The Green Party does not have a deal with the Labour candidate, Charles Chauvel, nor does it intend to ask its supporters to vote for him in an attempt to defeat Peter Dunne in the Ōhariu seat.

This rumour has come about because Dunne is using it to mask his own desperate dependence on the National Party for his political survival, after steadily losing support in the electorate.

Voters can decide for themselves how to use their two ticks strategically, they don’t need to be instructed.

In Ōhariu, just like in every other electorate, we are only campaigning for Kiwis’ party vote.

I’m not telling people who to vote for as their electorate MP in Ōhariu but I am upfront with them – I like Charles and I think Dunne is done: he’s out-dated and voters are tiring of his brand of bland ‘any way the wind blows’ politics. This is evidenced by his falling popularity in the electorate over the last three elections, as well as his dismal party vote throughout the country.

Our position is very different from National’s deals in Epsom and Ōhariu where they are telling their supporters to vote for the Act and United Future Party’s candidates.

Firstly, we aren’t contesting electorate seats anywhere, only campaigning for party votes.

Secondly, if we received 46% party votes, like the National Party received in Ōhariu in 2008 or 62% of the party votes, like the National Party received in Epsom in 2008 – we may well campaign for electorate votes in those seats. We didn’t, so we’re not.

Clearly it’s a very different situation we are in. National’s decision to support other parties candidates in seats where they have the largest share of votes, and would normally contest and likely win, is all about putting these two parties on life-support, for their own ends.

… with the first year of the five-year commitment period under the Kyoto protocol almost over, square one is looking increasingly untenable. It has also become a rather expensive piece of real estate. New Zealand is the only country in the world to have fully elaborated both a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme and implemented neither. That takes some doing.

He goes on to criticise Labour for failing to get a cross party consensus, and National for backing away from a cross party consensus when Labour moved towards their emissions trading policy. He also chides the Greens for discounting National in the lead up to the election.  The Greens offered before the election to sit down with National and work on fixing up the ETS, since a number of the objections in National’s minority report the Greens agreed with and were already trying to negotiate to fix. Alas, John Key refused to discuss the issue. I am pretty confident that the offer still stands, John.

Most striking in the article  is Upton’s criticism of ACT and the select committee.

What fresh insights can a select committee of New Zealand politicians add to a subject that has been exhaustively canvassed elsewhere? Anyone who has studied the issue in good faith knows that there are no certainties and that it is a risk management issue. Picking holes in computer models or climate data is a path to nowhere and would make New Zealand a laughing stock.

I couldn’t have said it better. Oh wait. I already have said it. Many times. So has Jeanette. Good on you Upton. Pull us all up on it and tell us all to pull finger. Sage advice. The risks of inaction are too great. Too great for the environment, for society and for the economy. Too great to risk becoming the laughing stock at Poznan, or Copenhagen for that matter.

Specialist news service Carbon News this morning reports broker Nigel Brunel, of OMF Financial, as saying New Zealand is “a bit of a joke in Europe at the moment” following the National-Act agreement to suspend the emissions trading scheme.

“This was New Zealand’s opportunity to reinvent its financial markets by being the Asian centre of the carbon trade.”

But this week’s announcement that the incoming government will put the ETS on hold pending a review that will go as far as considering a carbon tax instead of an ETS and will re-examine the validity of the science behind climate change, has jeopardised everything, Brunel says.

“We have just fallen off the radar in Europe,” he said. “They are saying ‘all you do is talk. You’ve been talking since 1992. You are all talk and no action. You maintain that you are so clean and green and try to be leaders and all you do is nothing. You make a decision and then you change your minds. How can we do business with people like that? We can’t take you seriously’.”

Well, I confess that I have never taken Rodney Hide very seriously, particularly when it comes to his science.  Europe is into its fourth year of emissions trading. Claims of New Zealand leadership from National and Act during the campaign were fallacious.

