Consider our alternatives… Nope, we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Is there a better strategy for Greens? I don’t know what it would be.

BJ

You may not like it, but that’s exactly what you’re doing.

The public perception remains to be seen, but from we’re I’m sitting, Labour and The Greens are bedfellows. Vote one, get the other.

That’s not a shambles, that’s nirvana.

We need political stability like we need a hole in the head. Pollies have holes in their heads and their brains fell out.

For the record, BB, here is the list of Bills before Parliament in the last two years that the Greens have not voted the same way as the Government on:

* Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill
* Dog Control (Cancellation of Microchipping) Bill
* Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill
* Maori Commercial Aquaculture Amendment Bill
* Maori Fisheries Amendment Bill
* Social Security Amendment Bill
* Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill
* Te Ture Whenua Maori Amendment Bill
* Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Bill
* Appropriation (2004/05 Financial Review) Bill
* Appropriation (2005/06 Financial Review) Bill
* Appropriation (2005/06 Supplementary Estimates) Bill
* Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill
* Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill
* State-Owned Enterprises (Agriquality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill
* Taxation (Depreciation Payment Dates Alignment, FBI and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
* Taxation (Savings, Investment and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

16 of them in total. As I’ve said before, the Greens decide whether to support legislation on a case by case basis.

The only “propping up” is an agreement to not vote against the Government on confidence and supply. Agreements like this is necesary to allow Governments to govern - otherwise we could have the shambles of Governments changing or new elections every 9 or 12 months and virtually no legislation being passed.

Much as you dislike the current Government (and the Greens aren’t too keen on it either, although mainly for different reasons to yours) New Zealand does need political stability between elections.

As for selling out, one has to wonder who was the buyer. It isn’t as though we take on easy or popular issues all the time.

Once again your rhetoric overruns your reason. You may not like our decisions or or methods but all decisions must be cast in the context of the knowledge available when they were taken, and any allegations that we sold out to someone for something need to be substantiated better than you are doing.

Actually we ARE in a sense, for sale. If one of the other parties decides to do what we wish to get done we will work with them. That isn’t however, the same as getting some mob of evangelical idiots to fund an election campaign in return for a policy to make some idiots idea of sin illegal.

BJ

PS Am I a w#*ker!?: I now own 2 cars! My wife owns one (1500cc Toyota). I can’t get her on a bike, so she has the car and uses public transport. I tow a trailor (house renovation and garden) and occasionally take it to work (carrying gear). My old Honda is crapping out and is going to become razor blades so I bought a 2000cc Camry. I had sort of forgotten in the heat of the moment that I had been thinking about getting deliveries of garden stuff, timber, whatever and maybe utilizing small truck hire.
Thinking about car use, peak oil etc; people will probably keep the car as a toy like the speed boat and take it out for jaunts, unless fuel becomes so scarce only essential services can use it.
jh

“Now you may not believe this, but the judgment of the Green party is not for sale and is almost invariably performance based.”

That is an outright lie BJ, if the last two years has taught us anything it is that the Greens are a sell out, as for the their judgemdnt…hell they are propping up a corrupt govt ..you call that good judgment?

Defending the Shrub is a Sisyphean task. He has failed at everything he has set out to do, except perhaps that in the act of failing he is somehow getting back at his dad. ‘Tis true he is President, elected by a minority and now widely acknowledged to be the worst the country has had in its history, even surpassing Nixon and Grover Cleveland. We are not talking about someone who requires a defense however, we are talking about his administration. An administration that rewrote the NASA mission statement to exclude earth studies, which has obstructed every effort to actually ameliorate its sorry record on the environment, which has tried to gag those scientists who speak out on the issue and which is seen above to be simply ignoring those laws that it finds inconvenient.

This isn’t unique to this issue. Cheney’s office is very clear about it. The Executive Branch is not accountable to Congress for its actions.

With the next couple of months looking like the beginning of the new American led economy of the world, I am at a loss here. We omitted the word President. This isn’t about the President or about the United States. It is about the actions of a small cabal of selfish and arrogant fools.

Now you may not believe this, but the judgment of the Green party is not for sale and is almost invariably performance based. We know exactly what Bush did. Not what he said, but what he did.

My opinion of Clinton isn’t all THAT much higher than my opinion of Bush… at least not in terms of her ethics. She speaks English better. She has different paymasters. She is likely to be a lot smarter and less prone to failure.

… but no less dangerous.

So if we are in government for some reason, would it really surprise you if we didn’t feel particularly impressed with the ethics of going to war for nothing.

… or the sanity of it.

respectfully
BJ

The mans title is President Bush.

Should you actually be a part of the next govt is it your intention to totally destroy the NZ-USA relationship?
Or will your opinion of the USA miraculously change if the unthinkable happens and we have another Clinton administration?