by Russel Norman
Two polls now show that National could govern alone if election results reflected the poll results. The Greens are holding our own around 6% in both polls. The gap between National and Labour in the latest poll is quite extraordinary – 56% vs 31%.
With John Key adopting a Labour-lite approach it’s hard to see where Labour can go now. The gap between National and Labour in apparent policy terms has narrowed. On the one hand Labour have swung to the right and against sustainability under the influence of NZ First and United Future. On the other hand, National has abandoned their more outrageous policies - though National are still in the middle of a policy review so we will see what comes out the other end. But the perception of little substantial difference between the two makes it hard for Labour to demonise Key. The best thing on their side is time, as the election is still a long way away, but there is a clear mood for change in the air.
Labour could’ve pursued a sustainability agenda to give a renewed raison d’etre for their administration but after a brief rhetorical foray into “carbon neutrality” that seems to have dropped away again and been replaced with the usual “more roads, more dairy farms” agenda. Any Labour MPs that may have supported a sustainability agenda have found themselves stymied by the Labour right, the Finance Minister and the alliance with Winston and Dunne.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Mon, May 28th, 2007
Tags: environment
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
There was a letter in the Press recently, (in response to an article by David Round)..the respondent said he/she agreed and dissagreed. Agreed that the environment wasn’t a left or right wing issue and castigated Act for it’s outdated views on global warming etc. Maybe Act will eventually face the music just as the left did with the fall of the Soviet Union and become a mirror image of the Greens.
The Greens are holding our own around 6% in both polls
That’s tracking down. Phil U predicted 10%.
jh
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PS “Yanky-boy” was right.
jh
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The Greens seem to be down a bit in this poll, which suggests the party is losing support to National. Some people think the Greens’ voting base is just Labour-leaning, but this suggests it’s a mixture.
Moreover the Greens appear to be performing quite poorly generally in the poor when you consider that the party is receiving so much media coverage and environmental issues are so high on the political agenda. If the Greens can only get 6% at the moment, then they shouldn’t feel 100% certain about making the 5% threshold in less fortunate times.
Bryce
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and if..as you concede russel..the policy differences (now) between clark-labour..and key-national are negligible..
key has u-turned on market-rents..etc..
what..apart from doctinaire-blinkers..would stop the greens..under your co-leadership..from considering an arrangment with a party that was offering far more for the environment..than labour was..?
this is all hypothetical..of course..and would be dependant on the election results..
but the possibility of key/national going ‘yoo-hoo!’ at you lot..
and waving a raft of far greener policies than labour was offering..
is a very strong possibility..eh..?
and i’m sure i am not the only one who would like to know what you would do in that case..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Spot on, Bryce. If the Greens can’t boost support when seemingly everyone has been thoroughly spooked by Al Gore and the alarmist media, when else?
Personally, I think the smacking bill and Labour support is making people look more closely at the Greens – and finding it’s not all about dolphins.
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The anti-smacking bill featured a lot in the discussion between Chris Trotter and Michael Heuton on Nine to Noon today.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/ntn/politics2
jh
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Thanks for that link JH, Hooten raised an interesting point, if the Nat’s received an overwhelming level of support from the voting public yet still needed a coalition partner would the greens (if they survive the next election) go with them or would they adhere to the wishes of the public and abstain?
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Thanks jh. Good points made in that discussion.
I agree it would be dangerous for minor parties to block the wishes of the majority. If any good were to come of it, it would be the demise of MMP.
What is the Greens policy in terms of arrangments with parties who win the most votes? Similar to Anderton’s?
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PEL
Now that would be one caucus meeting I would love to be a fly on the wall at, can you imagine Sue Bradford, Keith Locke and Russ being told that they would have to support or at the least abstain from voting against the Nat’s.
I actually believe that the Greens would implode, the thought of supporting the Nat’s would just be to much for the hard left majority
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Bryce, unfortunately environmental issues don’t seem to be on New Zealanders’ horizon at the moment. In the Herald poll, only 2% thought it was the most important issue.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10442182
I found that really disheartening. Makes me want to wander round with an “end is nigh” placard, but that would really brand me as a loony in this week’s world.
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Pingpong – while the polls about the “most important issue” are useful, they’re also rather blunt. After all they only ask what is the *most* important issue. I could be wrong, but I would have thought that environment issues would rank in the top five for a significant proportion of voters. The problem for the Greens is that they no longer own issues like climate change. Essentially the Greens have endorsed the policy directions and solutions of the other major parties. Sure there might be some differences between, say, Labour’s solution and the Green’s solution, but the similarities are more significant. The Greens have done their best to shed their image of radicalism – especially on the climate issue – which actually gives voters no great reason to vote Green. Hence the Greens are on only 6% at a time when conditions favour the party the most. So in a future time when conditions no longer favour the Greens so much, an indistinct Green Party might only obtain 3-4% of the vote.
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russel..another facet to that unanswered question..
key was on campbell tonight..
and he was matter-of-fact/emphatic that national would have ‘greener’ policies than labour..
do we get an answer from you russel..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Lets hope Al Gore releases a more convenient truth just around mid 2008 to give the Greens a boost
IMHO the politicking is all about money these days. We are going the same way as Australia where everyone is obsessed with wealth and posessions to excess. It’s a glittering, glamorous moral wasteland where you are measured by the size of your bank balance. And that’s exactly what is happening here- people will vote more and more with their wallets.
I often wonder what will happen when a recession eventually comes along and wipes out a lot of the current generation of debt-abusers, there will be a lot of disbelief that economic materialism let them down. At least the music will improve though- all the best music comes from economic recessions
As for the above comment on looking more closely at the Greens’ policy- well it’s all on the website- where is the Nat’s policy? The only policy I have seen is to use lots of strong and reassuring adjectives…
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uk_kiwi
Well said!
The current poll is predictable, in that :
Key is still in a “honeymoon phase” and trying hard to please everyone.
Impressions rather than substance carry the day.
National’s “green” policies may sound OK at face value, but …
A proportion of those polled will have registered protest votes “against the devil they know”.
MMP, not FPP is our voting system …
and we are still a long way away from the next General Election.
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Surprise surprise.. Labour tells 80% of the electorate to go and get st….ed over s59, holds a single finger salute to democracy, and tells the vast majority of kiwis that their child rearing methods are so bad that they are criminals.
It’s no wonder they are haemorrhaging support.
Add massive tax creep (they taxed us $19B when they came, and now Cullen takes $50B off us). Then we are tolds that we can’t spend our money cause it’s inflationary, but if Cullen spends our money it’s not.
Enough of these clowns. They’ve lost the plot. Bye bye to the nanny state.
