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Election 2020
Labor not seeking a formal coalition with the Greens could actually be beneficial to the minority party. David Williams reports
The Green Party has overcome several fears in recent months, the main one being a possible setback of the The Green School debacleand not meeting the five percent MMP threshold.
His next big challenge is reportedly not being invited into a formal coalition with Labor. Last night, Newshub reported that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is planning a lower level support arrangement with the Greens, showing the political strength that has been given to him by winning more than 60 seats in Parliament.
“New Zealand has given us a mandate to be able to govern,” Ardern told the media yesterday. “What I’m looking for are areas of potential cooperation.”
The Green Party should be proud that MP Chlöe Swarbrick has taken Auckland Central (depending on special votes), her first electorate seat since 1999, with Jeanette Fitzsimons in Coromandel.
But that does not mean that the political party, with 10 seats in the next parliament, will be immune from the whims of the MMP in 2023. History shows that minor coalition partners can be savagely dismissed by voters.
Look no further than last Saturday, when New Zealand First was taken out of Parliament, achieving just 2.7 percent of the provisional vote. It was also kicked off in 2008, before returning in 2011, as did the Maori Party in 2017 (on Saturday, Maori Party candidate Rawiri Waititi won Waiariki from Labor Tamati Coffey by 415 votes, with special votes to come).
Before last night’s Newshub story came to light, Newsroom spoke to environmental groups and academics about the idea of the Green Party staying out of a coalition with Labor. Any arrangement in which the Greens maintain their distinctive voice and can raise their voices when they disagree is believed to be a good thing. The party may not be completely starved for influence in the negotiations either.
The Greens have spent most of their parliamentary history outside of the ruling coalition and worked effectively with the governments of Helen Clark and John Key.
“From those positions we were able to accomplish a lot by influencing the public debate,” says former Green Party co-leader Russel Norman, who is now CEO of Greenpeace NZ.
His most prominent project with the Key coalition was the $ 323 million clean heating and home insulation plan, known as Warm Up New Zealand, announced in 2009. Two months earlier, when the Greens signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Party, was initially met with suspicions. “What we are seeing is MMP in action”, Norman he told Radio NZ at the time. “If we can work together to keep houses warm, dry and healthy, why the hell wouldn’t we do it?”
Yesterday Norman told the Newsroom: “You can influence things from the outside.”
Canterbury University political scientist Bronwyn Hayward says the beauty of the country’s political system is its flexibility, offering a range of pragmatic constitutional and governance arrangements that allow the Greens to address important issues with the Labor Party.
That includes the last-term supply-and-trust “hybrid” deal, which Hayward says is ideal for the Greens, and his agenda for action on climate, social justice and tax reform.
“There are many studies that show that it is very difficult for the smaller parties, when they are in very close coalition relations with the main parties, to retain their distinctive mark.”
In three The Hui On Sunday, former New Zealand MP Tau Henare advocated for the Maori Party and the Greens to sit on the cross benches. “I don’t think they should come close to thinking of some kind of coalition agreement.”
The importance of language
Hayward’s colleague at the University of Canterbury, Geoff Ford, led a 57 million word study spoken in Parliament between 2003 and 2006, showing how the Green Party has changed the political conversation.
Ford, a political and data scientist, says the Greens will have a strong voice if they remain independent. “It’s potentially quite satisfying in terms of the party’s activist base, and being able to express distinctive perspectives on economics and social policy and climate change, etc.”
On Saturday night, in his victory speech, Ardern spoke of Labor “Ruling for all New Zealanders”.
Was it a launch into the political center, an area that will aggressively try to deny the National Party in the upcoming elections, or an olive branch to other political parties?
Ford says there is a history of that kind of rhetoric being used in New Zealand politics, to talk about the majority of the people and the possible marginalization of different groups. “This is another reason, perhaps, to include the Greens and the Maori Party in some kind of arrangement to show that you want to work with different groups and represent a wide variety of perspectives.”
