Dextro-generosity
The Right continue to generously help advertise the vacancies here at the Green Parliamentary Office.
Following Gerry Brownlee’s and DPF’s free plugs a couple of weeks ago, ACT’s The Letter today has a crack at helping us find some staff. Admittedly they describe our ten vacancies as a “bloodbath” and “nearly a complete clean out of existing staff”, which may not help :).
For the record, the jobs going are all either entirely new positions or replacing people who left when their previous contracts ended after the election. Unlike ACT, no mass lay-offs have been required :).
The Letter also questions the accountability of the Ministerial Liaison positions that will be working with Jeanette and Sue B.
OK, I’ll lay it out for everyone’s benefit.
The Green Spokespeople on Energy Efficiency and Buy Kiwi-Made are, like any MP given responsiblity by the Executive, accountable to their respective ministers. So, within the terms of these specific tasks, Jeanette is answerable to Energy Minister David Parker and Sue is answerable to Trevor Mallard. Curiously enough, the two Ministers are happy to carry the ultimate responsibility for the Green MPs’ actions in these areas.
So if Rodney or Heather have any parliamentary questions about what Jeanette or Sue have been up to, they can ask David and Trevor respectively.
The Right and some commentators continue to try and make out that these sorts of arrangements are unusual. While it is odd to have a foreign minister outside Cabinet, there are European precedents for parties that are not formally part of the Government to have cooperation agreements that give them portfolio-specific responsibilities within it.
A Green example (that I can find easily) was in place in Sweden at the turn of the century. The Swedish Greens’ 2000 English-language Report on government cooperation says:
…the negotiation agreement includes economy, employment, environment, a fairer distribution of income among different groups and gender equality. The collaboration works on different levels: on the state budget (twice a year, in the fall and spring), on selected propositions, in the parliamentary committees, special working groups, informal co-operation, as well as other contacts. Thus, the co-operation is not perfect. Special fields are not included: EU-policy, defence policy, foreign policy and the pension system. In these fields, [the Social Democrat Government] is working together with the conservative parties.
December 12th, 2005 at 6:19 pm
Hey Frog, here is an idea. You could go the “open source route” and use the free advice of all and sundry from this website when determining policy. It would save some taxpayer dollars and it would be self-selecting. The experts on the particular issue that you needed policy advice on would tend to come to the forefront depending on what the question at hand was. You could call it an “open policy community”. Just like Linux and Wikipedia, order would magically emerge from the seeming chaos of a bunch of people that care. And then we wouldn’t have to quit our day jobs
December 12th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
funnily enough alexi, the canadian greens have tried this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_Canada_Living_Platform
December 12th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
Frog, is there any chance of having threads posted for green press releases?
They r often quite good and would also b good if available for people to post “bravo” or whateva the opinion being expressed is.
Thanks.
December 12th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
alexi..yes…stuey..yes..even..yes…
i think in racing circles it is called a trifecta….good ideas…one and all..
(i love that concept of order forming out of seeming-chaos….:)
i also particularly like the idea of allowing open acess for commentary/input…with that openess extended/welcomed to all political ideologies…
good ideas are not necessarily the provence of any particular persuasion…eh..?…
(and i do love the smell of a good idea on a summers morning..)
(btw..can i cite how close the greens and act(ready ideologues..?..boo-hiss!..) are on the question of the need to move taxation from the individual..to a system of user-pays..as in the corporates having to pay the real environmental costs of their efforts/endeavours…
both may word it differently…but they end at the same destination…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
December 12th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Hmm, would like links on that, phil, for both ACT and the Greens.
I guess the Green policy would have some effect in that direction, if personal tax rates were dropped and the difference made up with carbon charges and so on which would impact corporates as well as individuals, there would be some shift. Unless the tax system was further altered to make sure the policy also had a zero impact on corporates (as a group). Don’t think I’ve seen anything proposing that change, but I’m no expert.
