the Greens generally are opposed to such thinking. He’s probably got that right. Fundamentalism does afflict the GP.

    I blame the leftist parliamentary alignment that I persuaded the party to adopt pre-MMP. It was necessary to prevent Salmon being successful, when he acted as Bolger’s agent. Subsequent failure of the Progressive Greens proved me right to do that. Nonetheless, failure by GP leadership to abandon that alignment when the time was right imposed an ongoing handicap for the GP that Vernon may exploit.

    • solkta 4.1
      11 February 2019 at 9:01 am

      failure by GP leadership to abandon that alignment

      It amazes me how ignorant you are about how the Party works yet you claim to be such a long time member. Positioning is decided by the membership and ratified at the AGM prior to each election. I can remember when this process was started in the early 2000s.

      • Dennis Frank 4.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 9:46 am

        I wasn’t a member at the time. Leftist group-think alienated me in ’93, the practice of stalinism in ’94, but I didn’t abandon them till mid-’95, since I had to complete my process of getting the constitution adopted, then registering the GP with the electoral commission so we could campaign in the first MMP election. I rejoined after the 2014 election. I’ve had to tell this story to readers here several times in the past few years.

        I take your point that leaders are nowadays expected to follow followers. I assume that the switch was induced by postmodernism. Inasmuch as it results from democratic decision-making, I can accept it. Can I trust the GP to operate in accord with the consensus-formulation process the GP adopted when I was leading it? Not necessarily. I recall Lisa Er telling me the GP no longer does so, when I asked her why she left the party during a conversation when I met her at her home.

        • solkta 4.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 10:01 am

          So that explains why you know fuck all. But on this like so many subject you talk as if you do.

          I take your point that leaders are nowadays expected to follow followers. I assume that the switch was induced by postmodernism

          There is no switch. The Party has always been grass roots led. I can remember Jeannette saying how right at the beginning there was considerable discussion as to whether there should be leaders at all.

          • Dennis Frank 4.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 10:15 am

            Yeah, I argued against her stance when she advocated having none. I pointed out even animal species select leaders for their groups, so it’s part of human nature to do so. I defeated her because nobody disagreed with me.

            Abandoning the parliamentary leftist alignment after Helen Clark proved its failure would have been the right thing to do, in accord with the Charter principle of appropriate decision-making. The leaders at the time failed to grasp the necessity, thus imposing the ongoing handicap. I don’t expect Vernon to succeed, but if he does, I will say I told you so.

            • KJT 4.1.1.1.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 11:42 am

              No wonder why you are no longer part of the Greens.

              Again. You show you have NFI of what the Greens stand for.

              Environmental sustainability is not possible without social justice/social sustainability. At least in a Democracy.

              The idea that the environment can be saved, but only the poor will pay the cost is a “blue green” idea which was, rightly buried within the Greens almost since their founding.

              • Dennis Frank …
                11 February 2019 at 12:20 pm

                You’re not paying attention. I mentioned that I rejoined the GP after the 2014 election. You haven’t been honest enough to declare your party membership, have you? So you have no moral basis on which to adopt the high ground. What’s the point of presenting as a poseur then??

                I’ve always believed social justice is part of sustainability. Why are you trying to get away with pretending I don’t? What part of unethical behaviour do you not understand??

                • KJT …
                  11 February 2019 at 3:38 pm

                  Everyone on here has been aware of my Green party membership, for years.

                  You. However, remind me of Pete George.

                  “On the other hand”.

                  Pretending to be the “voice of reason” in a “hard left” Green party.

                  • Dennis Frank …
                    11 February 2019 at 4:24 pm

                    Whatever. Dunno what is making you so paranoid – I probably support the coalition for the same reasons as you. Some people are simply non-partisan. Do you really find that so hard to comprehend?

                    If yes, try to consider it as non-aligned. Leftist haven’t traditionally had any problem getting their heads around Aotearoa’s non-aligned foreign policy have they? Same principle.

              • Stuart Munro …
                11 February 2019 at 12:21 pm

                “Environmental sustainability is not possible without social justice”

                Unfortunately that’s been my experience. You know those 3rd world fishing crews who catch most of our deepsea fish? Guess how much concern they have to spare for the environment of a foreign nation.

                • McFlock …
                  11 February 2019 at 12:45 pm

                  although the social justice bit comes in when we remember that many of those crews are slave labour.

                  • Stuart Munro …
                    11 February 2019 at 1:24 pm

                    That’s the point – badly exploited people increase the pressure on the environment. Nature preserves can mostly survive in relatively wealthy countries – in Africa many of them need armed guards to deter poachers.

    • OnceWasTim 4.2
      11 February 2019 at 12:36 pm

      Christ! Now there’s a blast from the past (Guy Salmon)
      No surprises that when I googled the ‘guy’ going forward (just to remind myself), there was a reminder of his association with Simon Uppers.
      For some reason it reminded me of what a self-entitled little prick he was (hopefully past tense). Pomposity personified.
      The UK has had a load of them (Rees-Mogg and others), and NZ has its fair share to this day.
      @ Vicesubversa’s comment at 1 (above) is completely understandable.
      I was hoping his ilk had gone away – apparently not.
      Anyone know what his fellow pimple is doing these days (Simon Upton). I’ll remember to give them both a wide berth – and probably just as well we’ve finally had a realistic treatment for the HCV in train.
      Ew. Ah well ….. best of Britisss luck eh chaps?

      • Dennis Frank 4.2.1
        11 February 2019 at 12:49 pm

        “Simon Upton was sworn in as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for a five-year term on the 16th of October 2017.” https://www.pce.parliament.nz/about-us/the-commissioner

        You may be able to see him standing in a field near you, shaking his fist at at top-dressing plane. Re pomposity, Shane Jones has him beat all over the park.

        • OnceWasTim 4.2.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 1:08 pm

          i wouldn’t go near Shane Jones either unless it was with a 10 foot barge pole or Uncle Winnie as chaperone.

  5. te reo putake 5
    11 February 2019 at 8:56 am

    My read of this new party is fairly cynical, I’m afraid. They have no chance of winning an electorate seat. They have no chance of winning a list seat either.

    So, what are they there for?

    They are simply an attempt by National to shave a few thousand votes off the Green Party total, in the hope that they will fall below the 5% threshold.

    This would leave the Nats either outright winners (unlikely) or having to deal only with NZ First in Coalition talks.

    There is a small risk to National that the new party might cost them some party votes too, and maybe even reduce their overall tally. But the loss of one or two list placings would be acceptable if the Greens are removed from Parliament.

    Even losing to a Lab/NZF coalition next election would be seen as a win for the Tories, if the Greens can be eliminated. That would set the scene for potentially successful negotiations 3 years later, perhaps with Shane ‘Talley’s man’ Jones as NZ First leader.

    • Andre 5.1
      11 February 2019 at 9:14 am

      So how should the Greens respond to the threat of losing a few thousand votes and falling below the threshold?

      • te reo putake 5.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 9:50 am

        I’d say the Greens should push their own record of working with all parties in Parliament, list their achievements, and highlight what they plan to do in the future.

        They shouldn’t give Tava any oxygen, except maybe a quiet suggestion to voters about the dangers of being fooled by cheap imitations.

        • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 9:54 am

          The flaw in any such suggestion will be the extent to which the pot is calling the kettle black. Since the Green movement has been neither left nor right since it originated, fake representation by the GP will continue to be as suspect as any fake representation that may emanate from Tava…

          • Heather Grimwood 5.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 11:30 am

            To Dennis Frank @5.1.1.1 re “there has been neither left nor right etc”: There are at least two editions in the Hocken Library of the newsletter of the Labour Green group within the Labour Party which existed before advent of Alliance or the Green Party. I know because I was a member and put them there.
            Unlike the breakaways, some of which were initial Green party members, I felt I could have a leavening /educational influence on more people by staying in the larger Party. I say this not for vainglory, but because I was a teacher aware of and promoting the fact of the greenhouse effect.
            In the decades since , I’ve been reminded constantly of my father’s saying that it took a hundred years from pulpit to pew . Thankfully, education and latterly observation are rapidly reducing that time.
            Importantly, there must not be a left or a right…all must urgently work in co-operation.

            • patricia bremner 5.1.1.1.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 12:25 pm

              Thank you Heather. We co-operate or we die. In climate change we will all suffer. We need to draw on our best selves to mitigate the causes.

              This new Party is not about that, it intends to weaken the Government to regain power, not to help the people or the climate.

              A false Green Party, talking of sustainability and wealth in the same breath.
              Millionaires have tried, now we get the dissenters group having a go.

              • Dennis Frank …
                11 February 2019 at 12:44 pm

                I can assure you that Vernon’s motivation is genuinely centrist. He put an essay on his website around four years ago to provide a comprehensive political rationale for a genuinely centrist Green party. I’ve had several conversations about the issue with him since then at GP conferences.

                However I do share your cynicism re National’s support for him! Even so, nobody can deny that centrist Greens have the right to be represented in parliament. The GP has erred in discriminating against that portion of their membership. If this new party succeeds, we can blame the GP leadership for the ongoing failure to be genuinely representative of members and the broader Green movement.

                I won’t be joining him for two reasons. The first is that Nat political culture is so toxic that any operational liaison with them would be too distasteful. The second is that I support the coalition, and intend to continue doing so.

            • Dennis Frank 5.1.1.1.1.2
              11 February 2019 at 12:34 pm

              That’s interesting Heather. I share your stance re being non-binary. Roll on the day when political scientists and pollsters wake up to the public rebellion against their binary discrimination.

              I presume that subgroup of Labour vanished when the Greens were formed. Several different small groups went into the formation.

      • OnceWasTim 5.1.2
        11 February 2019 at 12:59 pm

        In short?
        Change co-Leaders NOW
        One because he’s totally corporatised in thought and culcha, the other because she will still be trying to reclaim *cunt* as her career elective

        There’s no way I’d ever be tempted back atm (that’s “at the moment”) to even deliver a stack of bloody pamphlets to the avocado smashers with the most delightful view of Oriental Bay, or act as a scrutineer on election day at a polling booth frequented by gym bunny muppets – no matter how sexually ‘fluid’ they consider themselves to be (Rees-Mogg is rolling around in his double-breasted suit from the ’50s).
        Green? aligning with gNats? I don’t really think so somehow.
        I’m putting my temporary BLiP dealing with the Green Party in its current form down to seeking a least worst option and seriously thinking about being able to book a slot in one of Dame Edna’s facilities for the befuddled.

        • greywarshark 5.1.2.1
          11 February 2019 at 1:10 pm

          OwT
          Go for it Tim. And take notes on all the funnies and amusing skits and come back and pass them on. We need to lighten up with a larf now and then.

          I’ve just put one detailing Rimmer’s study methods as an analogy to the way we go on facing up to climate change. It seems we need to talk then agree on concerted efforts spelt out, then do them, but we somehow can’t do the third bit – put it off. It’s about all going onto a branch line to an alternative resort, instead of steaming at full pace to the Midas City where all you touch turns to gold.

          That gold story goes back to the 2nd millenium Before Christ. Unfortunately that Midas died of starvation as all his food turned to indigestible gold. You would think we would have learned a thing or two thousand since then, what with all this wonderful technological knowledge we have, and storage capacity to keep xxx information. Bah humbug.

        • mary_a 5.1.2.2
          11 February 2019 at 2:08 pm

          OWT (5.1.2) … totally agree re changing Green leaders for the reasons you have stated. Shaw and Davidson do not gel as co leaders.

          I wasn’t impressed by Shaw’s election as leader, when two very good, credible and experienced Green MPs Kevin Hague and Gareth Morgan put themselves forward for election. Either of these two would have done justice to the party as leader, while I’m sure taking it forward, through some strong policies.

          The Green Parliamentary team in its insipid present form has never come up to the credentials of leaders Rod Donald (RIP Rod)/Jeanette Fitzsimons or Russel Norman/Metiria Turei. Since the latter pair left Parliament IMO, the Green Party has never been up to scratch.

          I supported Marama Davidson’s election as co leader. However, since she came into that position, I feel she has turned the Green Party into a laughing stock and along with Shaw, could well be one of the reasons the party is not as strong as it once was.

          Now I realize perhaps the female co leader job might have done the party some justice if it had gone to the other female candidate Julie Ann Genter, combined with either Hague or Hughes as male co leader. A combination of these leaders might well have given the the Greens the strength it’s so lacking at present.

          As for the Teal (blue/green) usurpers. It’s a wishy washy party, driven by the bitter, petulant Vernon Tava, miffed at missing out on the last Green male leadership! Spite and vindictiveness are not good reasons to forge ahead to form a political party, which will I’m sure will lead to failure!

          • Robert Guyton 5.1.2.2.1
            11 February 2019 at 2:16 pm

            *sings, “We’re forever changing leaders…”
            Bad practice, that. Support those we’ve chosen and resist the temptation to bag those who you don’t personally favour – chances are, you’re wrong.

            • greywarshark 5.1.2.2.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 3:21 pm

              ‘To everything (turn, turn, turn)
              There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
              And a time to every purpose, under heaven
              A time to build up, a time to break down
              A time to dance, a time to mourn
              A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together’

              Give the Greens a chance mary-a. Too early to cast stones, and i think that is a practice of the National Party. Leave them to try to damage the government the worst way they can. The Greens wanted to get the slack business lines connected to environmental business good for NZ taut. Then they could pull business in. I understand that they can push this along if their Zero Carbon Bill gets through.
              https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/105183668/explainer-what-is-the-zero-carbon-bill

              On the Zero Carbon Bill:
              …debate has led to a series of arguable half-measures – like an Emissions Trading Scheme that omits our largest emitter – and no certainty for the country on what we are going to do to reach the far-off targets we have signed up to.

              Climate Change Minister James Shaw is trying to fix all this and depoliticise the issue so that, long after his Government is gone, parties from the Left and Right can continue efforts to fight climate change without it becoming a political football. He wants to do that by setting up a completely new legal and institutional framework for climate policy, with a Zero Carbon Act and an independent Climate Change Commission…

              Shaw is consulting on the law now with a view to passing it in mid-2019. There is a possibility the actual “legal target” doesn’t make it into that law.

              So what would these targets be?

              The Government is still out consulting on what the target should be. There are three options on the table, all of them with an end date of 2050, when other countries’ Paris Agreement targets also kick in.

              • OnceWasTim …
                12 February 2019 at 3:42 pm

                I’ll concede I was impressed with James Shaw’s speech in parliament this afternoon (12/02/2019) in the sense that he was correct about a number of issues – it was just a wee bit hopey changey in the Obama style.

                If it all goes tits up, there’ll be a job for him at Business NZ or the NZ Banker’s Association as a motivational speaker trying to “lift business confidence going forward”. Then they’ll really be able to pretend they’re non-partisan with a little more credibility.

