When politicians go dating

by frog

And so the courting is starting to heat up…

The Government yesterday celebrated becoming the longest-continuous administration under MMP, having reached 965 days (commented on by Bertrand Bargolias here). This led to a photo-op morning tea in the Prime Minister’s Office comprising Clark, Jim Anderton, and Peter Dunne.

However, the Prime Minister’s performance during Question Time yesterday afternoon was more revealing about her intentions after the election. She’s keeping her options open, and is thus being nice about all her prospective coalition partners. Here’s an exchange with Dunne:

Peter Dunne: Is she satisfied that her Government has fulfilled the goal of the confidence and supply agreement with United Future to provide “stable Government over the next term of Parliament�?; if so, why?
Helen Clark: The answer is yes, because today the Government celebrates 965 days since the signing of the confidence and supply agreement with United Future. That represents the longest period of stable Government under MMP … I note that a great success of this term of Government has been the relationship with United Future, which has enabled us to disagree from time to time but still to have strong, stable Government.

And here’s her exchange with Rod:

Rod Donald: Can the Prime Minister confirm that during this term of Parliament more Government bills have been passed solely as a result of Green Party support rather than the support of any other party, and that the passage of 16 pieces of legislation on issues such as occupational safety and health, accident compensation, climate change, civil union, and the Supreme Court have helped to fulfil the goals of the cooperation agreement between the Labour-Progressive Government and the Green Party?
Helen Clark: For the record, I wish to confirm that the support of the Greens on many critical pieces of legislation has been part of achieving strong, stable Government.

Dunne tried hard to get the Prime Minister to take a swipe at the Greens, by asking a question about a statement she made about us at the heat of the GE disagreement in 2002. But she declined the opportunity. Her body language said, “Peter, I can read polls as well as you can. I’m not going to diss the Greens. They’re polling three times higher than your lot.”