Russel Norman

Working with the Government via MoU

Published: March 19, 2010

by Russel Norman

The Green Party’s agreement with the Government took a step forward today – a small, practical and principled step.

The latest news is that we’ve agreed with National on a draft proposal for the regulation of natural health products.  Natural health products includes many vitamin and herbal supplements as well as lotions, gels and shampoos. 

New Zealanders have a right to know these types of products are safe and it is government’s job to set up and monitor rules to ensure safety.  That’s a fairly straightforward idea, but it got complicated under the previous Labour government that wanted to regulate natural health products jointly with Australia. 

Our Sue Kedgley has worked persistently on this issue for many years and now we’re that much closer to rules that are better for local businesses and protect consumer.  Good stuff.

It is one of three areas where we are working with National under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed last year.  The biggest of the three is the $323 million home insulation fund that has proved wildly popular and is on track to make 180,000 New Zealand homes warmer and drier, lowering power bills for families and health costs for the country. 

We’ve also got in behind John Key’s national cycleway where Kevin Hague is providing expert advice so that Nga Haerenga is designed to work well for both tourists and locals.  We tried to work with the Nats on energy efficiency as well, but couldn’t make any progress there and withdrew that topic from the MoU.

Nearly a year on since we signed the working agreement, it’s timely to ask how it’s going.

There are the practical, tangible measures – homes getting insulation into the ceilings and under their floors, the Waikato River Trail open for cycling – and then there’s the political component which is a bit harder to measure.

We think it’s important for the Greens to contribute to good government where we can – even from Opposition.  If a piece of policy or legislation matches up with our values then we want to support it and work to make it better.  The MoU gives us a framework to work constructively with National when we have common ground.  We have found some common ground and got good results in the three areas listed.

We’ve copped flack from Labour MPs for this approach but we think this is a mature approach. We also note that, as at February 18, Labour had supported 63 of National’s bills at third reading while the Greens had supported only 42 of them. We think our approach is independent, principled and practical.

It’s not a long list of MoU work, but we don’t have a whole lot of common ground with National.  We disagree with John Key’s Government a lot more than we agree and we knew it was important to maintain our independence in any working relationship. 

The MoU is designed so that we are unconstrained. We do have the freedom to voice our views loudly and clearly and we’re doing that.  As just one example, I think it’s fair to say we’ve helped change the agenda when it came to plans to mine the conservation estate.  Speaking up against bad policy is a powerful tool.

So practical steps forward where we can and the freedom to voice our opposition elsewhere.  In sum, the agreement is working as best it can given National’s agenda and the Green Party’s beliefs.  It’s an honest approach – we stick to our values and you know where we stand.

Published in Parliament by Russel Norman on Fri, March 19th, 2010   

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