          • Jess NZ 5.1.2.2.2
            12 February 2019 at 9:38 am

            Gareth Hughes, surely? Not Morgan?

    • Wayne 5.2
      11 February 2019 at 9:35 am

      Pushing the Green Party is a possible result. But if Vernon’s party took 1 or 2 % offf the Green Party and 1or 2 % off National it would just about be at 5%. So I wouldn’t automatically write it off.

      In any event I am certain Vernon is not so cynical as to do this just to push the Greens under 5%. He simply is not that cynical. He sees a pathway whereby his new party can get 5%. A little off the Greens, a little off National, most of TOP, maybe 1% off Labour. Add all of that up and it is over 5%.

      It won’t be easy, history is against it. But there is an opportunity. Vernon obviously thinks it worthwhile. He would have found the National Party simply not green enough for him, not with all the competing pressures within it.
      Leading a new Green Party is a more appealing opportunity for him. Yes, it is going to be hard to do. But if he is successful he gets way more leverage within New Zealand politics than he would ever otherwise have. Not just with National, but also potentially with Labour.

      • Dennis Frank 5.2.1
        11 February 2019 at 9:51 am

        Yes, that’s the reasoning I posted here when the scenario was first floated a wee while back. However he can’t create a party single-handed. Luck will have to flow his way, in the form of like-minded competent activists to do the work. My centrism makes me a likely early adopter, but to be honest there is currently no incentive. Unless National shifts their political culture, that’s unlikely to change.

      • te reo putake 5.2.2
        11 February 2019 at 10:03 am

        I’m not as optimistic for them as you, Wayne. For a starter, I don’t think think there are enough Nat voters who would be prepared to risk a party vote on Tava’s entity.

        Putting an electorate vote to ACT in Epsom is straightforward. You know exactly what the outcome will be. However, it’s different with the party vote. If it’s going to be a tight election, I reckon true blue Nats are going to be party voting for Simon or his replacement, no matter what.

        If it looks like Labour are going to match the Nats (ie polling in the forties), then I can see some Tories voting for Tava out of desperation.

        As for Labour voters going Tava’s way, I think I can count those votes on one hand. There is already a tradition of quietly party voting Green to give them a hand. Tava can’t offer a better alternative to the Green party Labour have worked with for years now, in and out of Government.

        I know it’s early days (and there’s a poll out tonight apparently), but my pick for the next election is more or less the same outcome for all parties and the same coalition arrangement at the end of the process.

        • Wayne 5.2.2.1
          11 February 2019 at 10:29 am

          te reo putake

          I don’t really disagree with your analysis. My assessment is that the first two blocs of votes have to come the Green Party and from TOP. In fact TOP basically has to disappear. To do this Vernon will need a group of committed and serious people in his party, and at least some will need to be well known and with obvious green credentials.

          But if his party could get to say 3% support by the end of the year, other voters will start to look at it seriously. Probably from across the spectrum.

          Is New Zealand ready for a disrupter party that could really galvanise support? Probably not. New Zealand is, and has been, in a much calmer place than those countries with disrupter parties. Not just since 2017, but actually for several years. However we saw the Green Party surge to 15% in 2017 before they fell back. NZF also got pretty high in 2017, so there clearly is some dissatisfied vote washing around. But the Green high was a defection from Labour, and once Jacinda got the leadership it mostly went back to Labour.

          NZF is different. It is easy to think their support is all old grumpy people, but it is not. It is more widespread than that. Some of it would would support a nationalistic green party. But that I don’t mean National supporting, but rather people who want more controls on immigration, land sales, and support for traditional industries. If that could somehow be packaged into a green party, it would have a appeal for some of these voters. A true conservation/conservative party. Conservative in the sense of conserving New Zealand; clean rivers, good farming, abundant fishing, industry that carefully used natural resources (not massive amounts of logs shipped overseas).

          I think there is 5% out there, at least in a potential sense. We have enough small parties, some above 5% some below to show the possibility. Vernon just has to galvanise enough of it, as well as getting some from existing parties. Hard to do, but is it really impossible?

          • KJT 5.2.2.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 11:45 am

            “industry that carefully used natural resources (not massive amounts of logs shipped overseas)”.

            Totally incompatible with National, then. Just like the current Green party.

          • rhinocrates 5.2.2.1.2
            11 February 2019 at 10:35 pm

            Really Blimp? Just like Morgan’s vanity party that you thought were going to be the cavalry riding over the hill to save you?

            And you think National is a “conservative” party? What exactly are they “conserving”? The privileges of rich old white men like yourself? Quick! Declare yourself an endangered species!

            Hard to do, but is it really impossible?

            Pigs might fly, but they are very unlikely birds.

            Really, just slide into port-soaked retirement. You’ll save a lot of embarrassment.

          • Tricledrown 5.2.2.1.3
            12 February 2019 at 9:06 am

            Wayne explaining is loosing

      • Tricledrown 5.2.3
        11 February 2019 at 9:24 pm

        Wayne Your dreaming. Look at the latest polls. Top have already disappeared most likely to Labour.
        National has no friends. Full stop.

  6. mauī 6
    11 February 2019 at 9:01 am

    Rather cheeky to use the words “social” and “inequality”, when the whole idea of the party is to copy most of the Green Party values minus any regard for poor people… or people generally.

    So now because the Green Party is in government and has power to enact it’s own policies it should instead be collaborating with parties out of government with no power and fake environmental values, lol 😆

  7. Stuart Munro 7
    11 February 2019 at 9:03 am

    The desire to create any kind of enlightened party of the right must be seen as a positive contrast to the monstrous pile of lies and corruption that currently dominates that space. Unfortunately for Vernon Tava, were he to succeed, his best outcome in a Nat/Teal alliance would be, like the Maori Party, a few limo rides and a ‘seat at the table’ while the sleazier Gnats shat all over his constituents.

    • David Mac 7.1
      11 February 2019 at 11:17 am

      Hi Stuart, good to see you back.

      Yes, National’s smaller coalition partners haven’t done so well. With the exception of Winston, NZ’s Keith Richards, they sit on slippery seats above an abyss.

  8. WeTheBleeple 8
    11 February 2019 at 9:06 am

    “sustainable oceans”

    Gee, they must have some reach. No BS to see here.

    • greywarshark 8.1
      11 February 2019 at 10:00 am

      It’s another version of the divide and rule practice isn’t it?

      Similar to the setting up of another Young Doctor Registrars union with alternative and lesser requests by a small group that DHBs may find more acceptable to work with rather than the original mass of downtrodden medicos. The business managers of DHBs who have caught the free market virus so prevalent in NZ, might even support such a union in a number of helpful ways.

      Though the docs might go slightly mad under the strain and then be denied the option to enter the medical fraternity where he or she was aiming to work, for life. That’s apart from unintended harm to patients by people working on adrenaline – hey that’s a drug and such behaviour should not be forced by DHBs.

      So setting up an alternative political party to bump off another, with apparently similar good policies which suit the bodies in sleek suits pretending to be the people’s politicians is a proposition that pleases. It makes a lot of sense to the man or woman with aspirations to ride cock-a-hoop over the other citizens to the golden money bags. When you are a tricksy, adaptable and flexible worm of an amoral politician or civil service advisor or jumped-up fellow traveller, or media, PR shape-changer then succeeding at creating an entity that appears real and desirable, and getting good money for doing so, is all the encouragement needed.

      By the way WtB I have tried to contact you through TS but I don’t know if you have been given my email to facilitate this. Have had no reply from TS to mine. Can you email me if you have my contact. This is so long-winded. We should have a system organised so we don’t have to go through this, lack of, procedure lprent.

