If you want to diminish the influence of Liberalism in government, then don’t vote for ACT, National, NZ Labour, United Future or TOPs.
If you reckon Maori issues need more prominence, then maybe vote for Mana or The Maori Party.
If you want to boost a social democratic influence in parliament then vote for New Zealand First ,or maybe for the Green Party.
The hesitation or qualification by the Green Party is because they haven’t coalesced around a definitive platform. There are obvious strains of social democracy to some of their policies, but it would be a huge stretch to say they are fighting from a social democratic platform. I’m saying that on the premise that there are only two possible platforms within the context of capitalism that seeks to preserve some degree of representative democracy – ie, social democratic and liberal (with a whole pile of triangulated or “third way” smash sitting between).
So putting aside ‘Winston the old school Tory’ (because really, who wants Muldoon Mk II?), a longer term and damned good reason to vote for the Green Party, is that if there is ever going to be a “Momentum” type phenomenon affecting NZ’s parliamentary politics, then it’s going to have to exert influence on and through the Green Party.
Unfortunately, NZ Labour is locked down. I wrote about this before. My honest opinion is that the only decent thing to do now, is fashion a shroud and have a memorial service befitting a party that once did great things.
Maybe it’s time to join the Greens. and vote Green. For reasons signposted above, September probably won’t see a major breakthrough for the party. But September can mark a beginning – the posting of a ‘notice of intent’ as it were.
Original version slightly edited for the sake of some clarity. The opening line originally read “if you want to diminish the liberal influence of…”
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