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It is now National’s to lose. Under Brash that was a good place for Labour to be in… right now it does not look like the winner it used to be.
I agree with Eredwen… a week is an eternity in Politics and we are a long way from the next election.
OTOH, there is a fair amount of downside available too.
A labour party that looks like losing big will free some potential support from the left of that party, and may mitigate the worst outcomes for the Greens, but the swing towards National is not much of a surprise.
National isn’t about to team up with Greens when it has other parties to the right of us that are almost certainly more willing to compromise THEIR principles for the baubles of power.
respectfully
BJ
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Labour’s abrupt increase in heavy vehicle RUCs is typical of the sort of actions that are costing Labour it’s chances at the next election. And the Greens’s failure to criticise the increases is truly mystifying.
Labour’s reason for the increase was to cover increased maintenance costs yet the increase does not apply to the weight component of the RUCs. If it did then the entire schedule of RUCs over 6 tons would have increased by 11%. In fact the schedules for heavy trailers have not been increased at all. The increases for trucks range from less than 7% for the four axle trucks mainly used for milk tankers and logging trucks, up to 20% for 7 ton 2-axle city delivery trucks and school buses, with typical 10 ton city buses paying 17% more.
So the trucks that compete with railways get off lightest, trucks that connect the railways with their customers get hit hardest. Heavy vehicles that do the most to reduce global warming get hit hardest, those that do the most to contribute to global warming get off lighest.
So Labour lied to the public, the road transport forum and (presumably) to the Greens about the reasons for the increase. Only the RTF seems to have bothered to check what Labour actually did and surprisingly they are only really p***ed off by the lack of warning and by the fact that the increases are not fairly shared by all trucks. In fact most owner/drivers renegotiated their contracts based on the first RUC rates order signed by the GG, the second rates order was only signed at the end of March, too late to be used in negotiations. A glaring example of Labour thumping small business and letting big business escape almost scot-free.
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UK_KIWI,
“Lets hope Al Gore releases a more convenient truth just around mid 2008 to give the Greens a boost”
Cant the greens sell their message on their own? Why do they need an external miracle from left field (pun intended)?
The Greens watermelon problem is still not resolved. A green versus red split in the party is not incomprehensible.
My prediction is that the red faction will defect back to the Alliance and the Greens will work constructively with the National government.
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I agree that Key is still in a “honeymoon phase? and trying hard to please everyone. This phase is likely to last until the “marriage phase” in 18 months time.
The budget day speech defined Key as a true statesman and the impression was his arguments had substance.
National’s “green? policies may sound OK at face value, but he doesn’t have much competition from Laboured in this quarter.
A proportion of those polled will have registered protest votes “against the lying devils they know?.
MMP, not FPP is our voting system …But Majority still rules on the day.
We are still a long way away from the next General Election and still have the “Lolly scramble budget” to go, and the reds are hoping we forget by then.
And as to a coalition partner, Greens or another myna party? There will be heaps of room for anyone left after the election to do “time-out” on the opposition benches.
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Disagree that Labour has 18 months to sort out its problems. Electioneering will start after Christmas so Labour has maybe 9 months to get sorted.
Problem for Labour is the Taito P Field court case which is scheduled for smack bang in the middle of 2008 but before that geting embroiled in the parliamentary investigation on water pricing in Auckland. Labour cant help but wear some negative public feedback on that as it gets dragged into the issue of fundamental infastructure resource funding.
Not to mentioned Clarks self confessed claim she has not been as smart as she could have been (complacency?) and has to “work smarter” to get back ahead. Public dont like losers (aka the Warriors) and Clark is looking and polling like a loser.
The fact that the income bracket taxation creep issue is being addressed by Peter Dunne and not Cullen is another negative.
Peter Dunne is forecasting what will be in the next budget. Should be Cullens job.
But then again is he realigning his position to be a National party lacky after the next election?
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Gerrit your predictions for the Green Party make great comedy. LOL !!!
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eredwen said..”..National’s “green? policies may sound OK at face value, but …”
as opposed to labours’ ‘green’ policies.?..
which to date..haven’t even had ‘face value’..
‘cos they haven’t existed..eh..?
bj said..
“.. National isn’t about to team up with Greens when it has other parties to the right of us that are almost certainly more willing to compromise THEIR principles for the baubles of power…”
um..!..wrong on all counts there..b.j…
key would be a fool to issue a ‘last cab off the rank’ comment about the greens..
but he has gone further than that..
on campbell live he confirmed the gnats would have stronger ‘green’ policies than labour..
and while conceding there are ‘social policy issues/differences…(to say the least)..
he didn’t rule out approaching the greens for a deal..of some sort
in exchange for some green great-leaps-forward…
and as for yr assertion he will look further right..for a coalition partner..
well..you couldn’t be more wrong..
key has done to labour..what labour did to national..
and has colonised the centre..
and as he plans to lead for more than one term..
the nutbars/nutjobs in act are the last thing he needs..
that would guarantee a one-term prime-ministership..
and hey..!..to my mind..it all boils down to a simple question..
is the green party there for the green party/individuals’ personal ideologies..?
or is the green party there as the parliamentary wing of the battle for the environment..?
maybe that question needs to be asked/debated..?
and that (maybe) individuals within the green party/mp’s..
need to ask themselves that question..?
cos’..when you boil it all down..
this (almost a decade) of being yoked to labour..
has delivered s.f.a. for the/our environment..eh..?
and what..?..didn’t that budget confirm for you..?
that you/the environment can only expect more of the same from labour..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Stuey
Gerrit is right, I would suspect that you are so deeply involved in the party that you cannot see what is apparent to those of us on the outside.
You have some very good MP’s, OK even they sometimes come out with silly statements (Sue K and her comments about Transmission Gully being a good example) but by and large she is one who I believe would make the right choice if National received an overwhelming mandate from the voting public.
You simply cannot say the same about the more hard left member s of your caucus, can you seriously tell me that Kieth Locke, Russell Norman and Sue Bradford would ever agree to vote with the Nat’s?
The split is coming and it may well be the end of the Green party as we know it.
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Phul
Get used to Act being around for some time yet, Key might be grabbing the voters from the middle ground but he is losing a lot of the support from the right.
I would say that the Act party will pass the 5% threshold at the next election and be the obvious coalition party for the Nat’s.
If that is the case I hope we see a return to market rentals and a massive overhaul of our ridiculous social welfare system.
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BB Nats wont need a coalition partner if poll trends are anything to go by.
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Big Bro – I assume that you are an Act supporter of some kind. Your optimism is admirable, but I’m afraid Act is dog tucker. Yes, Key has shifted right into the middle ground, but he is taking the right with him. If Act was a party of any substance or capability it would be profiting hugely at the moment. Instead it isn’t even registering in opinion polls. And its leadership doesn’t even know what it stands for anymore. They’ve spent over a decade in Parliament playing games and constantly moderating their policies and trying to be like National. And not only is Act a spent force, but the its whole ideology is discredited.
