frogblog

Former Listener editor Finlay Macdonald had an interesting take on the Greens and United in his Sunday Star-Times column yesterday, writing:

My own hope is that [history] has also finally moved on for Peter Dunne. The pompous little performance on election night, coupled with his shrill and ignorant denunciations of the Greens, mark him out as well past his use-by date. Clark will use him if she has to, but his party plainly stands for nothing particularly interesting unless you find invoking the word “family” as though it has intrinsic mystical properties profound and shorn of its various past allegiances of convenience, United Future looks increasingly like an aberration.

It was heartening, therefore, to see Jeanette Fitzsimons take her organic hemp gloves off a little to point out that Dunne had “more bottom lines than seats in parliament”. For all his posturing as a middle-moderate, Dunne is an unreconstructed Rogernome (emphasis on the final syllable) and his “abhorrence” of the Greens merely echoes the fear and loathing they incite in orthodox business brains.

But substantially more people voted for an environmental conscience in parliament than did for Dunne, and it might behove him to realise that his precious family values won’t have much of a future without a planet fit for families to live on. Perhaps he should join his philosophical soul mates in the Exclusive Brethren, who seem to believe the Bible’s instruction that “God gave Man dominion over all the earth” was the original economic blueprint.

For now, however, the future appears to belong to parliament’s more inclusive brethren.

This “the Greens have come out of the election looking more reasonable than United Future” line of argument appears to be taking hold in the media. Dominion Post political editor Tracy Watkins writes this morning:

Negotiating the necessary agreements to scure their support on confidence and supply will require the skills of a United Nations negotiator, and maintaining stability will probably need armed peacekeepers on constant standby.

Only the Greens’ pathological reasonableness to date gives cause to hope. They have countered their critics with a charm offensive on business leaders, have shied away from demanding Cabinet posts and have posted a wish list of policy concessions that even National on a good day might find a way to accommodate.

Also, you shouldn’t read too much into the story in today’s Dominion which starts:

Two key minor parties in talks with Labour over forming the next Government have indicated they may stay outside a coalition, giving Helen Clark extra elbow room in her bid to form the new Government.

The Maori Party has signalled it will withhold formal support from both main parties while the Green Party has moderated its bid to be a coalition partner in a Labour-led Government.

The second paragraph is not accurate: the Greens have not “moderated” our bid to be in coalition with Labour. Our position during the election campaign was, and our position continues to be, that while Jeanette and Rod believe they could probably achieve most progress towards Green policy goals by being in Cabinet, becoming Ministers is not a “deal-breaker”. That is, the Greens have never said that being in Cabinet was a bottom-line to supporting a Labour-led Government. That’s because what is important is not the formal role our MPs have, but the policy programme they sign up to. If a policy programme is found that both Labour and the Greens can agree on, then that’s great.

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