  9. Robert Guyton 9
    11 February 2019 at 9:26 am

    This is awful!!
    The Greens have never been under attack before!!
    We might as well just chuck in the towel right now!

    • solkta 9.1
      11 February 2019 at 9:28 am

      lol, well said Robert.

    • OnceWasTim 9.2
      11 February 2019 at 1:21 pm

      It IS awful @ Robert! It’s actually rather pathetic and sad as well.

      But the Greens should not just be putting their fate down to the ‘comfies’ unwilling to engage whilst trying preserve the comfort, they really should look a little deeper.

      Otherwise there goes a couple of hard decades of endeavour from the Rod Donald’s and MANY others down the shitter

      • Robert Guyton 9.2.1
        11 February 2019 at 2:13 pm

        They’ll be giving the issue some consideration, OWT, I reckon and their response will probably be to resist feeding it; that’s what I would advise in any case. Let the pretenders pretend; The Greens have serious Government work to do and haven’t time to squabble with the Wanna-B-Greens.

  10. ankerawsharkP 10
    11 February 2019 at 9:28 am

    How predictable. If the Nats put as half as much time on policy and governing for all NZ when they were in power as they do with finding “friends” and coming up with references to Venuzula when talking about the Govt, we might not be in quite the mess we are in now.

  11. WeTheBleeple 11
    11 February 2019 at 9:39 am

    “I envisage the day when electric scooters and diesel trucks can live side by side on our roads in harmony” – Burnin Java.

  12. Booker 12
    11 February 2019 at 9:40 am

    As a scientist myself this idea that science and innovation is going to save us from climate change and resource depletion really grates. I’m glad Naomi Klein called it out as BS in This Changes Everything. I don’t know what’s worse – Vernon peddling the false hope of science will save us for extra votes, or actually believing it will.

    • Dennis Frank 12.1
      11 February 2019 at 10:02 am

      I agree that the danger of false hope is realistic. Atmospheric experimentation has been happening for years – if you believe an entire web sub-culture (chemtrails).

      However it is always possible to separate useful Green tech from delusional thinking. Permaculture applies the former (using tech as in techne – the thinking plus the application). Resource depletion is being mitigated via design in various places already. Such behaviour will spread.

    • mickysavage 12.2
      11 February 2019 at 12:12 pm

      Agreed.

      It is also an excuse to do nothing and rely on some super duper future technology to solve things when it may not appear.

      • Sacha 12.2.1
        11 February 2019 at 4:29 pm

        So long as I do not need to reduce my herd to sustainable levels again, eh. Bring on the magic cowpills!

  13. cleangreen 13
    11 February 2019 at 9:55 am

    Vernon Cava of “Environmental sustainable Party ‘- quote; ‘find National ‘a comfortable fit’
    see below in 2017 when he resigned from the Green party, and is close to National in tauranga; – very suspicious we are.

    http://politik.co.nz/en/content/politics/1038/Top-Green-resigns-and-says-party-has-become-socialist-Vernon-Tava-Greens.htm

    • Anne 13.1
      11 February 2019 at 10:03 am

      Don’t forget this:

      https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/102976901/green-turned-national-vernon-tava-knocked-out-of-candidate-selection-for-northcote

      He looks like a Tory (Nat), he sounds like a Tory (Nat) and he acts like a Tory (Nat) and that’s because he is a Tory (Nat).

      He must be incredibly naive if he thinks he can pull a fast one like this.

      If the Greens play their cards right they could profit enormously from this bogus right-wing attempt to commandeer Green Party voters. The first thing they need to do is to showcase over and over again the huge contradictions in what they have practiced in the past 10 years and its effects on the NZ environment.

      • Dennis Frank 13.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 10:07 am

        Not a con. Both/and logic applies. He was doing community law for a job when I met him. One does not try to help folks with legal advice unless one is altruistic. He’s since shifted to the right, clearly, but I doubt he’s a Nat stooge. If you read his website essays you get a strong sense of clarity of centrist vision.

  14. Sanctuary 14
    11 February 2019 at 10:04 am

    Audrey Young will love it, it is “sensible” and “centrist” and a cunning political sucker punch from a refreshed National party /sarc/

  15. Enough is Enough 15
    11 February 2019 at 10:06 am

    I honestly don’t see the problem with this.

    If they are a true environmental party and act as a handbrake to National the next time they are in government, then this can only be a good thing for our country.

    The alternative is a hard right government having to give policy concessions to ACT.

  16. Ad 16
    11 February 2019 at 10:15 am

    My concern is that this government delivers tangible results for the environment within this term.

    If the Green Party cant demonstrate that by late this year, their vote has been shown to swing.

    If the Carbon Zero bill lands well shortly, with a nice soft enviro conference for Ardern in May, the Greens must take major media credit with a bump in the next poll.

    If not, its dancing on the 5% line.

    • cleangreen 16.1
      11 February 2019 at 10:52 am

      Yes Ad 100% correct here you are on to it.

      Labour coalition need to actively now move on environmentally sustainable policies to lower the carbon footprint; – beginning with restoring their own ‘NZ Regional railway” they bought back in 2008!!!!

      So far Labour has just neglected it!!!!

      Just look at the ‘train wreck’ around the failure of the Napier/Gisborne rail service from Nationals “deferred maintenance policy” which Labour actually at a rail conference we held in Gisborne, Sue Moroney as ‘Labour transport shadow minister’ promised us they would restore the rail service back in 2016 ‘when they get back into government’

      Now three years later after labour have been Government ‘for half that time’ -, we are still waiting for Labour to honour their promise made to us.

      But as Ad says – if not you will loose the whole East Coast voting base here, – so please be beware here.

      “Actions speak louder than words”

      Three political parties come out in support of restoring mothballed Gisborne-Wairoa rail link
      8 Nov, 2016 4:56pm
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11744500

      Moves are afoot to create a Gisborne consortium to run a short-haul rail line to Wairoa, as the future of the 90km northern portion of the mothballed Gisborne-Napier line looks like being the main issue East Coast candidates will be fighting over in next year’s general election.

      There are already proposals in place to reopen the Wairoa-Napier section of the line.

      Speaking at a Tairawhiti Rail Forum in Gisborne, Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and Labour Party transport spokeswoman Sue Moroney all backed restoration of the line as being good for the economy, environment and population.

      All three party speakers agreed the line should reopen as part of an integrated transport policy – a belief also previously stated by the Green Party, leaving National as the only party not in favour of reopening the line.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10860706

    • BM 16.2
      11 February 2019 at 11:25 am

      Won’t happen, Peters will veto any sort of climate bill unless it’s so watered down it’s completely pointless.

  17. Norm 17
    11 February 2019 at 10:58 am

    We already have a left wing environmental sock puppet party…. this seems like redressing the balance?

  18. Brutus Iscariot 18
    11 February 2019 at 11:00 am

    Nats just blew their own foot off. This will just siphon centrist voters off them without growing the pie.

    The flipside is that any Nat govt will have their worst impulses on transport etc restrained by this party.

  19. tsmithfield 19
    11 February 2019 at 11:09 am

    If this new proposed party is only a “sock puppet” for National, then it isn’t really any different to the current Green party which is effectively a sock puppet for Labour as it has ruled out going with National.

    So I don’t see any cause for complaint from the left if this is the case.

    On the other hand, if this is a genuine Green party, and is genuinely positioned in the centre, in that it can genuinely go with either National or Labour, then the left should be celebrating as it will provide much more leverage for the environment than the current Green party can.