Polls suggest that at least half of all New Zealanders of voting age value, or highly value, building coalitions and consensus. So Hayward says there is a risk if Labor doesn’t negotiate with smaller parties.
“There is anxiety in the voting community when we have power blocks that are really, significantly large. That is why the Prime Minister has been talking about consensus building because they are well aware that ironically there is a weakness in being so big. “
The crimson tide of Labor pulled townspeople Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith out of their blue electoral boats, but support increased in rural areas, as well. He won the party’s vote on all seats in the South Island, including the true blue Rangitata electorate, south of Christchurch.
The climate and environmental pledges did little to dissuade rural voters from voting red, although national leader Judith Collins has postulated an unlikely theory They marked Labor to block the Greens.
As noted by the Greenpeace NZ campaign advisor Phil Vine, surveys show that 79 percent of kiwis are concerned about climate change and seven out of 10 of us are in favor of a transformative and ecological recovery from Covid-19.
The day after the election, Norman said the next administration has no excuse to postpone action on climate change and other environmental issues. “With Winston Peters and his group gone, we hope to see immediate action to address agricultural climate pollution, invest in railways and bike lanes, and protect the oceans from overfishing.”
“Whoever they put in will have 10 percent of the experience, knowledge and skill that Eugenie Sage has in that portfolio area.” – Kevin Hague
Ford of the University of Canterbury says the Green Party demonstrated the value of its experience in the last legislature.
“A narrative about the Greens is that they are too lax for the government, or they are not too prepared for the government. But I think they have shown in the last term that they have worked effectively as ministers, that they could do it again in the next term, and that is really gearing up for 2023, where it will probably be a much tighter competition. “
Kevin Hague is a former green MP who runs Forest & Bird, who is careful to speak not about his past political experience, but on behalf of the conservation lobby. He wonders who would be the Labor appointed minister of conservation if the deputies of the Green Party are not considered.
“Whoever they hire would have 10 percent of the experience, knowledge and skill that Eugenie Sage has in that portfolio area. So imagine the next three years of that minister if Eugenie Sage is not in government and is instead criticizing what the government is doing. If you start thinking about the practicalities, Labor is very interested in making a deal that works. “
The argument that Labor needs friends seems well made. Labor is unlikely to be able to rule alone after the next election, so it is in your best interest to form strong ties with the Green and Maori parties now.
That’s where the Greens could have some influence, the theory goes. If the Green Party doesn’t get enough agreed-upon political victories to convince its members to agree to a deal in the first place, or to defend its record in the 2023 election, it is within its right to step aside.
Of course, if there is an agreed political program, the Greens will need obvious results.
Norman, the former co-leader of the Greens, is highly critical of the performance of the Greens last term. “They were in the government and achieved very, very little.” They also had to “defend the indefensible”, such as not putting a price on agricultural emissions. “James Shaw had to say it was a great thing.”
Why didn’t you follow NZ First into political oblivion (or inactivity), then? Hayward of the University of Canterbury suggests that the Greens continued to criticize the government and achieved two or three key “brand messages” in their winning policies.
Forest & Bird’s view is the latest government to make many positive changes, including the largest increase in the Department of Conservation budget. “James Shaw accomplished more in three years than all previous administrations put together,” says Hague. (He admits, however, that mistakes were made, including the no new mines on public conservation lands, which was not fulfilled).
There have been discussions within the Green Party, apparently, about staying away from Labor, on the crossed benches. Some feel the strategy would be rewarded by voters in 2023.
But with the crises of climate change and biodiversity upon us, we need to act now, Hague argues. When Forest & Bird says that nature is at a breaking point and in crisis, that is not just rhetoric, it says, it is an accurate description.
“We are at least 10 years late in responding to climate change, for example,” says Hague. “We have the highest proportion of endemic species at risk or in danger of extinction. Changing the course of that is also a matter of absolute urgency.
So should the Greens sneak up on Labor or sidestep? “What Forest & Bird would recommend is any arrangement that achieves the most positive change possible that we can achieve in the absolute short term.”