ACT on the other hand? I don’t know if they’ve ever said anything remotely like that. Arguing for user pays on pollution is not at all necessarily the same as arguing for a shift from individual to corporate tax.
Just because two parties both promise a better world, doesn’t mean it is the same better world.
December 12th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
btw..a good point to make with the righties is to point out the fact that “..we are actually sudsidising these corporates…and these subsidies must end.”
(said in a suitably stentorian tone…)
then see them flock to your pennant…like lemmings…(they actually wet-dream at night of being in a position to ‘end subsidies’….those righties…:)
phil(whoar.co.nz
December 12th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
pip…google is your friend…
i’m just the guy up on the hill…pointing in the general direction…:)
(can i suggest their respective websites…and look for threads…(btw you aren’t a virgo ..are you..?..because if so..you know you’ll have difficulties with the thread thing..eh..?..you might need to get someone to help..eh..?………try a sagittarius..:)
also pip..if you are on the case…check out the respective drug policies…i think you’ll find a lot of actites far more liberal on that than a lot of greens..eh..?..actually you’ll find any group will have people more liberal on recreational drugs than many in the greens….(though it is often an age thing….the younger are ‘huh!..so what!..”..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
December 12th, 2005 at 11:48 pm
Sidebar to that Canadian Green thing : I heard the other day (but I’m too lazy to check it out) that Wikipedia itself no longer allows anonymous contributions. Following a defamation thing in the US.
Loss of innocence. Boo hoo.
December 13th, 2005 at 12:03 am
free market, free trade etc etc Just cause right wings control media etc doesn’t mean everyone has to “buy” their semantics. Why, for example, the most “enlighened” free “ownership” society in the world, the “U.S” want to regulate the ownership of weapons of mass destruction? Surely the free market will self regulate this for the benefit of all?
It’s inevitable off course that those of a weaker mind will side with whateva the controling authority of the time is saying cause it gives them a chance to hit out at a designated target and feel superior. Which of course leads us to the ultimate free marketers, facists. Cause the word “free” has logically in their conditioned mind become a synonym for subjugation, and this is liberalism appearently, be that of the environment or fellow man.
I just wish these higher beings would sod off!! And i know that the price of having an opinion is that you have to put up with other opinions. But why can’t these Act “liberals” go to their own message boards cause their comments to me, seem to be in the wrong thread and the right thread is their own board.
December 13th, 2005 at 12:35 am
even said: “Why, for example, the most “enlighenedâ€? free “ownershipâ€? society in the world, the “U.Sâ€? want to regulate the ownership of weapons of mass destruction? Surely the free market will self regulate this for the benefit of all?”
Very well said! (and thanks for making me laugh.)
eredwen
December 13th, 2005 at 10:01 am
Ah, right I get it Phil, you’re not actually referring to ACT policy or the statements of their spokespeople at all, just reflecting your understanding of some of their member’s views. Sorry, that’s not how I read your post.
Yeah sure, but, um, so what?
I realise google is my friend, which is why I used it, and when I didn’t get very far, I figured that asking someone who already knows for their sources is also your friend. Unless, of course, they don’t have any sources.
Oh, and the drug policies? I’d love to check out the ACT drug policy, maybe you could, um, point me at it, cos as far as I can tell, it doesn’t exist.
December 13th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Alistair, wikipedia still allows anonymous contributions. The recent change was that anonymous contributors are no longer able to start articles. This is good idea for stopping (or at least slowing) the increase in ridiculous stupid little articles that have no place in an encyclopedia.
December 13th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
pip….you are a virgo…..qed….:)
phil(whoar.co.nz0
December 13th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
re allowing comments for press releases, I don’t think there should be threads on frogblog for them, but the press releases themselves should allow comments.
BTW, This was one of the 4 things I suggested for my “personal manifesto”
One of the other four was public websites should be accessible to the disabled - I presume that loopy lucyna is also against wheelchair ramps on public buildings. 
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2005/09/09/top-ten-priorities/#com ment-4917
which lucyna said were 4 good reasons to keep the greens out of government