    • Robert Guyton 19.1
      11 February 2019 at 11:25 am

      “On the other hand, if this is a genuine Green party”
      Ha ha! There already is one.
      This one ain’t.

      • tsmithfield 19.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 11:49 am

        If the so called Green party were genuine then it would focus only on Green issues rather than all the non-environmental stuff it gets involved with.

        If a party comes along that does have an exlusive focus on Green issues, then surely it must be the genuine Green party.

        • Robert Guyton 19.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 11:51 am

          “19.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 11:49 am
          If the so called Green party were genuine then it would focus only on Green issues rather than all the non-environmental stuff it gets involved with.”
          No, they wouldn’t, that’s just your shallow fantasy where to seek to disempower The Greens by limiting their interest and influence. It’s a childish point of view, but well expressed by you, tsmithfield.

        • KJT 19.1.1.2
          11 February 2019 at 11:53 am

          Another deluded right winger who thinks they can fix the environment. But only the poor pays for it.

          Hope you like being on the end of a pitchfork.

        • solkta 19.1.1.3
          11 February 2019 at 12:00 pm

          By your logic Labour would not have any environmental policy and National would have no cannabis policy.

          • tsmithfield 19.1.1.3.1
            11 February 2019 at 1:11 pm

            “By your logic Labour would not have any environmental policy and National would have no cannabis policy.”

            False equivalence, There is nothing within the name of National or Labour that implies they can’t have a broad range of policies.

            But when a party overtly names itself, “Green” but gets involved with all sorts of issues that are nothing to do with being “Green” then, by definition, another party that does focus on what it name implies it should is far more genuine than the one that doesn’t.

            • solkta 19.1.1.3.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 1:55 pm

              There is nothing within the name of National or Labour that implies they can’t have a broad range of policies.

              To labour means to work and the Labour Party grew out of the union movement. It is no more rational to argue that the Greens shouldn’t have social policy because of their concern for the environment than to argue that Labour shouldn’t have environmental policy because of their concern for working class people.

              • tsmithfield …
                11 February 2019 at 2:58 pm

                Disagree. “Greens” clearly implies the environment.

                “Labour” can logically mean working for the interests of the union movement or whatever, whatever those interests may be, including the environment.

                Answer me a question, if I have a beer shop called “DB Sales”, and I also sell Monteiths, and there is another beer shop down the road with a name “DB Sellers”, and they only sell DB, which shop is most genuine so far as sales of DB is concerned?

        • Norm 19.1.1.4
          11 February 2019 at 2:52 pm

          If you care about the environment then you HAVE to support Metiria rorting the bene!

          The two things go hand in hand.

          Somehow.

          • KJT 19.1.1.4.1
            12 February 2019 at 10:56 am

            If you care about the future, you will be equally concerned about the issue Metiria highlighted, children growing up with all the ill effects of poverty, with inadequate welfare and wages, as you are about the environment.

    • KJT 19.2
      11 February 2019 at 11:51 am

      A true Green party, cannot be in what you, laughably, call, “the centre”.

      Because the values policies pursued by the so called “centre”, National, Labour and New Zealand first, are incompatible with an environment.

      “Man who straddles fence, gets sore balls and goes nowhere”.

  20. BM 20
    11 February 2019 at 11:11 am

    This will be great.

    Tava will get plenty of air time to tell the voting public why the Greens are no longer an environmental party which is why he left them and why Kennedy Graham and David Clendon left them.

    Nothing more than an SJW woke party who’s only interested in being a labour party lap dog and getting themselves embedded in the trough.

    • Sabine 20.1
      11 February 2019 at 11:16 am

      Is this gonna be like the TOP party?

      • BM 20.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 11:24 am

        I have no idea what it’s going to be like.

        The Greens really fucked up when they handed all power to Labour and Peters, they are now going to pay the price for their lack of spine and gullibility.

        • greywarshark 20.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 11:30 am

          Oh BM we wait in pregnant anticipation for you to get into political power and show the country some really effective political moves to help us be great again.

          • Fireblade 20.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 1:03 pm

            He tried once, but the ACT Party rejected him.

          • Sabine 20.1.1.1.2
            11 February 2019 at 1:12 pm

            Tax cuts for the rich and walls on the boarders……….oh hang on, Tax cuts for the rich and walls around the airports ! That will make us truly great! Bigly great!

            • WeTheBleeple 20.1.1.1.2.1
              11 February 2019 at 3:57 pm

              I see a sea wall – in the sea, hence sea-wall, you see. It will be a magnificent sea wall, the best you’ve ever seen, you’ll see.

      • cleangreen 20.1.2
        11 February 2019 at 12:28 pm

        yes Sabine

        The ‘Environmental Sustainable Party’ is just another “Opportunities” party for sure.

        I was in the Green Party until 2002 until when it turned away from purely environmental policies into another “broad-church” party as labour are now.

        Pity it did that, but “hope springs eternal”

        I am the original party faithful,- but no longer a member of the greens any more..

        • Sabine 20.1.2.1
          11 February 2019 at 7:16 pm

          i am member of no party and i like it that way. Generally speaking there is not one party that would go far enough for me, so i simply vote for whomever ticks most of my boxes that need ticking. I have voted labour on occasion, greens when they need it, legalize aotearoa in absence of anything better – and for what its worth this party is in my books one of the better ones. They know what hey want, legalizing weed would bring a prison reform one way or another no matter if the current or future holder of the police department portfolio are ready, they would create jobs and raise tax income. Also would reduce alcohol abuse and such.
          but the Green Party has been good for the country and if their hired helps will finally get their collective heads out of the compost heep they might even get shit done before the first term of the labour government is over.
          I prefer the Labour Party to be in coalition rather then to go it alone, and if it is only for checks and balances.

          in saying that the Greens need to be broad church, the only issue really that we should all worry about is the environment, and no matter how much money one has, one can’t eat it, it has poor heating value, and i don’t think you can even compost the new bills. too much plastic in that.

    • AB 20.2
      11 February 2019 at 11:45 am

      Indeed BM, it’s obvious that the real purpose of this new party is not to make it into parliament itself or to have a principled impact on policy. It is to try and prevent the Greens from making it into parliament.
      However I reckon the Greens have a 6% core that will see through it instantly.
      It might help National – instead of their climate-change concerned soft vote defecting to the Greens it may defect into this new sub-5% party and merely be wasted votes. To prevent that vote wastage, National will have to look at a corrupt Epsom-style electoral accommodation.
      In fact I think we can expect the Right to get more corrupt and eventually outright authoritarian/violent in their resistance to the necessary change on CC. Capital will extract its tribute from everyone else even unto death.

      • tsmithfield 20.2.1
        11 February 2019 at 12:14 pm

        What you call “corruption”, I call “playing by the rules”.

        • Robert Guyton 20.2.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 12:20 pm

          What you call “corruption”, I call “playing by the rules”.
          QFT
          Pretty legal, eh!

          • tsmithfield 20.2.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 1:07 pm

            Precisely. If you don’t like the way the rules are being applied, campaign to get the rules changed. Don’t complain about the fact that people are operating within those rules.

        • Stuart Munro 20.2.1.2
          11 February 2019 at 2:39 pm

          Which is why the state funds a place for you to reflect at length if your form of “playing by the rules” is ever rigorously scrutinized.

        • greywarshark 20.2.1.3
          11 February 2019 at 5:24 pm

          But are your rules meant for others ts, a little sly, examined letter by letter by one of the Masters of Slytherin House from Hogwarts, steeped in fantasy and make-believe.