But, this is a Green Party forum. And the point is that the Greens also haven’t learnt from the demise of so-called ‘radical’ parties like the Alliance and Act, and there’s no great reason why they mightn’t also head the same way at some stage. The leadership hasn’t exactly made the party distinct, but also want the party to be more of a centre party than a radical force.
Bryce
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bb..
you need to get ‘used to’ the fact that election victory lies in the centre..
not out in those nether regions you hang in..
and act/’dancing-fool’ rodney..are but a joke..
his sinking into the culture/white-bread morass that is epsom..
has set new benchmarks in ‘embedding’..
(wot with the bowls/bridge/afternoon teas..?..eh..?..
who’se got time for politics..?..eh..?..)
and ..did you notice..?
rodney is ‘doing a bolger’ on us..
he is speaking ‘quite naicely’ now..(heh-heh..!)
very epsom..!
nah..!…rodney..at best..can hope to colonise epsom..
tho’..if key made the (very sensible) decision to stand a strong candidate against hide..?…eh..?
reasoning that as part of his ‘centreing’ of national he wasn’t going to coalesce with them/act..(if at all possible)..
so he’d may as well mop up those votes as well..and not give them to act..
act is keys’ ‘last cab off the rank’..eh..?
(they would be his guarantee of a one-term prime-ministership..)
btw..key has already pledged not to return to market rents..
so..i guess it’s rat-swallowing time for you..b.b..eh..?
you ‘barking’/extreme righties are becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing day..eh..?
just reduced to making demented-noises on the sideline..eh..?
chin-up..!..eh..?
this ‘centring of national must finally be bringing the realistion to you..
that your rightwing dreams..are just turning to dust..eh..?
(ouch..!..is it hurting .?.darling..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Then on the other hand, wasn’t it you who predicted that the greens are tracking 10%, and people were going to forget about the Anti Smacking Bill??
…eh…?
jh
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Um, Bryce, when you say:
“Essentially the Greens have endorsed the policy directions and solutions of the other major parties. Sure there might be some differences between, say, Labour’s solution and the Green’s solution, but the similarities are more significant.”
are you commenting because you’ve actually read the Green Party’s climate change policy? National’s? Labour’s? I will be particularly impressed if you’ve managed to locate Labour’s policy, which to the best of my knowledge is still little more than some consultation documents and a timeline for policy being released, but hey, if you’ve got the connections to access and analyse unreleased Government policy then please share. I find your comment to be grossly inaccurate as a statement of fact.
I also reckon that if you look through commentary and press releases on this issue you’d find more critique than compliment from the Greens on other parties’ approaches to climate change.
One component that really differentiates the Greens’ climate change approach is that they recognise climate change is not just about the environment but also social justice – that to be sustainable, any real solutions will need to be socially just. Funnily enough this doesn’t make the headlines, but to ignore it is to fail to understand that the Green Party will always see social justice and environmental sustainability as interdependent, and this will have to shape any political arrangements they get into in the future.
Molly
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Big Bro – I think you’ll find that the ‘left faction’ of the Greens is actually incredibly accommodating and pragmatic, and I’d hardly call them ‘hard-left’. There will be no split. All three individuals that you identify have actually been making huge efforts to de-radicalise themselves and become acceptable to the mainstream. You may not have noticed due to your continued adherence to your paranoid ‘reds under the bed’ outlook. None of these Green politicians are silly, and they know very well that their future and the future of the Greens lies in the centre of the political spectrum.
Bryce (www.liberation.org.nz)
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Hi Molly67
Very briefly: I agree that Labour has been pretty vacuous in terms of policy on climate change. But they have indeed had various policies and signals about what they want to do about climate change – and most of it amounts to the same market-based solutions that the Greens are heading for. The Green Party doesn’t normally criticise Labour or National for having the wrong climate change policies per se, but because they ‘don’t go far enough’ – which is quite different to a radical critique. And this comes back to the issue of the Greens failing to differentiate themselves from the other mainstream parties, and why therefore they’re only on 6%.
Your point about the Greens incorporating social justice into climate change policy is very interesting, and I’d like to know more. As far I’ve seen the Greens have been the very opposite of this (apart from, of course, some nice fluffy rhetoric). Most of the Greens climate change policies are quite anti-social or at least anti-working class. Take for example, the Greens keenness to raise petrol prices and punish people that are reliant on transport etc. Very regressive – and another reason the Greens will always appeal to only a small section of middle class voters rather than much larger working class.
Bryce (www.liberation.org.nz)
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One way in which the Green Party climate change policy is not just is that if you are a major polluter who owns a factory or electicity company you have to pay for your share of all your pollution, but if you are a farmer you only have to pay for your share of the marginal pollution after 1990. It does not sound very fair to me, considering that cow burps are the biggest cause of greenhouse gases.
Those defending this kow towing to farmers say that it is because unlike the electricity industry, there are no alternative technologies farmers can draw on. But this is nonsense. For thousands of years Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese and other great cultures have fed themselves on high quality plant proteins such as lentils, beans, peas and soy. We certainly have the technology to produce healthy, nutritious food in a far less destructive way. It is certainly true that we cannot produce cow products in a less sustaianable way, but that makes the assumption that it is desirable to keep manufacturing cow products in spite of the high cost in greenhouse gases, destruction of lakes Rotoiti, Rotorua and Taupo and drying up of Canterbury rivers. This does not sound very green to me.
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Bryce said: Take for example, the Greens keenness to raise petrol prices and punish people that are reliant on transport etc. Very regressive
It’s to pay for the provision of the public transport that is currently unavailable, Bryce – so people have a choice other than to use their cars.
And while the Greens’ tax policy is not fully developed for the 2008 election, one bit that is out there is making the first $5000 of income tax-free. This assists the people on low incomes to pay for the petrol tax increases until the public transport infrastructure is developed to the extent that they have a choice. And unlike the tax cuts that National is proposing, it will proportionately benefit low income earners much more than high income earners.
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Hi Toad
I think the Green policy on making the first $5000 of income tax-free is probably a pretty good one – although possibly it should be the first $10,000 or $20,000, I don’t know – $5,000 seems pretty a bit stingy on those on low incomes.
Yes – let’s have much more public transport, and let’s make it free. That would be a truly progressive policy and the litmus test of whether the Greens are leftwing or not. But that doesn’t help that fact that before all that happens the Greens want to hit low-income people with much higher transport costs. Please remember that the rich can easily afford to pay 10 cents or even $1 more per litre of petrol, but for the poor it’s a disaster.