All I can say is that I am looking forward to the blow torch of lobbyists coming onto National and Act, hard and fast. Oh, and the Maori party and UF too. They stood on the sidelines and threw stones while the rest of parliament got on with the challenging work of coming up with an ETS agreement that could get a majority in parliament. Even though it was our second choice, we Greens rolled up our sleeves and engaged with the real work.

Now John and Rodney have re-opened Pandora’s box and there will be hell to pay as the lobby groups from all sides pony up the big cash and the big guns. Meanwhile, the very allies and trading partners that National and Act say we should emulate are actively putting in place their own schemes. And we wonder why we look the fools on the international stage. Bad timing boys!

In his agreement with National we can look forward to these little policy nuggets, among other things:

• Reducing elective surgery waiting lists by greater utilisation of private hospital capacity, in a planned way where this cannot be met by the public hospital system;

Translation – transfer funding from freely accessible public health care to privately owned for-profit health care. It sounds like we are going to be using tax dollars to give business profits to consultants in wealthy private hospitals rather than fund doctors in public hospitals to do the same job.

• Support Public Private Partnerships for major roading infrastructure developments where these are deemed to be the preferred options regionally and nationally, such as the Transmission Gully highway.

So not only are we going to build roads, even though the business case for doing so does not stand up in the face of the environmental and peak oil challenges we will face in the future, but we are going to help private contractors make a profit from public money rather than building our own publicly owned infrastructure. 

Dunne gives the impression that he will do anything to get Transmission Gully built into his electorate whether it is in the national interest or not.  It’s a shame to see that level of parochial politicing and funding still so strong in our national parliament.

He may however be wondering about his decision to reject the Greens so firmly given that the Green Party out polled United Future in his very own electorate by 3007 votes to 787.  That’s nearly four to one.   Interestingly he won less than a third of the electorate votes as well, meaning that much as he relies reputation as a good local MP as his basis for political survival, 2/3rds of people in his electorate joined him in voting for change.  

It is of course a serious issue for more than just the ‘money for policy‘ reasons.  New Zealand’s fisheries are desperately depleted by commercial fishing and the government needs to take urgent action to protect one of our most important environmental and economic assets.  The suggestion that some politicians are making decisions on this issue for other, less ethical reasons is deeply troubling.

Image Credit: Mark Frauenfelder at Thumb Tack Press

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.

That, when added to all the donation received from the same source in the preceding 12 months exceeds $20,000 a return of party donation exceeding $20,000 must be filed within 10 working days.

That’s section 54 of the Electoral Finance Act. The other parties are saying that (except for the last ten days) no one has made any donations totalling $20,000 or more, other than two to National and one to Act. Unusual?

The real issue is not big money, it is transparency. Every party will have it’s large donors but the public has a right to know who they are.

Section 98 of the Electoral Finance Act allows parties to spend up to $1,000,000 plus $20,000 for each electorate contested by a candidate for that party. That’s a potential total of $2.4 million if a party stands candidates in every seat. Are Labour and National, who both spent close to or more than their entire $2.4 million allocation last election, planning to spend the same amount again this time around, raised purely though cake stalls and movie fund-raisers. Or are they planning to run much smaller, cheaper campaigns this time around? Or are they borrowing and expecting some big donations in the next few weeks?

And what about some of the small parties? We are already learning in detail about NZ First’s interesting accounting procedures, but does United Future have enough small donors to fund an entire nationwide election campaign without any big donations? United Future has declared no donations over $10,000 in 2006 or 2007 either so its reserves could well be running low. Its last large donation was $12,000 in 2005 from a Sky City casino.

With Labour today having committed suicide the Green Party will in all probability be the biggest opposition party in the next Parliament.

Then Whaleoil:

The Greens should now be making a play to become the official opposition after the election by calling on all sensible left leaning voters sickened by the corruption and graft of the Peters/Clark ministry to give their party vote to the Greens.

And here at frogblog we had big bro:

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that you may end up as the official opposition party.