  21. Robert Guyton 21
    11 February 2019 at 11:27 am

    “I have no idea what it’s going to be like…but I’ll back them to the hilt, ‘coz I’m agin’ ya!”

  22. Jimmy 22
    11 February 2019 at 11:28 am

    i think the party is simply being created to get the Greens below the 5%.
    Many people will not vote for the Green Party due to the Marama Davison / Meteria Tuerei side of the party.

    • Robert Guyton 22.1
      11 February 2019 at 11:31 am

      There’s a “Meteria Tuerei” side of the party?
      And many people will not vote for it?
      Go on !!!

      • greywarshark 22.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 5:33 pm

        Meteria Turei side of the party; representing all low-income young woman with a child and with aspirations to provide a decent life for them both. She pulled herself up by her bootlaces, and threaded another one in when she was short of funds to manage her outgoings for her household, study, family, and everything a one-parent striver has to do.

        I think you mean that the males who don’t like females who try to be something, feel less superior than they usually do as they get along all complacent-like, and resent this. Who does she think she is?? Every society seems to want to kick someone who tries to advance themselves.

        • KJT 22.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 6:57 pm

          At the same time as English’s blatent rorting of the tax payer, from greed, not need, was basically ignored.

          Certainly showed the depths of some people’s hypocrisy.

      • KJT 22.1.2
        11 February 2019 at 6:53 pm

        Certainly unmasked a lot of racist, misogynist, bene bashing, hypocrites.

        Including some in the Greens.

    • Heather Grimwood 22.2
      11 February 2019 at 11:41 am

      Jimmy: I reiterate my urgings above . There is no room for fragmentation of any form on this matter of dealing with green issues/climate change. Co-operation of all is essential immediately.

    • KJT 22.3
      11 February 2019 at 12:02 pm

      Funny how Green polling went up! after Metiria.

      And went down with the lukewarm support she got, and the disunity from Graham etc.

      And. If socialism is so unpopular, why do both National and Labour pretend to be much more socialist than they really are, just before each election?

      Just like the pretend left wing in the USA, who claim medicare for all, will lose votes.
      Despite even 47% of Republican voters, supporting it.

      • Jimmy 22.3.1
        11 February 2019 at 4:31 pm

        If I remember rightly, when the Meteria thing happened they nose dived in the polls and there was real concern they may not make the 5%…..she nearly destroyed them

        • KJT 22.3.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 4:58 pm

          Not after it first happened.

          When people like Kennedy Graham took a dump on the party.

          Changing the facts to suit your own narrative.

      • Jess NZ 22.3.2
        12 February 2019 at 9:43 am

        Yes, so few people remember how it actually happened, and only remember what happened after Ardern declared.

  23. David Mac 23
    11 February 2019 at 11:35 am

    Why is a Green, Labour and Tava party coalition off the table? 3 parties singing out of the same hymm book.

    Friction within coalitions destroys getting stuff done.

    Leaving all of the opposition on one side of the house doesn’t seem like such a silly strategy to me.

    Harmony is universally popular, we all see it getting things done.

    I don’t think Tava needs to sledge the Greens to get traction, the hunting is way better over on the Bluefields. Those that aspire to a new Audi and probably never will swim in a river but like to know they could if they ever chose to. Those cats are currently Nat voters.

    Greens advocating for the common man, Tava the economics of sustainability and Labour, ‘The Board’.

    • BM 23.1
      11 February 2019 at 11:37 am

      Lol at James Shaw advocating for the common man.

      • Robert Guyton 23.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 11:39 am

        That’s Simon’s job!
        \https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwM_b1BU0AIIv_3.jpg

      • David Mac 23.1.2
        11 February 2019 at 11:49 am

        Yeah, in such a coalition, his persona may well be better suited to Tava’s party. That’s sort of my point BM. Is a caucus of people that could jump within the waka such a bad thing? Harmony is not a dirty word.

      • Brutus Iscariot 23.1.3
        11 February 2019 at 11:52 am

        Nothing wrong with being an Uncommon Man.

      • Drowsy M. Kram 23.1.4
        11 February 2019 at 11:58 am

        “We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken today, and yet we put it off until tomorrow; and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle.

        Tomorrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, — of the definite with the indefinite — of the substance with the shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, — we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies — it disappears — we are free. The old energy returns.

        We will labor now. Alas, it is too late!” – Edgar Allan Poe

    • Heather Grimwood 23.2
      11 February 2019 at 11:46 am

      This is much bigger even than what you suggest DM and needs all parliament and co-opted specialists working together with as you say “no friction”.

    • cleangreen 23.3
      11 February 2019 at 12:49 pm

      David Mac – Those words “Greens for the common man” sound vaguely familiar?

      Oh of course; – PM Robert Muldoon “we are the voice for the ordinary bloke”

      Rob Muldoon was one of our most polarising PMs.

      To supporters he was the voice of ‘the ordinary bloke’; to critics he was a dictatorial bully.

      https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/robert-muldoon

    • McFlock 23.4
      11 February 2019 at 3:06 pm

      They don’t have the same song book, though.

      Tava is in a non-harmonic octave, more suited to the nat chorus.

    • greywarshark 23.5
      11 February 2019 at 7:33 pm

      You are twisted David Mac. How do you ever reach your destination when you go by car and halfway through turn the map upside down?

  24. bwaghorn 24
    11 February 2019 at 12:22 pm

    I’d certainly be having friendly chats with them if I was in labour . Unless they actually state they won’t work with labour.

    • BM 24.1
      11 February 2019 at 12:26 pm

      The greens won’t like that.

      Sorry, James, you’re yesterday’s news, Well hello Vernon! 😉

      • Robert Guyton 24.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 12:48 pm

        There is zero chance Labour would reject The Greens from a coalition.
        Zero.
        So, any new party wanting to join would have to work with The Greens. Slagging them off as part of their campaigning would be … stupid, I’d have thought.

        • Stuart Munro 24.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 2:47 pm

          If they could find genuine environmental points of difference they might get somewhere. But a blanket rejection of current Green policy, without any lines in the sand would only persuade people credulous enough that they already vote National.

          The flipside is, if they did develop genuine environmental points of difference, and those wouldn’t be that hard to come up with, there being more than one way to skin Gareth Morgan, then those lines in the sand would make them unpalatable to the crude extraction dinosaurs of National.

          We’re going to need a lot of organically certified, or better yet locally grown popcorn.

          • Dennis Frank 24.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 3:11 pm

            Well, I’d be disappointed if they either campaigned against the GP or disagreed with GP policies. My take is that Vernon’s stance is principled, and any contamination from National remains to be proven.

            So the thing is driven (in my opinion) by the need for democratic representation of centrist Greens. I expect him to market it as such. My brief look at the minimalist web presentation MS linked us to suggests to me that he is doing so. I’m not surprised that the leftist belief system is warping the political judgment of some here but such is human nature. Transcendence is always possible!

            Comment so far hasn’t really factored in TOP, and why Vernon chose not to go there. That’s where the obvious competition for voters is aimed. It would be sensible for the two to combine and eliminate that.

    • Psycho Milt 24.2
      11 February 2019 at 12:59 pm

      What would the pitch for those friendly chats look like within the Labour leadership?

      “Hey, look, National has set up an “environmental” party sock-puppet to try and carve off enough Green Party support to push them below the threshold – maybe we should start having friendly chats with the sock-puppet, that way we can help National’s attack on our ally.”