If you’re going to tie petrol rises in with public transport, I think you need to adopt some sort of slogan such as:
“Free public transport first; petrol rises later”
Bryce (www.liberation.org.nz)
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Bryce was dumping Phil U part of the huge efforts to de-radicalise themselves and become acceptable to the mainstream?
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/05/28/national-open-up-massive-lead/#comment-27666
That dossier makes interesting reading.
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/?q=taxonomy/term/269
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Brethren Farmer
I don’t know much about the Phil U stuff. Certainly political parties that become obsessed with their ‘credibility’ usually become a lot less tolerant of diversity and internal democracy. I can’t say if this is the case within the Greens – but I’d certainly be interested to hear if it is. (Or indeed does it happen in the Brethen church?! Does the Brethen church even have open forums like this? Or even a blog?) The histories of the Alliance and Labour parties is one of constant marginalisation and exclusion of activists that might not be ‘on-message’. At some stage I’ll look into whether this is happening in the Greens, and I’ll let you know. I get the impression that the Greens organisational structure is evolving into a more top-down and bureaucratic nature, but I haven’t heard anything about marginalisation happening.
Bryce (www.liberation.org.nz)
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(double sigh..)
here is the respons to whaleoils’ slander..that i had to post at kiwiblog..
“..(sigh..!..)
i guess i have to respond to whale-blubbers attempt at a slag…
and dpf’s (eager) highlighting of said slander/slag..
you have forced me to visit his fetid/toxic rightwing swamp..full if piss ‘n bile..for only the second..and hopefully..the last time..
he refers to something called an alexa rating..or something..?
i haven’t got a fucken clue what he’s talking about..nor the relevance of that..
and i presume it is like all those other ‘suss’ rating systems..
in that you have to ‘sign-up’ for them..
unlike say..the likes of d.pf..who ‘works’ the internet assiduously..signing up to everything..
(and even writing his own bio in wikipedia..!..whoar.!…i thought self-spruiking was against wikipeda ‘rules’..eh..?)
unlike..say..dpf/kiwiblog..?…
whoar is ‘signed-up’ to none of those (obviously) suss rating systems..
(sheesh farrar..!..you moan about people ‘loading’/phone polls/working the system..
you’ve got a feckin’ nerve to moan about that..eh..?
nobody..but nobody..’works’ that system..more than you do..eh..?..
it’s ‘what you do’..
is there anything you aren’t signed up to.?…)
i..too..am stunned by the (ever-increasing) traffic/page-views i am getting..
and a partial explanation for that number is that i post/lodge approx 15-20 new stories each day..
and most of my readers..(most gratifyingly)..seem to link to much/most of what i have posted..
(n.b..only 17-20% of my audience/readership is local..)
but however you carve the stats up..it is still a feckin’ impressive number..
and i guess the green-eyed monster/bile is rising in your gorge ..eh david..?
‘cos there is no real factual basis to what whale-blubber alleges/slanders..
(his other assertion..re nyc.gov (not) being in my top ten readers/page-grabbers..is based on my mis-spelling of that link..
and that’s it..!..that’s the basis of his accusations..!
and david/whale-blubber..as i am about to start selling (ethical) advertising on whoar..
are you both spreading these lies/accusations as some form of commercial sabotage..?
be very careful..!..’cos that is sure as hell what it looks like..
from here..!
you are attempting to ‘hurt’/damage my commercial credibility/viability..
by printing allegations/slander..
accusing me of a most serious breach of (internet) credibility..
of lying about the actual number of page-views on my site..(!)
i demand a complete and total withdrawal of these lies/slanders..
both here..and at whale-blubbers..”
there you go..brethren farmer..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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mm..!!..’vanishing comments’..again..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Looks like the Brethren do have a blog
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/1486
I wonder if it is the same Russel?
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Toad
“It’s to pay for the provision of the public transport that is currently unavailable”
This is the biggest mistake that the Greens have made and continue to make, you are simply not going to force people to use public transport.
I know that the Greens want to make public transport safe and modern but even if they achieve that people will still chose to use their own car.
You will only achieve your goal by taxing fuel to a level where it would be political suicide.
One thing that does interest me, given that all the major motor manufactures are working on electric vehicles, when they do arrive in vast numbers what will we do with all the public transport systems that people no longer want to use?..or are the Greens against the motor car full stop?
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See comments from John Key and Nandor on EB myspace lol
http://myspace.com/114980377
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BF
A year ago the thought of the Nat’s having enough seats to govern on their own would have been fantastic, now I am not so sure.
I want them to be forced into a coalition deal with a right wing party like Act, only then will see some really progressive Douglas/Richardson style policy introduced.
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Doing nothing about climate change while you fight over who’s the most radical looks like a good way to ensure that the poorest people on the planet suffer the most. Recent reports suggest that climate change threatens to reduce India’s farm output by as much as a quarter, and the number of people in Africa at risk from coastal flooding is likely to rise from one million in 1990 to 70 million by 2080, to name just two examples. I think it’s pretty fair to say that this is the biggest social justice issue facing humanity and that there is a real moral imperative to take action quickly, and, if the action we take is in part pragmatic, human and imperfect, that will still be better than doing nothing at all.
Having said that, I would have thought that plenty of the ideas being offered up by the Greens are fairly challenging; like that all people have an equal right to emit carbon into the atmosphere, and an equal responsibility to limit those emissions; that we need renewable technology transfer from rich nations to poor ones so that developing countries can attain better living standards without wrecking the climate; even stating that in NZ polluters should pay their way is hardly timid in the face of our holy cow. Revenue recycling to mitigate the impact of defending the climate is an important part of the Greens’ climate change policy.
Petrol prices are going up no matter what any of us do because we’re running out of oil (or at least reaching peak production after which prices will pretty much only rise) and that will be worse for poor people than rich people. We can build affordable public transport options instead of more and more roads to help mitigate this. We can also lift the minimum wage, end the discrimination against beneficiary families inherent in Working For Families and Kiwisaver, significantly increasing housing corps rate of acquisition and building of state housing units to increase the total proportion of state houses in the rental market and make renting more affordable, support improvements in provision of public health care and education etc etc. These are all Green policies.
Molly
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Molly 67 – it’s rather glib of you to deal with debate about a way forward by trying and shut it down with the idea that such discussion is ‘a good way to ensure that the poorest people on the planet suffer the most’! Is that what Greens do when they disagree with someone?
Your response is typical of a certain type of narrow-minded environmentalism that says, ‘This is the only issue, and we don’t care about anything else. Only by fighting climate change will we save the poor’. This is the type of misleading statement is what makes people think the Greens aren’t really concerned for the poor or even social justice.