And according to this impartial and honest advice all we have to do to achieve this utopia of being in opposition; stop supporting the Labour Government.
So once more, for clarity’s sake; the Greens do not support the present government. We vote to abstain on confidence and supply and treat all other issues on their merits.
If you are looking for a Labour-Govt-propping-up party to worry about, how about United Future? (Oh, but Peter Dunne has already ratted his way from the sinking ship to align himself with John Key. Let’s ignore the fact he is still holding his ministerial baubles and voting with Labour.)

The reality is that the Greens are already the official opposition to the Lab/Nat economic coalition of unsustainable growth at all costs, even the cost of the communities and the environment.  We don’t need the official opposition spokesperson seats in the house and limousines that the current official opposition has to campaign for the things we believe in.

On the funny side, I like this statement from Baldock’s release (with the conflicting release dates on it) is:

The conflict [within DOC between conservation and recreation] arose because some DOC managers believe deer and trout for example, are introduced species and should not be encouraged and even eradicated.

How dare DOC managers believe deer and trout are introduced species. Outrageous!

I’m big into outdoor recreation, and love tramping in our wonderful conservation lands. So I take offence when Peter Dunne states in his releaseon Friday that:

For too long hunters and other backcountry users [i.e. me] have been marginalized and treated with disdain [by DOC], as if they are unwanted invaders of our wilderness areas.

I reject the notion that as a backcountry user (some would say resident!), I am “marginalized and treated with disdain” by DOC. DOC does a great job most of the time, with limited resources, a massive land area and heaps of major issues to control and juggle.

“Our pledge is to bring their voice to the government’s table, and to make sure it is reflected in the government’s decisions,” Mr Dunne said.

Oh well, if Dunne gets it wrong at least he can safely know the silent majority he claims to represent won’t be complaining about it.

Incidentally the term silent majority was popularised by Richard Nixon as a way of responding to the vocal criticisms of his Vietnam war policies by peace activists – to argue that lots of people supported his war, they were just being a little bit quiet about it.

Where these animals threaten flora and fauna, they need to be managed as pests. Recreational hunting can help reduce game numbers to reduce the conservation impact. But to split DOC into two separate agencies would only increase bureaucracy and result in more damage to our natural heritage – splitting ‘game management’ and ‘pest control’ would be like trying to open a door with the right arm pushing and the left arm pulling!

However, having better coordination of hunting activity in New Zealand is not a bad thing, indeed it could aid conservation, increase firearms safety, and help encourage more people into the outdoors.

The only consensus recommendation of the ‘Game Animal Panel‘ set up to consider how to best accommodate the ‘resource’ bit while minimising the ‘pest’ bit, was for better representation and accommodation of game interests within the existing policy and planning framework – i.e. the legislative status quo!

[Oddly, someone has pulled the plug on the "Game Animal Panel" website]

Interestingly, National’s outdoor recreation policy also released late yesterday focuses almost solely on hunting (like trampers are not recreationalists too?) and proposes renaming Conservation Boards to include recreation in their name. Is this a cosmetic sop to the hunting lobby, or a sly hint at what restructuring is in store for DOC if National forms the next Government?

Hunters are of course a more compelling lobby group when they come knocking at your door than trampers!

United Future seems to stand alone as the only NZ political party not only with real “equality” with both it’s men & women representatives; whether it be a lady President, lady Deputy or a lady as a past CEO & present Board member, all with significant or dual educational qualifications in the specifics of law, politics, education and people skills (these are “all successful mums” with massive life experience between them!) but United Future has some things else!

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.

Peter Dunne spoke as well, and I must confess the funniest quote of the day came from him. He described the LabNats as suffering from dribble-chinned subservience to China’s leaders in their pursuit of trade, and damn the cost to anyone.

The real message from both of them is that the whole deal is morally bankrupt. Good on them both for putting aside the partisan awkwardness between our parties and speaking up for what is right. It is a credit to both of them.

Meanwhile, Helen and Co. are hopping along to Beijing to sign away just another little sliver of New Zealand’s sovereignty. Once the money starts changing hands we’ll be gagged on China forever…