      Not picturing a lot of enthusiasm for the proposal…

      • bwaghorn 24.2.1
        11 February 2019 at 3:04 pm

        They dont need to hold hands or anything but just dont slam the door shut

        • greywarshark 24.2.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 9:38 pm

          They can find out Green plans and timelines and act to stymie them. We are talking about politicians for which there is a good salary and mana, not dedicated philanthropists. Tactics are involved; some spell it differently – tack- -tics (so you have to watch where you tread.)

  25. Sanctuary 25
    11 February 2019 at 12:41 pm

    The solution to National’s constant attempts to game the system are obvious.

    Give an electorate seat to NZ First and the Greens.

    Cos games can be played by two.

    • cleangreen 25.1
      11 February 2019 at 1:03 pm

      sanctuary;
      “Cos games can be played by two”.

      True that; – It is trouble for Labour only if labour do not put some ‘meaningful gains’ on the ‘carbon reduction emission board’ to slow climate change before the end of this year.

      If not they will risk that flood of new parties to split the vote so it’s anyone’s game in 2020 if Labour don’t act but just talk.

    • The Al1en 25.2
      11 February 2019 at 1:22 pm

      Or just legislate away the corrupt coat tailing element once and for all

  26. Tuppence Shrewsbury 26
    11 February 2019 at 1:17 pm

    Looks like MMP is working. Adding more minor parties to the mix to hold the major parties more accountable.

    Seems like a win for democracy, particularly if strident supporters of the major parties are against it

    • McFlock 26.1
      11 February 2019 at 3:23 pm

      We-ell, I reckon we’re getting there.

      I reckon we’re at the stage where it’s less of a two-horse race. And I think smaller coalition partners will be strengthened by being in government next time.

      But trying to sliver votes off a smaller party isn’t a step forward. TOP was more like it, but they were led by (and beholden to) a cock.

      Something like a South Island party, or another Maori Party, or a rural party would be more promising – something aimed at a discreet group that’s either a second thought in a broader party or not represented at all, rather than a subset of an already largely-represented group.

      • Tuppence Shrewsbury 26.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 3:30 pm

        Weeellllll….. saying that a centrist Green political party is only there to hive of votes from another small party is pretty nonsensical.

        There’ll be centrist labourites who are more environmentally orientated that socially progressive that need somewhere to go, and some nationalities who care more about environmental policies that hold business to account than keeping government small.

        Any small party that occupies relatively its own space and enough of it to matter should be welcomed. Not treated like the judean people’s liberation front

        • McFlock 26.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 3:45 pm

          At the moment it’s more like the pfj, but whatevs.

          Firstly, anyone who genuinely thinks the environment is important won’t be voting National at the moment. Nothing in their policy is remotely consistent with environmental sustainability on a local or global level.

          So that leaves the right-leaning Labourites who really like the environment, but just couldn’t handle the left wing attitudes of the Greens. If left wing beliefs are that much of a problem for them, they probably drifted to the nats anyway when Labour started finding its roots again. Labour has rebuilt is support base on that left wing (or at least “caring”) realignment. So there will be very few votes there.

          And the Greens who weren’t left bailed last election, so slim pickings remain there (lol there’s probably none left of the no lefts)

          Could tava’s party get more than ACT? Probably. But they won’t get 5%, which means they’ll need a rotten borough. Nats are in that game. But then that makes the new party a sock puppet.

          Could they drag the Greens below 5%? I doubt it.

          There might be some narrow-focus issues that a 5% party can coalesce around, but the environment isn’t one. It is too tied in to local and global economics. The West Coast has good examples of the conflict between environment and capitalism, but so are our waterways and many other issues, locality by locality.

          • Tuppence Shrewsbury 26.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 3:59 pm

            The greens always polled better when there focus was skewed more towards the environment, so I think your analysis is too reliant on whataboutism.

            You can care about environmental issues and be capitalist, it’s just not the accepted wisdom about a Green Party supporter. So if you support capitalism what about other capitalists who don’t care about the environment.

            With more coherent economic and environmental policies than our current Green Party this lot could easily reach 5%.

            • McFlock 26.1.1.1.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 4:18 pm

              The Greens took a hit last campaign. It’s little caucus schism didn’t help in that regard. But then we had an election to show the new field, so further pickings from the Greens are slim.

              In an era when the economy is consistently hitting hard environmental limits, you have to choose between the two.

              WCDC chose mining over the households being washed away due to coastal erosion. The backlash against big dairy has resulted in farmers spending money to tidy up our waterways. Fertiliser companies are advertising ways to target application and limit leaching, rather than just selling as much as possible (as they used to do). Water exports are a major source of controversy. Land use encroaching on habitats of at risk species. Building walking tracks to scar the land without resource consent.

              Maybe fifty years ago people could be right-wing environmentalists, if they didn’t think too hard. To do so today they’d need to be wilfully ignorant.

            • KJT 26.1.1.1.1.2
              11 February 2019 at 7:00 pm

              The right wing is simply incompatible with humanities future, no matter how you try and spin it.

            • KJT 26.1.1.1.1.3
              12 February 2019 at 8:05 am

              The Greens lost votes to Labour, when Labour began to get a social conscience again. I.e. Adopted the Greens ‘left wing’ policies.
              Your analysis is wrong.

              I am a capitalist, that cares about environmental issues.

              However I am also a realist.

              An economic system that depends on infinite growth to function, cannot continue in a world with finite resources. Neither can the accumulation of most of those resources, by a very few.

          • Robert Guyton 26.1.1.1.2
            11 February 2019 at 4:24 pm

            The Green Party and the Sustainable NZ party must have an enormous amount of common ground, more than any of the other parties could ever have. There’s no doubt that if both found favour with the voters, they’d work together to reshape the New Zealand political landscape faster than you can say “treehugger in woad”. These are exciting times! At last, some real environmental action! National supporters though, traditionally dismissive of and antagonistic towards, “greenies” must be furious over this turn of events; TWO Green parties!!! Or perhaps they haven’t realised yet, what’s unfolding…

            • McFlock 26.1.1.1.2.1
              11 February 2019 at 4:32 pm

              I admire your optimism, but share it I do not.

              • Stuart Munro …
                11 February 2019 at 4:56 pm

                The Gnats don’t understand – they’ve just planted a kudzu cutting 😉

                http://www.walterreeves.com/how-to-archive/how-to-grow-kudzu/

                “Kudzu should always be planted at night. If kudzu is planted during daylight hours, angry neighbors might see you and begin throwing rocks at you.”

                • Robert Guyton …
                  11 February 2019 at 5:04 pm

                  Stuart’s right – the Nats are championing a party that will double the exposure the environment needs, double the expectations of voters and double the problems they already face in behaving in an ungreen way. Their coal, oil and cow buddies must be groaning with frustration at National’s playing into the environmentalists hands!

                  • McFlock …
                    11 February 2019 at 5:14 pm

                    Well, I guess that’s the best case.

                    But I suspect it won’t so much as double environmental expectations, as try to act as a more believable wet blanket than any nat platitudes on working together.

                    • KJT …
                      12 February 2019 at 8:25 am

                      More like, Dennis’ ” centrist Greens” will join National in their “Green washing”.

                      Centrist greens is an oxymoron. “Save the environment,so long as we don’t actually do anything”.

              • Robert Guyton …
                11 February 2019 at 5:00 pm

                Nat voters will be greatly disturbed when they grasp what’s happening.