In terms of the Greens having ‘challenging’ policy, you have failed to produce anything. All your platitudes mentioned, such as ‘equal right to emit carbon into the atmosphere, and an equal responsibility to limit those emissions’ are pretty mindless unless backed up by concrete policy.
You say that you’re concerned about petrol prices rising, but it seems that it’s Green policy to make them rise even further! Likewise, you want power prices to go up much more too! True? The Greens are increasingly pro-business rather than pro-poor.
It says a lot about the Greens and social justice, that the party had stuff all to say about Labour’s most recent fiscally-conservative, neoliberal Budget. Instead of saying anything at all about the regressive Working for Families or the KiwiSaver con, the Greens concentrated their firepower on the fact that Labour didn’t do much for the environment. Is that all your party cares about?
I would challenge you and the Greens to take up a policy of Free Public Transport. And cheaper domestic electricity prices instead of such big profits for generators. Do you accept? Or do you just prefer the market?
Bryce (www.liberation.org.nz)
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big bro – hear, hear.
People will continue to use cars for the same reason the Green Tour is using a car. Cars are convenient, especially when you’re trying to get across town, at night, with two kids, a dog, and associated paraphernalia.
Public transport is often useful, but will never replace cars. Petrol may disappear, but electric cars are here, and getting better….
…and they require roads.
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There’s no doubt that cars are convienient, sort of the ultimate, other than an anti-gravity hover car. We all wish though that the traffic density was no more than (say) the suburbs of Ashburton. Personally I am a fan of new urbanism, I see too many cars, on the road or parked. I wonder what it would take to transform some of the older suburbs in the center of our cities?
jh
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big bruv said: This is the biggest mistake that the Greens have made and continue to make, you are simply not going to force people to use public transport. I know that the Greens want to make public transport safe and modern but even if they achieve that people will still chose to use their own car.
Why, BB? I thought you would be the first to acknowledge that people’s behaviour is determined by economics. People will use their car if it is a) cheaper, or b) more convenient, or c) they cannot trust that bublic transport is reliable, or d) there is nowhere to park the car at a reasonable cost between where they live and where they catch the public transport.
The latter of these is the biggest problem I face – I either pay for a taxi to get to the rail station ($7.00 each way) or I drive my car there. But if I drive my car there, there is nowhere within miles to park it. I don’t have the time to wlk the 40 minutes each way to the train. So driving from central Auckland to Henderson suddenly becomes a sensible economic option for me, even thought I don’t want it to be.
More trains and buses running more often; big free (know you won’t like this option BB, but only free if you have a rail or bus ticket to verify it against) parking facility right by the train/bus interchange, and a reliable service that actually runs on time because buses are not held up by commuters in their cars and rail signalling is improved beyond the current 1950s technology. This makes public transport an economically desirable option.
A few years ago, I used to have to travel from Central Auckland to Manurewa once or twice a week for my job. Everyone thought I was crazy. But I managed to do 35 minutes of work on the train, and arrived relaxed. If I had driven, I would have wasted that 35 minutes, and arrived in a much more stressed state that would not have enhanced my job perfomance when I finally got there.
People (apart from boy-racers – and that is a breed divorced from normal human response) will choose public transport – as long as it can get them where they want and when they want and is no more expensive than driving a car. It’s basic economics – you can work on a train or a bus, but you can’t work driving a car.
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Toad
Basically you have confirmed by suspicions, you will force people to use public transport.
There is no way on earth that (given the choice, and all things being equal) Kiwi’s will opt for public transport.
Using your own vehicle means you can go when you want and where you want, sure it might be that a bus will come along every 5 mins but it may not be going where you want it to go.
If you take my home town of Wellington as an example, if I still lived in the eastern suburbs and wanted to get to Karori I would have to wait for one bus to take me down the hill, then get on another to take me to the railway station then get another to take me to Karori, that journey would take at least two hours.
A car journey would take me no longer than 35 mins.
Pouring billions into public transport is a short term plan and one that will prove to be a huge waste of money, electric cars are coming, it is better to build roads now and reap the rewards later.
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big bro said: There is no way on earth that (given the choice, and all things being equal) Kiwi’s will opt for public transport.
If that is the case, we are doomed (as Pte Fraser from Dad’s Army would have said). If Kiwis want to contribute to a NZ physical geography that in 300 or 400 years time consists of Taranaki Island, Ruapehu Island and the Great Southern Spit, then so be it.
Personally, I think most of us can be persuaded there are things more important for our future than driving cars because it is convenient. Funny thing is, BB, that people in Melbourne or Paris or Mumbai or London – all much larger cities than any in New Zealand – seem to cope with using public transport and not driving cars every day, even given the infrastructure problems in Mumbai and Paris.
BTW – when did you last take the Hummer off-road?
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Putting your decline into name-calling to one side, I think that if you take a closer look, Bryce, you’ll find your accusations are mistaken. The Greens were outspoken critics on the regressive impact of Kiwisaver. Sue Bradford, and I think also Jeanette, raised it in the House, Russell blogged about it, Sue put out a press release on it. I guess it didn’t get much pick up because the media were more interested in the ‘lack of sustainability’ critique the Greens were also running with. The Greens have also raised the problems with Working for Families on many occasions. I think you need to recognise that everything the Greens say and do doesn’t wind up on Morning Report or in the Herald (or whichever media outfits you’re using to base your assumptions on).
And, I would never say ‘only by fighting climate change will we save the poor’ (actually I’d never presume to be able to ‘save’ anyone, but they’re your words not mine), because I don’t see addressing climate change as the solution to everything bad in the world ever. That would be a really stupid position to take. What I do think is that failing to address climate change is going to have a massively disproportionate and incredibly detrimental impact on the well being poor people. You’ve been very critical of the Greens seeing this as a high priority issue – is this because you don’t recognise the enormous social justice implications we’re facing? Is it because you’ve come up with a better, more likely to succeed way to face this crisis? If so, I’m sure that your ideas would be welcomed by the Greens.
Re free public transport: personally, I think free public transport sounds like a good policy, and I hope that those in the Greens who are involved with developing policy (it gets done by the membership, not on the blog) give it serious consideration.
Molly
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big bro said: if I still lived in the eastern suburbs and wanted to get to Karori I would have to wait for one bus to take me down the hill, then get on another to take me to the railway station then get another to take me to Karori, that journey would take at least two hours.
Because the service is not integrated. Auckland is the same – I can’t find a bus anywhere west of Symonds Street that will take me ACROSS the Northwestern motorway.
It’s just dumb routing and timetabling – why can’t the bus from the Wellington eastern suburbs go straight up Arot Stree and Northland Road to Karori, dropping off those who want to go to Downtown Wellington or north to connect an immediately departing bus to the Railway Station?
