Miss Clark noted several times that NZ First may not be back in Parliament – and yesterday acknowledged it was facing “a tough fight”.

“I think everyone’s reluctant to draw firm conclusions but obviously it’s looking tough.”She also moved yesterday to anoint the Greens as her preferred partner – a prospect that would make any deal with NZ First, even if it does return, difficult.

“The Greens have waited a long time to be in Government. Their time is here,” Miss Clark said.

It’s not like we were deliberately standing around making sure everyone else had a turn.  Clark’s last minute attempt to conveniently change dancing partners reflects what many of her local candidates have been saying around the country – that they would personally prefer to work with the Greens than NZ First.  I’m left with the impression that, ethically, individual Labour members would prefer to deal with the Greens, but institutionally Labour finds NZ First easier and less demanding to cut a deal with. In the end it will be uncommitted Labour voters, rather than Clark, who will make the decision by showing Clark which of the two parties they would rather see her work with.

A box of documents sent to the newspaper this week shows that Vela interests made donations to NZ First as early as 1999. Mr Meurant suggested to Mr Vela that this provided the opportunity to give “input” into policy areas in which the family had business interests.

Mr Meurant sought money from Vela interests to travel as required in his taxpayer-paid job to liaise with Mr Peters, and for when he was “required to provide NZ First with material for debates in Parliament”.

He wanted help from Mr Vela “when required to show my face in Parliament to thrash out policy positions which I will have already developed with your people on taxation, fishing, thoroughbred with Winston’s bunch”.

I’m sure Peters will rightly argue that this latest evidence has not been tested in a court, but on the face of it is appears damning. Labour has stood by Peters throughout this ongoing and evolving scandal and it seems clear that he and his NZ First party is Labour’s first cab off the rank this election if it is afforded that choice. That adds increased weight to the argument that Labour voters have to use their party vote tactically to decide weather they want Peters and company at the cabinet table, or Jeanette and the Greens.

Interestingly Winston’s $80,000 donation from the Spencer Trust now shows up on the party donation returns to the Electoral Commission for 2007. And when you go to look for it you also get to see the $230,000 that the Labour Party took from lawyers representing undisclosed clients and the $500,000 that the National Party took from anonymous sources including the Ruahine and Waitamata trusts. 

Mr Carson, who came up with Labour’s “Keep it Kiwi” and “This one’s about trust” campaigns, says the key to advertising a political party is to pit yourself against your opposition. In the commercial world, you want to be positive about your product. In politics, you want to malign your rival.

All parties should and do criticise each other on various issues and sometimes more generically they will criticise each others’ very reason for being.  But when parties have only 15 or 30 seconds of advertising time to get their message across and they choose to use that to abuse or denigrate their opponents it shows a lack of vision and commitment to improving things for New Zealanders.

Under MMP attacking the opposition rather than promoting yourself misses the point.  Labour voters who enjoy denigration and abuse of political opponents would be better voting New Zealand First – Winston is better at it.  If however they want a positive, practical vision they can choose Green.

Speaking at Parliament this morning, National leader John Key did not specify what portfolio Mr Dunne would be given under National but said he looked forward to ‘Peter serving as a minister’.

So I guess you can now add another head to the monster that would be a National-led government? No major surprise there.  I’ve suggested before that United Future, when it does have policy, is often to the right of National.

That decision now leaves the Maori Party and Labour in a diminishing minority of parties that won’t let voters know before the election what it is that they will be voting for.  You could, I suppose, add New Zealand First to that set too if it were not for it having its mind already made up for it by John Key.

Labour has sent signals that despite wanting to be associated with the Greens again before the election it would rather work with Peters after the election.   Which really means that a Labour leaning voter that wants Labour-Greens must now be thinking about party voting Greens to make sure that Labour is forced to negotiate with the Greens rather than Peters.

When she was asked at a meeting with Foodstuffs workers if they should vote strategically to ensure a Labour coalition, she said the best way was to vote for Labour.

But the choice many Labour voters face is not just National vs Labour, but Labour-NZ First vs Labour-Green.  Which means that strategically, the best thing they can do is vote for the support partner they want for Labour, not for Labour itself. The relative strength of those two parties is likely to decide which one has the most bargaining power to shape the type of government that Labour might be able to put together. Labour has said it is an election about trust, and many former Labour voters don’t trust Winston Peters and New Zealand First. They will see the logic on voting Green.

Or, as Audrey Young noted yesterday:

I have lost count of the former Labour voters I know who are voting Green this election. They trust Labour, but only as far as they can kick them.

Instead most of the article focused on Peter Brown:

New Zealand First says it will not welcome immigrants if they come from societies with a “class system” or where women are treated as subservient to men.

The irony of this platform in relation to Brown’s English heritage was apparently lost on him.

However, it’s a fair point; we should only want immigrants from nations with full equality to come to our little pacific paradise where women are paid a full 86 percent of what men earn and claim an impressive 8.65% of company directorships among New Zealand’s big companies. Not to mention our clean record on gendered violence, the objectification of women and political representation of women in parties like New Zealand First. Why wouldn’t women from nations with gender equality flock here to Aotearoa?

This time, with the exception of the Maori Party, we pretty much know the answer, or will know the answer before the election for all of them.   But what we don’t know is who will Labour go with. This is an important question that people should probably take the time to ask Labour.