                • Dennis Frank …
                  11 February 2019 at 5:06 pm

                  Centrist leverage even cleverer than Winston’s? Don’t worry, their leader will explain how brilliant the plan is during the next caucus meeting. “Look , we just need to offer them a ministry or two outside cabinet.” They’ll settle down again.

                • Stuart Munro …
                  11 February 2019 at 5:12 pm

                  They’re not terribly quick on the uptake – they’ll begin to work out what’s happening at about this point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFx7kfHnKg8

        • KJT 26.1.1.2
          11 February 2019 at 7:04 pm

          Good argument there for lowering the MMP, threshold.

  27. greywarshark 27
    11 February 2019 at 3:22 pm

    Since when has the word Asian been a pejorative?
    The mere fact that someone would think that and get media publicity
    about it is an indication that that person and the media is racist!
    From West Auckland.
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/110487760/woman-slams-racist-service-after-group-referred-to-as-asians-on-auckland-cafe-receipt

    • greywarshark 27.1
      11 February 2019 at 5:14 pm

      Sorry the above should have gone to Open Mike. I was truly-bewildered and apologise for being in the wrong place.

  28. Sacha 28
    11 February 2019 at 4:25 pm

    “the usual suspect”

    Yep, lying backer Boag is at it again:
    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/vernon-tava-rejects-new-partys-blue-green-label-its-a-green-green-party/

    “the Greens have said they will never deal with anyone other than Labour.”

  29. Dennis Frank 29
    11 February 2019 at 4:33 pm

    “Right wing environmental sock puppet party launched” seems to have been used as a headline in the belief that promoting any hallucination that seems to be in the head of the Nat leader is something cool for a left-wing blog to do.

    Any thought that misrepresenting the framing used by the founder of the party is unethical seems to have slipped out the back door. But ought political debate in Aotearoa be thus boiled down to total crap in all directions? Mindlessness may indeed be contagious, but is it really such a brilliant idea to yield to it?

    • KJT 29.1
      11 February 2019 at 4:42 pm

      Pretty good description, of a right wing party pretending to be a Green party, I would think.

      Like “Blue Greens” an oxymoron!

      National’s actions are totally incompatible with an environment where humans can exist long term.
      As is any sort of self called “centrism.

      Either you are for social and environmental sustainability, or you are against.

      There is no middle ground. Centrism is part of the problem. The “third way” accommodating the destructive right, has already failed.

      • Dennis Frank 29.1.1
        11 February 2019 at 5:01 pm

        If it was that, it would only pull votes from National. Just because you are biased, doesn’t mean the bluegreen meme doesn’t exist. Have you noticed that your bias is so extreme that it has made you irrational? The evidence lies in your failure to spell the meme correctly. Go to their website to see what’s real.

        Deny that centrists exist until you are blue in the face and all you will achieve is to persuade others that you are a Nat supporter. We centrists will still be here, concerned for your mental health. Blair’s third way was bullshit – bit late to be waving that straw man. And why would any centrist feel obliged to accommodate `the destructive right’? Using that logic would require you to accomodate Pol Pot just because he’s leftist like you. Duh!

        • McFlock 29.1.1.1
          11 February 2019 at 5:28 pm

          Concern is all well and good, but the party website itself points out that NZ1 is stalling the fisheries cameras because of its donors. How will they “negotiate” with the nats and their funding sources and supporters?

          The Greens didn’t rule out the nats just because of their socioeconomic policies. They ruled out the nats also because of their environmental policies. Plead “centrist” all you want, but environmental policies are a round peg and the nats are a square hole.

          • solkta 29.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2019 at 5:38 pm

            I actually think it would be easier for the Greens to get National to support socioeconomic policy in a coalition agreement than environmental. Much of the social stuff would just cost them money, the environmental policy costs them the right to destroy the environment to make money. They would much prefer to share their cake than be stopped from making it larger.

            • KJT 29.1.1.1.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 10:34 pm

              Nat’s have already shown the will swallow some “socialist” dead rats, to stay in power, to keep the gravy train going.
              Actively stopping their funders sources of income, however, is not going to happen.

          • Dennis Frank 29.1.1.1.2
            11 February 2019 at 5:59 pm

            I suspect you haven’t been to look at the bluegreen website, huh? May surprise you. Nats have always been square. Why I never vote for them. However culture can change (even political culture) and people can change (even politicians). So I believe the leverage at any point in time is the key.

            And since the leverage works most effectively in the political center, the Green movement has the potential to exercise way more if Vernon succeeds! Kudos to Robert for noticing that and specifying it here, up-thread.

            • McFlock 29.1.1.1.2.1
              11 February 2019 at 6:12 pm

              I did – the link in Tava’s tweet. It’s one goddamn page of nothingness and vacuities. They don’t even know the difference between “who we are” and “what we will wank on about”.

              Nothing about current party structure and who currently leads it.

              Nothing about how they envision membership structures or policy development.

              No timeframe for registration or any form of public engagement.

              No public events or meetings.

              No information about who organised even this meagre effort – is Tava sitting in his home office putting out his master plan, or are familiar names like “Lusk” or “Williams” involved?

              Leverage doesn’t work best at the centre, by the way. Quite the reverse.

        • solkta 29.1.1.2
          11 February 2019 at 5:40 pm

          There will always be some confused people.

          • McFlock 29.1.1.2.1
            11 February 2019 at 5:49 pm

            Yeah. Thank goodness for thresholds.

            • Dennis Frank 29.1.1.2.1.1
              11 February 2019 at 6:03 pm

              A tad non-pc of you. Even deranged people deserve political representation. And they aren’t all in National! JLR may not yet have figured out this angle, but no reason any MP cannot decide to represent them. Confused could apply to folks in rest home too, eh? Threshold doesn’t stop their vote counting…

        • KJT 29.1.1.3
          11 February 2019 at 10:25 pm

          The ” centrists” never were in the “centre”.

          Except in their somewhat fevered imagination.

          Shown be the fact that you think a Democratic socialist, who also happens to be a “capitalist” businessman, like me, is anyway extreme. Even getting called “hard left” these days.

          Fence sitters never achieve anything!

  30. Jum 30
    11 February 2019 at 6:39 pm

    Just ‘sustainable’? What a low base to start from. What happened to ‘improved’? The ‘best end-goal’?

    No doubt Tava wants to get on board with the big business new philosophy of offering sustainable environment if they get some of the environment handed over to make a profit from.

    Beware big business/big money/big politics becoming chummy with green principles after they’ve spent centuries trying to destroy them.

    Tava the ethnic mouthpiece for a ‘fools’ golden future’ which turns to sawdust on our tongues?
    Who knows?

    The New Zealand voter seldom looks beyond the hollow man hype. Why on earth do we think nats keep getting in.

  31. Robert Guyton 31
    11 February 2019 at 6:52 pm

    “Tava the ethnic mouthpiece for a ‘fools’ golden future’ which turns to sawdust on our tongues?”
    Ssssshtum, Jum!

  32. woodart 32
    11 February 2019 at 7:40 pm

    Ive just reread the headline.I thought it was cock puppet, not sock puppet.

  33. DS 33
    11 February 2019 at 8:12 pm

    I think this party has more chance of taking the odd vote off the Nats than taking votes off the Greens:

    https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/new-zealand-politics-jumping-at-blue-green-shadows/

    The thing is, if you are environmentally conscious but not on board with the rest of the Green Party’s principles, you aren’t voting for the Greens as it is. Green voters vote the way they do (at least after 2017, when all the disaffected Labourites went home) because they approve of the whole programme.