Answer to rhetorical question? Because there are too many cars in the way, so no-one can be certain when the bus from the eastern suburbs will actually turn up at the Aro St Willis St intersection to make the connection.
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I lived in London and took the Tube. I liked the Tube.
But I also had a car.
The Tube made sense going to and from work. The car made sense for getting the groceries , carting stuff about, and traveling into the home counties.
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Molly67 said: Re free public transport: personally, I think free public transport sounds like a good policy, and I hope that those in the Greens who are involved with developing policy
Hmm. I’m still skeptical about free public transport. I don’t think it is the cost that deters people – using public transport is actually cheaper than using a car, when you take the maintenace and depreciation costs of running a car into account. I think the real deterrents to people using public transport are the issues of frequency, routing and reliability.
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PeterExitsLeft said: The Tube made sense going to and from work. The car made sense for getting the groceries , carting stuff about, and traveling into the home counties.
Yep, good choice, Peter. I’m not saying people should never use cars – there will always be times that they are the more convenient option. Personaly, I wouldn’t fancy lugging the monthly major grocery shop home on the train or bus.
But, as in your experience Peter, if public transport is convenient and cheap, people will use it more. That gets cars off the road and helps to solve both the the emissions problem and the congestion problem.
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Toad
The trip to Karori would still take a lot longer by bus than it would by car.
Say I wanted to go to Wadestown, are you saying that we should provide a bus every 5 mins for every possible journey I might want to take?
It is and will remain a matter of convenience, my car is available when I want it and will go where ever I want it.
And please, do not expect me to agree with you about the future geography of NZ, even Al Gore cannot get away with statements like that any longer.
And as for the Hummer, just today i was out doping a little bush bashing, sadly i did not come across any duck hunters.
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big bro said: And please, do not expect me to agree with you about the future geography of NZ, even Al Gore cannot get away with statements like that any longer.
Okay, I’ll admit to a little exaggeration on what I understand the current scientific predictions to be. But it is happening, we’re just not quite sure how fast.
As for the trip to Wadestown – as above, I’m not saying never use the car. What I’m saying is that if public transport were faster, more frequent, and went where more people wanted to go less people would feel the need to.
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Is anyone else tired of hearing the woes of Aucklanders and Wellingtonians on frogblog ?
If a region wants its citizens to use Public Transport, it needs to plan, provide (including incentives) and integrate well ahead of “demand”.
That is what has happened in Christchurch and surrounding areas … to the benefit of us all.
I take my metrocard with me everywhere I go.
Visit http://www.metroinfo.org.nz … and stop moaning please!!
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“But, as in your experience Peter, if public transport is convenient and cheap, people will use it more. That gets cars off the road and helps to solve both the the emissions problem and the congestion problem.”
Sure. The Johnsonville Line could also use some work, but there’s no arguing with the price, or the scenery. In Tokyo and London the underground is a great way to get around – I used them all the time.
I guess I don’t like the rabid anti-car stance that pops through on occasion. They’re useful and needed. As are roads.
How can we make the best use of both? Can we afford mass-transit systems?
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# big bro Says:
May 29th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
>The trip to Karori would still take a lot longer by bus than it would by car.
>Say I wanted to go to Wadestown, are you saying that we should provide a bus every 5 mins for every possible journey I might want to take?
There are lots of exceptions like this, trips which can’t easily be done by public transport. But what proportion of all trips in the city do they make up?
I suspect they make up well under 50% of trips, but even if we assume they’re 50%, we could still easily replace the other 50% with public transport. And think of the reduction in corgestion that would lead to! You’d have to spend a huge amount on roadbuilding to reduce congestion by that much.
Of course, a lot of that increase would have to be catered for by light rail, because if we did it with buses on existing routes, there are some parts of the inner city that would become much more congested.
I suspect that when we switch to electric cars we’ll have to reduce traffic by more than 50% anyway, because otherwise the amount of extra electricity we’d have to generate to power the cars would be absolutely huge.
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Good call eredwin. I think I’ve only spent 7 days in Christchurch over 3 trips there in the last 3 years, but whenever I wanted to go anywhere, there was a bus route – and they all ran on time.
Please don’t gloat though, I know Christchurch is the only city in NZ that has got its public transport act together, despite not having a rail network (and I think it could be even better with light rail in the inner city). You’ve even got a decent airport bus service that goes as far as Cashmere.
But I’m not solely to blame for the legacy of 50 years of pork barrel politics in Auckland that has resulted in the serious infrastructure problems we now have to face here – although I will admit that I could have put more effort into campaigning harder for Green local solutons a lot earlier than I did. So I do think I have some right to complain.
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Absolutely Toad,
Auckland public transport is third world standard. No intergration, dangerous, unreliable, not on time, etc.
No we dont moan about it, eredwen, we just dont use it.
And never will until it is well patrolled to make it save, the rolling stock (especially for rail) is bought up to first world standards, the stations are located at places were people actually live, work or shop, the bus and train timetables and stations/stops are intergrated (so I can catch a train to the CBD and catch a bus from the train station to the North Shore), etc.
Count your lucky stars that Christchurch is so fully intergrated, when Auckland public transport is, we will use it. Untill then we need to use our cars.
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Yawn. Seems like Deja Vu to me. Yet another “saviour” National Party coming along to rescue the National Party from its irrelevance with a single policy platform, specious statements, and through engaging in a desperate frenzy of vote buying through unachievable promises of taxcuts. Yeah unachievable and he’s pretty much admitted as much. He admits that he will have to BORROW the money. Sure we’ll gain at the very least a whopping $6 a week and at most $90. The party itself doesn’t even agree on the tax cuts. Bill English believes that they should maintain Cullen’s fiscal conservatism. Hilarious a penny-pinching Labour Party and a spendthrift National Party. Who would have thought? Labour are Nats who dress in red every election year.
The big deal isn’t that I’m pissed at how much he’d get compared to me, but because myself and my children will be potentially missing out on important services due to the fact that we’ll be paying for something that will be in effect pointless. Will we immediately stop our engaging in a frenzy of consumer spending financed through debt? One average we’re already spending 143% of our income and I don’t think tax cuts will change that. Its a proven fact that we can’t manage our own money. Just look at the evidence. Oh the government is to blame shout the neocons. I don’t think so. The sunny days of cheap and easy credit and rising house prices aren’t going to last forever. Its gonna come and bite us in the butt big time.
Our economy is just too fragile if we continue along this trend. Also the people who are the most vulnerable will be those who will be hurt most and Labour hasn’t done anything to address that problem. Most of those people won’t be able to afford KiwiSaver and not all poor people have families. The middle classes will be ok with their parachutes provided by good ole Dr. Cullen.
