Party Co-Leader Russel Norman was a notable exception, choosing a blue tie that matched his eyes, but core green issues dominated his campaign speech.

Russel spoke of the grey future for Mt Albert decimated by Labour’s dumb underground tunnel and National’s dumber aboveground motorway, contrasting the drab old party scenarios of communities getting sliced and diced by busy roads with a Green vision of the future.

In the Green future we move towards modern high speed rail and bus networks. We protect our remaining greenspace like along Oakley Creek where I’ve just come from, we clean up our creeks and harbours. We make our streets safe for kids to ride a bike and walk to school.

People from all our many cultures meet and chat on the street or at the farmers market and isolated individuals become part of a community. It is a future where no-one lives in poverty and where no child is consigned from birth to a life without opportunity.

That future resonated with the supportive family audience who packed out the meeting room of Oakridge house in the grounds of Unitec in Mt Albert.

The young stars of the Green Party’s latest billboard campaign were welcomed into the limelight by a paternal looking Russel, who warmly thanked them for their modelling efforts. Some of the youngsters even asked him to autograph copies of their campaign posters.

‘Vote for an Aussie, get a Maori’ is one of the light hearted campaign lines. One appreciated by Dave Clendon, who is number 10 on the Green Party list, and will join Dr Norman in Parliament if he wins the Mt Albert seat.

Dave (Ngapuhi), a business consultant for the Sustainable Business Network, started the proceedings off in appropriate fashion with a mihi in te reo Maori, and introduced both Russel and fellow Green Party Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Jeanette spoke about the campaigning workshop she had held that morning with Green Party members before going out doorknocking. Other party members had campaigned at the Avondale market that morning.

Russel had also been busy on the morning of the campaign launch. He was given a guided tour of the Oakley Creek by Wendy John of Friends of Oakley Creek. Russel was clearly impressed with Wendy’s expert local knowledge, her many years of dedicated guardianship of the creek and the extent with which she has mobilised countless other volunteers to help plant the creek banks, remove rubbish and nurture the Oakley Creek ecosystem.

Russel was horrified at the damage to local greenspace and well-used community facilities such as the Metro soccer club’s playing fields at Phyllis St Reserve that the motorway project could herald.

He was rapt to discover the Oakley waterfall, a stunning local attraction that most motorists on the Waterview Straight would never even know about.

Russel was also interested to hear about the early history of the area and dismayed to hear that the archeaological site of an early local mill, off Cowley St at the bottom of the Waterview Straight, is under threat from motorway connections.

Mt Albert residents can listen to Russel and the other party candidates debate transport issues for the electorate in a forum hosted by Eden Albert Community Board chair Christopher Dempsey this Wednesday May 13 from 7.30pm at the Faumuina Gold Theatre in the foyer of Unitec’s building 180 (the main campus building where the café is). Entrance is via Unitec Gate 4, off Carrington Rd and near Gladstone Primary.

Several witty people kept submitting pictures of watermelons, but I like this one better:

What’s going on in this one?  Are they looking in each other’s eyes or breaking up? I desperately want to know the back story:

And this one is a sweet switch of generations, reminding us of the other place that lots of new Green support is coming from this election:

We’ve already seen political signs bringing out the worst in people, but check this out: floral tributes to support signs for good political parties:

More please!

Big thanks to whoever is doing this.

Heh heh. And on a more serious note:

Incidentally the preferential trade agreement with China comes into force tomorrow (1 October).  From that point on provisions that make it easier and faster for China to get its goods through our our customs and biosecurity take effect.  This includes provisions I have mentioned earlier such as Article 57 (Release of Goods) which guarantees that New Zealand will release Chinese imported good from customs within 48 hours of their arrival.

For me the issue is not that the food is Chinese.  I’m sure Chinese food is as safe as food in many other parts of the world.  In fact, after having read a bundle of books recently about industrially farmed and manufactured food in the United States, I’m now more worried about what that potential trade agreement holds for our supermarket shelves.  The real issue is one of food security, food sovereignty and the right to know what we are eating and where it is from. It’s embarrassing that we are signing trade agreements that actively undermine our own consumer rights to determine what we eat.

Amongst this racket, the Green Party has delivered a billboard that paints a clear and concise picture of where a vote for them will be headed – straight to our planet.

The Greens tap not only into a colour with an obvious connection to their ideology, but a concept that has a pivotal place in our pseudo-identity as ‘Clean, Green New Zealand’. Set to the kind of impressive scenery we pride ourselves on, we are just about tipped off the end of a pier into murky, green waters where something seems a miss. Yet the focal point of this billboard is a child that stands between us and the body of dissolved pounamu-green water.

Then last night John Campbell interviewed Mike Hutcheson, formerly of Colenso, Communicado, and Saatchi and Saatchi and now with the Lighthouse Ideas Company, to talk political advertising. Hutcheson ripped into first National’s taxcut billboard:

“This one in particular looks like it was written by an undertaker… They are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory … it’s so bland it’s vanilla.”

then Labour Helen Clark effort:

“They must think we’re fools because we see her [the Prime Minister] every day looking like somebody else… If this is a campaign about trust I’m not sure we can trust someone who makes herself look different… Too presidential for my liking.”

Before turning to the Greens:

“Oh, they’re great.  They are actually too flash for the Greens.  They have someone who knows what they are doing do it for them.”

And in the background I see National’s Craig Foss is not taking the risk of using the National billboards we have seen on the internet so far.

Another interesting question time today with Bill English asking the Minister of Justice about the authorisation requirements for election advertising and, in particular, giving the Green’s Proud to be Green billboards a bit of airtime on Parliamentary TV by waving round a photo of one of them.

While I support the Electoral Finance Act as an improvement on the old law, there were always going to be problems with it and one of the problems is that the financial agents of parties and third parties are required to put their residential addresses on material rather than a business address.

This is a bit silly because the purpose, to prevent people hiding behind false addresses, can be achieved using business addresses without exposing financial agents to threats from nutters.Initially there was confusion about this and the Electoral Commission told parties that they could use a business address, which the Greens did with the Proud to be Green billboards. Subsequently the Electoral Commission then issued a ruling that it should be a residential address. Uggh.

So in question time Bill English sought leave to introduce an amendment to the Act to change this provision back to the business address. This is a very sensible patch on the Act. Leave can only be allowed if not a single member objects and none did. So now theoretically Bill can introduce such an amendment. It would be good if it was fixed. MMP in action!

Hamill is probably best known for smashing the world record for the Atlantic Rowing Race in 1997.  I never knew he supported the Greens.  Seems he and Jeanette were putting the last staples into one of several ‘Proud to be Green‘ billboards going up in cities today.

Apparently Rob Hamill said this afternoon:

I know from being a rower just how much pressure our rivers, lakes and oceans are under. We need a Green voice in Parliament. As human beings living on this planet we have a choice to change our ways and protect our world or put our future at risk. We have an incredible opportunity in New Zealand to show the world how to live sustainably. We’ve led the world with votes for women and nuclear free and we can do it again.