“the Green party in the ideal position to declare itself neutral ”

I agree with Samiam. However, I sense the unspoken agenda will never allow it.

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I would say they simply all believe they have a solution to a problem – no party doesn’t care, it just seems that way to people who disagree with the method!

How has the tail wagged the dog if everyone is pissed off with Labour ? NZ1, UF and the Greens have all gotten small policies of their own enacted (and one big-ish if you count the Section 51 bill), but the last 9 years have been owned by Labour.

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Greengeek

What you suggest is a nice idea but totally unworkable in the real world.

As long as you have those who passionately believe in the states right to run our life’s and those of us who feel just as strongly that the state has a very limited role in how we live then nothing will change.

MMP has not delivered because you have the tail wagging the dog and to suggest that we need to find a way to force the parties to put aside their beliefs defies reality.
Who is going to decide what the “hole in the hull” is and who is going to decide what the remedy is, you are NEVER going to get total agreement.

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That’s easy Geek in the case of the Greens. It’s name is it’s policy. That puts the Green party in the ideal position to declare itself neutral and to have green, and green only, party policy. On all other issues its MP’s could conscience vote.
It need not have a pro Labour or National bent, just pro sustainability.
I know that I, for one, am not a supporter of the Green party per-se. I am a supporter of green policy and if Rodney or Winston or whoever comes up with a workable sustainable imitative then I’ll be right behind it.
I’d like to think that a huge number of kiwis are that way inclined as well.

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BluePeter Says: “The left are always 100% up front, open and transparent, eh. They’re different. �

Sam Buchanan Says: I reckon the left, or what passes for it these days (The Greens, Alliance, obscure Marxist churches), are more up front than the right (Labour, National, NZ First, whatever Peter Dunne’s party is called)

big bro Says: Any slim hope that the left might have harbored to retain power has been swept aside by the arrogance of Clark over the anti smacking referendum.
Why are the left so scared of public opinion?, what is so wrong with the public having their say on matters like this?.

big bro Says: In nine years or so you may well be right, hopefully by then we will have seen the emergence of a real right wing party instead of Labour lite masquerading as National.

Is anyone else as sick as I am of our political spectrum being seen as two dimensional; left and right?

It just doesn’t stack up anymore to see our leaders as either on the left, or on the right.

Every issue is multi-dimensional, and we simply MUST start to expect our political representatives to represent us more maturely.

How can anyone argue with the idea of an incoming government aiming for fiscal responsibility?? It is not “right wing” to want to balance the books. It is simply foolish to do anything else.

It is not “left wing” to provide benefits for old people and sick people, it is simply foolish, shortsighted and uncaring to do anything else.

Surely there must be a political system somewhere that stops unnecessary polarisation into “left and right wings”, and reaches multi-party understandings on critical issues.

That is what I was hoping for when I voted for MMP. There is no way I want to go back to First-Past-The-Post, but MMP has not delivered.

We must find a way to force our political parties to put aside their artificial polarisation. We are all sharing the same boat, regardless of whether the hole in the hull is on the right hand side or the left!!

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Yeah! I always make a point of asking people who profess to detest everything Labour stands for – and therefore are going to vote National – why they don’t just go and vote ACT, and it’s inevitably a variant on ‘they’re too corporate’/'I’m actually happy to some tax, just not as much as I do now’/'they’re crazy’! All seems a little at odds with ‘detesting Labour values’, but there you go.

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“hopefully by then we will have seen the emergence of a real right wing party instead of Labour lite masquerading as National.”

How about ACT and the Libertarianz? There seems to be a pretty goood right-wing spectrum available, just that nobody much wants to vote for it.

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Well yes I thought some would see National now as left-ish, but am reluctant to say so myself without a lot more policy.

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Stephen

In nine years or so you may well be right, hopefully by then we will have seen the emergence of a real right wing party instead of Labour lite masquerading as National.

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I’m sure you’ll get the chance to substitute ‘right’ for ‘left’ there sometime in the next few years BB…

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Any slim hope that the left might have harbored to retain power has been swept aside by the arrogance of Clark over the anti smacking referendum.

Why are the left so scared of public opinion?, what is so wrong with the public having their say on matters like this?.

The breathtaking way that Clark and co have totally ignored the wish of the people will see them hammered at the next election.

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I thought it was our election not their election. Hmmmm

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samiam said: Why doesn’t NZ have set election dates?

Very good question. I suspect it is because whoever has been the majority party in Government (be it Labour or National) over the years wants to retain an unfair advantage by being able to call the date of the election to suit themselves.

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National – the policies you have when you’re not having any policies – or any that is, that they want you to know about before they’re elected.

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May be right john-ston, but I don’t really think they’ll be that innovative, and if they’re actually palatable to Labour, that just means we’re going to basically have a Labour government with bigger tax cuts…but hey, at least they’ll get elected right?

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Why doesn’t NZ have set election dates?
No party would release policy into the current vacuum.

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The National Party does in my opinion, have a good reason for not releasing policy – all their popular ideas tend to get stolen by the Labour Party. If they release policy too early, then Labour would pinch it and National would be relegated to another three years in Opposition.

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Patience, BP. We haven’t seen much National Party policy either. I’m sure all will be revealed over the next few months.

Unlike the Nats, who sometimes seem to make theirs up on the spot, the Greens do have a good excuse – their policy development process involves democratic membership participation. Usually several rounds of consultation to get a membership consensus agreement to each policy.

As a Green member I’ve got a couple of documents requesting membership input into the Greens Sustainable Business and Industrial Relations policies sitting in front of me right now. The policies obviously can’t be released until the process is complete.

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Dunno. I’m not seeing much detail surrounding the Green Charter, for example.

When we ask “exactly what does this mean/how will you achieve it”, very few answers are forthcoming.

One wonders why that is?

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“The left are always 100% up front, open and transparent, eh. They’re different. ”

I reckon the left, or what passes for it these days (The Greens, Alliance, obscure Marxist churches), are more up front than the right (Labour, National, NZ First, whatever Peter Dunne’s party is called) – they usually have a lot of policy heads who love to talk about their plans and schemes. I’m not suggesting this leads to good ideas, but at least we know what they stand for.

This might be just a matter of size – small parties tend to be more willing to put up policies and ideas than the large ones who rely on momentum, compliant media and government money to get votes.

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