Sad. A choice between sucky and suckier. Now I know how the Americans feel. Maybe I’ll just console myself with some retail therapy. Oooh Big Screen TV. Only 3,999. 20% interest. Doh!
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BB say: “electric cars are coming, it is better to build roads now and reap the rewards later.”
is this an admission that peak oil is coming?
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Don’t write the Greens off. With the support for the major two parties now accounting for 80% of voters the smaller parties have been feeling the squeeze. in this light, polling around 6-10% ain’t too bad.
Expect any or all of the small parties to disappear at the next election, with the exception of the Maori party. It’ll be a war of attrition, but if smaller parties can survive then they’ll be in a strong position to increase their influence and grow their support.
I hope that the Greens survive this cleanout and frame themselves as willing and able to proactively work with both sides. I’m getting a general sense that many Green Party members are reaching the same conclusion, but I may be wrong and the whole shibang may implode were we to facilitate a national gummint.
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For those advocating “free” (i.e. paid for compulsorily by others) public transport may wish to note that transport modelling indicates that it achieves relatively low reductions in private motoring, but tends to mainly encourage a massive shift from walking and cycling (why walk when the free bus comes around every 10-15 minutes). There is nothing green (or healthy) about pricing people off their feet and bikes and onto buses, plus the increase in demand at peak times would be enough to cost a sheer fortune in extra trains and buses that sit around most of the day and night sitting idle – someone has to pay for that, instead of hospitals, schools or mortgage repayments.
If anyone thinks Auckland public transport is third world, then try using the buses in most US cities – local authority/union dominated and hopelessly run down, inefficient and unattractive. Auckland’s system has improved tremendously in the last decade, it was far worse under the ARA which rarely invested in new buses, refused to integrate with other modes and bus operators, and which actively sought to close what was left of the rail system. It was Tranz Rail that did a deal with Transit (the public transport funder at the time) to save Auckland passenger rail with a 10 year contract that included buying the secondhand Perth trains – that was the start of what Auckland has now.
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eredwen said..
“..Is anyone else tired of hearing the woes of Aucklanders and Wellingtonians on frogblog ?..”
um..!..eredwen…
seeing as a) you already have a little ripper of a public transport system..
and we have none..
and that b).. as most south island roads are like big empty billiard tables..
and most north island ones are cart-tracks..
d’yareckon..instead of gloating/jafa-bashing..sth islanders could/should give up their (un-needed) share of the road tax for a couple of years..?
y’know..!..so we could catch up..?
should i hold my breath..?..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Toad, Yes Christchurch has an excellent bus system and a reasonable network of cycle tracks and cycle lanes. Problem is Chch has more cars per capita than Auckland and more travel delay than Auckland except in the morning peak. The fundamental problem is that congestion is caused by both too much traffic and too much disruption to the flow of traffic. As I understand it the effect of traffic growth is exponential at intersections. As an immediate improvement for cycle safety and emmisions/fuel efficiency key arterial intersections on the ring road and the bypass need flyovers, but in the medium term the green belt needs to be protected by statute from being subdivided otherwise urban sprawl is going to undo any investment in any transport infrastructure.
JH is right, we need to get serious obout making new urbanism the cornerstone of regional planning.
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If Auckland is serious about PT why are its super low floor buses made in Ashburton instead of Auckland? So much for the economic theory that businsesses need to be located close to their biggest customers!
jh, Ashburton does have one thing in common with Auckland. The only way to get from Ashburton to its “suburb” of Tinwald is over the SH1 bridge. Naturally this causes “congestion”, generally not much below the speed limit on this section of SH1 but only half the speed limit on SH1 between Albany and Manurewa!
Phil U, are you sure you know which way north is. The South Islands 40% of the roading network has to paid for by only one quarter of the nation’s traffic. Since maintenance is a cost per km not per light vehicle km there isnt much left over for safety improvements hence the high rate of serious crashes per vehicle km travelled when the South Islands higher seatbelt wearing rate and lower drink driving rates are taken into account. According to LTSA surveys average speeds are same in South Island and rural North Island. They only look billiard table smooth, sub-base rehabilitation intervals are well in excess of AASHTO recomendations so the pavements are actually unpredictably irregular. This helps visitors to find themselves driving “too fast for the conditions” 50% more often than in the North Island.
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Kervyn,
“The South Islands 40% of the roading network has to paid for by only one quarter of the nation’s traffic.”
Can you explain?
Sounds double dutch to me.
I would have thought that most of the South Island roads have been paid for by ALL New Zealand tax payers.
Including the 50% that live above the Bombay hills.
That is State Highways, which I would suggest is about 80% of the South Island roads.
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Liberty
Nobody here advocated “free”. I think the Green point of view is that it wants government funding to get it up to a competitive standard, which is not unlike the situation everywhere else on the planet.
Auckland and Wellington have particularly difficult topological problems that Christchurch simply does not have. Auckland has an additional problem of massive and unplanned-for growth.
I don’t really accept the broad argument that increased mass transit reduces bicycle usage either. I can’t agree with such generalizations as each city is quite different and each situation is different.
Does good public transit take people off of bicycles? How’s the weather? Were any real bike paths built? What’s the traffic separation like (safety)? Over what distances? People make the decisions about safety and convenience as individuals depending on the situation they see on the ground. Good public transit alters a lot of decisions including where one lives, and the function that keeps the car numbers at an uncomfortably high level is an optimization of choices, where to live in relation to where one works, how far to travel to get to how good a neighbourhood to raise children… How much did the overall number of people moved grow?
As for the US, the cities are largely starved for capital. The Feds have siphoned off huge amounts of money to pay for the practice targets that they supply for free to the Al Quaeda cells in Iraq. The financial situation is so parlous as to be a joke. Not just transit but everything else public is under the hammer. That’s part of the reason for the badness… the rest has to do with pricing for petrol and cars vs roads and transit improvements. Bicycles are still, in some parts of the country, regarded as targets if they are on the roads. Situations are not comparable but you’re dead right that the public transit in a lot of towns in the USA would struggle to rise to third world standards.
respectfully
BJ
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Hey Molly
I think you better go and have a look at the press releases section of the Green Party website, and you’ll see that your party has had stuff all to say about the Budget – and within these media release there was very little of substance about the general rightwing nature of the Budget. Here are the *only three* press releases following the Budget:
Budget takes teensy-weensy steps towards sustainability
http://greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10859.html
Petrol tax should fund rail electrification, not roads
http://greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10867.html
Hidden tax cut potential for top earners within Budget
http://greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10868.html
Even on Frogblog, there was this was basically nothing involving a leftwing critique of the Budget. Have a look at the *two* posts:
Not a great budget for sustainability
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/05/17/not-a-great-budget-for-sustainability/
budget. not.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/05/18/budget-not/
The last one was especially disappointing. I kinda expected that Frogblog would be a bit more radical or at least a forum for the party to have real debate, but these postings said stuff all.