We know for instance that there are a lot of voters that sit somewhere between Labour and the Greens.  I’m guessing before they make their choice they would really like to know whether Labour will continue to tie itself to New Zealand First and Winston Peters. And I think they probably have the right to know that important piece of information. I’m sure there are other undecided voters on different parts of the spectrum that feel similarly about either or both of the two big parties.  John Key has been more upfront than you would usually expect from a major party leader – seemingly ruling Roger Douglas out of his cabinet and definitely ruling NZ First out of any government he is part of. By comparison Labour currently appears to be presenting different preferred coalition scenarios to different audiences.

So, if you are out and about attending candidate meetings during the campaign, why not ask the Labour candidates, rather than the MMP parties for a change, who they want to get with.  Put them under the same pressure we get every election year.  And send me some video footage or quotes so we can see if the answers match up.

It was disappointing to see that the committee voted along party lines.  It would be nice to think that our leaders could sit down with legal advice and weigh evidence impartially, but their vote suggests not.  It’s interesting though that the three parties that are politically disinterested in the outcome, United Future, the Maori Party and the Greens, all voted the same way and, in the end, seem to have been the deciding votes.  To me Russell Fairbrother’s defence to Radio New Zealand this morning of Labour’s bloc vote on the committee was a weak one – further implications that Owen Glenn was lying, but without anything to indicate that to be the case.

It does make me wonder weather the Team LPG fanboiz should really be getting so grumpy at Green supporters for not wanting to declare our undying love to Helen Clark and Labour. Because it seems from its recent behaviour that Labour has already found its preferred coalition partner, and it’s Winston Peters, come what may. But then I guess Labour doesn’t have so much to gain from a internet campaign for Team LNZF?

The revised [Emissions Trading Scheme] contains an enormous new subsidy for the fishing industry. This was, surprise, surprise negotiated by NZ First… Fish subsidies are the direct cause of over fishing. We are opposed to any subsidisation of this industry. The original ETS has no subsidy going to the Fishing Industry. Now they get 50% free allocation. This is an outrage. The Greens should be opposing this policy strenuously.

I agree with the Hive that this is not an ideal outcome. I wanted to find out more so checked with Jeanette before I wrote anything about what had changed in negotiations, and she said:

The Greens certainly aren’t keen to subsidise the fishing industry. However, it is the only trade-exposed sector that wasn’t to get any free units. That means, there is a process in the Bill whereby business that mainly competes with overseas firms who pay no carbon price get some of their emissions covered by free units. The idea is that if they don’t, they have a strong motivation to move overseas where there is no carbon charge, with no benefit to the climate but loss of jobs in NZ. The reason the fishing industry didn’t initially get any is that their energy source is diesel which as transport fuel, doesn’t generally qualify for free units because for every other industry it is used within NZ and not in competition with overseas firms. However for the fishing industry it is their main source of energy and they are directly exposed to competition from foreign fishers.

Every other trade-exposed industry is eligible for 90% of their 2005 emissions for free with the phase out starting only in 2019. Fishing will get up to 50%, and only for the first three years. Also, Peters didn’t oppose the 10 or so significant improvements we got to the scheme and he asked for very little – this was the main thing. One can speculate as to why, but it isn’t unreasonable in the context of the ETS as a whole. It is much less than the farming sector is getting, and they will still face the carbon price for half of their emissions so have an incentive to reduce carbon wherever they can.

So, while it sticks in our throats somewhat, it is short term and less than other industries are getting.

As it turns out peak oil could well curtail fishing companies sooner than a carbon charge would anyway.  All in all, while we’re not happy with this, it doesn’t seem worth dying in a ditch over either.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says his party could form a government with National or Labour after the next election.

Do you know that feeling where you sit down to watch a video and suddenly remember, 10 minutes in, that you’ve already seen it before?  Unlike the Greens don’t expect him to be saying which direction he’ll be baubling towards before the election.

Personally I think the problem is more that for the last few years the Labour Party has been padding away or dead batting deliveries. And the audience are getting bored. Three years ago a large number of the spectators in the crowd came along to see Labour hitting over the circle in dashing partnerships with big hitting all-rounders from the Greens and the Maori Party. Instead what they got is Labour Bruce Edgar style, with New Zealand First and United Future, slowly using up the overs while the run rate ponders along.

“The lakes have become an embarrassment; badly polluted with sewage, nutrient run-off and algal blooms and are no longer the tourist magnets that they have been in the past.  Our ‘clean, green’ image, that we hold so dear, is under threat when we allow this to occur.

“We are fortunate in this country to be surrounded by so much natural beauty, but our natural heritage must be maintained and preserved, not only to attract the tourism trade, but to leave a legacy intact for future generations,”

It’s not just National and Labour that want to be seen to be greener this year.

Meanwhile, here’s the ‘real oil‘ on water (so to speak).

While it is in National’s interest to be painting a picture of Labour’s support crumbling away, and I’m sure Long is taking an opportunity to reinforce that perception, his analysis seems fairly credible one. Such an election result would mean that the Greens had 12 or 13 seats, New Zealand first 6 and the Maori Party 7. That’s a total of 25 or 26 out of about 124 seats. (And we can assume some of the ‘rats and mice’ parties will win their electorate seats too). This means National or Labour would need to win would need to win about two thirds of the remaining seats to govern alone; an unlikely prospect.

Photo Credit: mharrsch at Flickr