2020 Election Results: Audrey Young – Labor Has All The Cards As Ardern Holds Talks With The Greens

OPINION:

The Greens are forced to be realistic about what they could achieve in Jacinda Ardern’s 2020 government after holding a second round of talks with Labor yesterday.

The Greens entered the election campaign earlier and with more political harshness than any other party: more than 300 policies in 37 different areas.

It narrowed the 37 to six priority areas: prosperous oceans, the future of the transportation plan, agriculture for the future, homes for all, the clean energy plan, and the anti-poverty action plan.

But after the election result, you will be lucky to win political concessions beyond the policies you already share with the Labor Party, such as the implementation of Fair Pay Agreements that would revive national awards in the particularly poorly paid workforce, abolishing the 90-day trials. for new workers and get rid of the Three Strikes law.

Labor won an absolute majority on Saturday, with 64 of 120 seats, and it is more than likely that that majority will increase when the final vote is declared on November 6.

At no point did Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern campaign for a Green, Labor government, though many Labor supporters are believed to have voted for green to ensure they didn’t drop below 5 percent – she came back with 7.6 percent of the votes and 10 deputies. .

But the prevailing view in the Labor Party is that it should be seen as a Labor government, a vision reinforced this week with the arrival of the huge 2020 Labor newcomer to Parliament for induction courses.

Preliminary talks between Labor and the Greens were held on Monday, and the first formal talks were held yesterday, with Labor represented by Ardern, Deputy Labor leader Kelvin Davis, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, President Claire Szabo, Ardern’s chief of staff Rajesh Nahna and policy advisor Holly Donald.

The Greens were represented by co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson and chief of staff Tory Whanau, political advisor Deb Moran and party co-coordinator Wiremu Winitana.
Davidson emerged saying that the party was looking for ways to make progress in three areas, climate change, the environment and addressing inequality.

Any suggestion that the Greens be in the cabinet in a coalition has been off the table since Labor won a majority on Saturday.

Work has all the cards. These are not peer conversations.

While there is a great deal of goodwill in the talks, the Labor Party can choose the areas of cooperation and the type of cooperation.

You can decide if there is an agreement on some or no policies, if there are still Green ministers outside the Cabinet or none at all, if it would be better to be just a cooperation agreement that establishes consultation principles on new policies, and access to information and briefings. officers.

The Greens can decide whether they have been offered a sufficient deal to promise confidence and supply to a government that does not need it, or whether it would be better to remain more distant.

In any deal it signs, its members will want to retain the right to criticize Labor, as new green MP Ricardo Menéndez March has repeatedly done on poverty issues.

Shaw has repeatedly said that the trust and supply the Greens had with Labor in the 2017-2020 government covered only 1 percent of what was undertaken and that 99 percent emerged during the course of the government.

In that sense, it is the ongoing relationship itself that is more important than any political gains that are marked when the talks resume next Tuesday.