And rather than name calling, I just called your very glib argument ‘rather glib’! Or maybe you were offended by me suggesting that you are being ‘narrow-minded’. If so, I apologise. But the fact remains you still haven’t managed to show how the Green’s policy on climate change is qualitatively different from Labour and National’s. The Green leadership seem to be selling the bogus idea of market carbon trading as the solution. No?
By the way, yes I am indeed doing some analysis of climate change solutions at the moment, and will try to post these on my blog in June – so please keep reading it. See: http://www.liberation.org.nz
Bryce
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Gerrit,
I think he believes that road taxes are allocated to roading proprotionate to population not proportionate to need. So South Island with 25% of the nation’s population has to pay for 40% of the roadage in New Zealand. It would make more sense to allocate it as you believe it should be allocated, but you never know with government.
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now..colour me thick as pig-sh*t..
but i can’t make head nor tail of the roading costs formulas provided by kervyn and treehugger..
how do you work out that south islanders pay for all their roads..?
are they not subsidised just by the higher population/tax-take in the north..?
and yes..the sth island fights tooth and nail for every roading cent they can..
but this is just an ugly face/side of self-interest/parochialism…
whereas the actual need for that funding is to fix highway one etc..
in the north island..
cos’ it is those cart-tracks that are the major cause of road deaths..
(not..ahem..!..’boy-racers’..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil u, I work it out by reading the annual reports of the funding agencies, not by listening to the ugly parochialism of the Auckland mayoral forum or the Prime Minister of Auckland.
Gerrit and SleepyTreehugger, LTNZs National Traffic Database shows the South Island has 32% of city street km, 46% of district road km, 45% of State Highway km and 25% of vehicle km travelled, 26% of RUCs and petrol taxes. LTNZs annual reports for the last few years show the South Island received 26% of the funds allocated for maintenance, 16% of capital investment, and 14% of PT funding.
South Island roads aren’t that much cheaper to build and maintain hence standards are actually lower.
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Cheers Phil, makes sense now.
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kevyn..have you ever heard the saying..”..can’t see the wood for the trees..”..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil u
Have you ever heard the saying “There’s none so blind as he who will not see.” (Jonathon Swift)
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see what..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Once the volume of cars reaches a critical mass it becomes too dangerous to cycle. I was bowled once at a roundabout in Chch. Who would ask their kids to cycle these days?
Our suburbs are based on the assumption that fuel will always be cheap (looking in the rear vision mirror). While this may be where people want to live, the net result is self defeating to a degree. Private enterprise fails to provide an appropriate built environment as it focuses on short term profit. There are a lot of poor New Zealanders who are poor because, they live in houses which are just leaky boxes plugged into the national grid.
As an aside do a visual analysis of houses in a suburb such as Mt Pleasant. There are a lot of houses being blocked (often deliberately) by steep rooves.
jh
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The facts, phil, the facts.
As for your original questions “how do you work out that south islanders pay for all their roads..? are they not subsidised just by the higher population/tax-take in the north..?”
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/statistics/Rev-Exp.xls
or do numbers frighten you too much
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kevyn..you can play with numbers all you like..
the basic fact is that many north island roads are death-traps..
that is where the money is needed..
and maybe 95% of the tax take for a few years would do it…?
but something needs to done..eh..?
no matter what yr stats may tell you about current weightings..eh..?
see..yr stats are the trees..
and the actual state of those death-trap roads..is the forest..
capiche..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil, sometimes you can be as thick as a Totara.
The crosses beside North Island roads are the trees, the whole country is the forest, and the stats are the satelite that let us see the whole picture.
Your thinking on this issue resembles the US Agriculture department’s thinking on insect control in the 1950s and we all know that their total focus on one aspect of the insect “problem” led to Silent Spring (a ground breaking book still well worth reading).
P.S. Are you seriously advocating spending 95% of roading revenue on roads?
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Free Public Transport is a policy that is normally adopted by progressive political organisations. It’s actually a very sensible idea. I’m very surprised that the Greens can’t even bring themselves to adopt this. Geez, market-economics must be of a much stronger influence in the leadership than I realised. For what it’s worth, below are some useful arguments and discussions about the need for free public transport:
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-fare
A radical idea – The Age newspaper:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/a-radical-idea/2006/03/04/1141191889553.html
Indymedia Melbourne
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107902.php
Scottish Socialist Party:
http://www.ssp-election-2007.org.uk/free-public-transport/
Green Left Weekly:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/668/6658
Green Lefts:
http://greenlefts.blogspot.com/search/label/Free%20Public%20Transport
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stat-heads are a different breed..aren’t they..?
their devil..is the detail..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil, I’m sure Galileo and Einstein will be laughing themselves silly at your comment. Their devil ..is that facts beat bigotry everytime!
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‘bigotry’..?
oh..!..i thought we were talking about roading funding..
(silly me..!..eh..?..)
btw..how many angels do you think could fit on a pinhead..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil u, bigot – noun – a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices (Merriam-Webster).
If this is your idea of constructive debate then its not surprising that you are not exactly flavour of themonth with your local Greens.
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i think obdurate is the word you are grasping in the dark for there..dear heart..
(however wide of the mark you may be..)
kevyn with a ‘y’..how quaint..are you from alabama..?..trailer-trash..?
there’s a bit of that hanging around the auckland greens..eh..?
(yours in attempted literacy..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil – no need to get personal about the auckland greens. I can honestly say that people (including Mr you know who) still speak fondly of your previous involvement.
Basically, just wanted to communicate to you that progressive politics requires progressive organisations that can see past individual differences. I believe you will find the auckland greens to be such an organisation …
Ka kite ano.
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Bryce, you originally said: “Instead of saying anything at all about the regressive Working for Families or the KiwiSaver con, the Greens concentrated their firepower on the fact that Labour didn’t do much for the environment. Is that all your party cares about?”
However, you’ve now admitted that the Greens did in fact comment on the regressive impact of Kiwisaver – perhaps not as much as you would have liked, but basically you were misrepresenting the facts.
You might also want to have a look at the speeches the leaders gave to the conference over the weekend.
If your analysis of climate change policy is simply that if there is any use of a market at all then it’s all the same to you, and you don’t care how permits are allocated, where a cap is set, which sectors are included, and how the negative impacts are ameliorated, and you’re providing no alternative at the moment, then I guess we don’t have much to discuss, because I think all those things really matter.
Molly
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