The Green charade
Some people have suggested I am too cynical in thinking the Greens consultation is a charade, and it is a PR stunt for a decision already made. However Bill Ralston points out an interesting aspect:
I suspect it is largely a stunt to gain them more publicity because they are languishing in the polls and urgently need to galvanise some voter support.
This suspicion was reinforced when Jeanette Fitzsimons was asked if her caucus was split on how the party should vote.
She replied she would not know until next Tuesday’s caucus because she had not spoken to her MPs.
Good grief. There are only half a dozen of them and the carbon footprint from six phone calls to find out what they thought would not be too great, surely?
Fitzsimons and her cunning co-leader Russel Norman are trying to drag out the issue with this bit of theatre to gain maximum media coverage in the run-up to the election.
Can there be any credibility around the statement that the six Greens MPs have not even discussed what their position should be? I mean seriously? So who decided to ask the public for consultation? Wouldn’t that have been a Caucus decision?
I am so convinced they have already decided to back the scheme, despite their failure to get any meaningful concessions, that I was planning to offer $1,000 to someone willing to bet that they would decide not to back the ETS Bill.
I was going to let the market decide the odds, by letting people state how much they would be willing to pay me if the Greens announce they are backing the ETS Bill, and the highest bidder wins. So if someone was willing to give me $100 (and that was the highest bid) if the Greens back the scheme I’d give them $1,000 if the Greens do not back the scheme. I suspect no one would be willing to go much over $100, or 10:1 odds as they near certain to lose.
Sadly however such a harmless little bet would land me in breach of the Gambling Act 2003, so I can’t do it. However people are welcome to post how much they would have been willing to bid as a bet for a chance to get $1,000. But you would have lost that money to me should the Greens announce on Tuesday they will be backing the ETS Bill despite gaining no significant concessions.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:11 am
“I suspect it is largely a stunt to gain them more publicity because they are languishing in the polls and urgently need to galvanise some voter support.”
Ralston is possibly right, but if its one thing the Greens can rely on its their gushing mainstream media advocates to rise to the occasion. Leaving aside (for the moment) the Herald’s sycophantic editorial, the story on this issue in the Saturday Herald, no doubt written buy some novice fresh from journalist school and with the usual head full of green myths about the impending end of the world at the hands of the capitalists, was a disgustingly unprofessional example of advocacy journalism.
“The Greens have been inundated with messages” it proclaimed. So many that in three days the story covered, they couldn’t even read them (according to Fitzgerald). Yeah right. So how many messages do you reckon they got? Ten thousand? Five thousand? Three thousand?? They got three hundred. (in three days they can’t read three hundred messages? What utter bullshit.
Here’s one of the issues that the mainstream media is constantly telling us is so desperately important to the future of mankind, and three hundred people are worried about it. The Herald on Sunday editorial writer too is another dipstick partisan propagandist for the environmental scare mongers. Read this pathetic opening line:
“The Green Party’s agonised indecision about whether to support Labour’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is, in microcosm, the story of the species’ failure to face up to climate change.”
Oh gawd. Listen you jerks out there in green/ leftist media la la land. Get the message. Climate change is a myth and most of the public couldn’t give a damn for it and struggling under todays economic climate as they are, the last damn thing they want is for that myth to cost them part of their hard earned weekly cash. Stop shoving this alarmist politically motivated bullshit down our throats. I’m sick to death of these pathetic traitors to the cause of journalism who are just partisan advocates for a political cause and never bring us the TRUTH. As they would if they were real journalists, and not the traitors to that once honourable profession that most of them are today.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:23 am
DPF, just because “secret agendas” is the way things are done in the National Party, or for that matter the Labour Party) doesn’t give you the right to assume the Greens do their politcs that way.
As someone who is somewhat of an “insider” in the Greens (as you may have gathered from the detail in other comments I have posted on occasion), I can assure you that no decision has been made by the Greens on the Government’s ETS.
I, for one, am urging the Green caucus to not support the Government’s ETS. I have stated my reasons for that over at frogblog:
Do you really think I would have bothered if the decision had already been made?
August 24th, 2008 at 10:23 am
$1
August 24th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Ten to one odds seem about right. Akin to betting on Romania to beat the All Blacks – possible because its a two horse race but basically impossible
August 24th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Please Toad, do you really expect us to believe that they have not made a decision. This is a publicity stunt and nothing more.
I am afraid that “climate change” on the scale the environmental activists try to warn us about is a MYTH. The earths temperature and ice mass is constantly changing. I seem to remember alot of these “scientists”were the same people talking about an impending ice age in the 1970′s, you can’t have it both ways. Being the daughter of one such scientist I can say they have no more clue than the layman.
Toad either you don’t strike me as extremely naive but I think you have wasted your time as the decision has been made already. They are just testing the waters to see if 5% still believe…I am not so sure.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Although maybe 3-coil is closer to the mark…
August 24th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Toad says “just because “secret agendas” is the way things are done in the National Party, or for that matter the Labour Party) doesn’t give you the right to assume the Greens do their politcs that way”
Then what do you call a party that runs on a ticket of enviromentalism, but in fact actually spends more time pushing social justice and communist agendas?
August 24th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Toad I am aware of who you are, and your role in the Greens. And while no formal decision has been made, I can’t believe that there has not been an informal discussion amongst MPs with some basic understanding.
If it was a genuine consultation, then I would have expected the Greens to publish the details of what the package they have been able to get is. People have been asked to give feedback on a press release, not a detailed policy position.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:18 am
DPF said: …I would have expected the Greens to publish the details of what the package they have been able to get is.
You know as well as I do that when a Party is in three-way negotiations with other parties, going public with that level of detail is not possible. Although Jeanette has released through frogblog about 18 minutes footage of her media conference on it, which gives people a pretty good idea of what the Green have achieved and what they have failed to achieve in the negotiations.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Anyway, if evolution is true, why is climate change a problem?
August 24th, 2008 at 11:46 am
“Oh gawd. Listen you jerks out there in green/ leftist media la la land. Get the message. Climate change is a myth” It may be a myth, however the windfall in tax dividends that will accrue from the Act are very real.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:59 am
“Then what do you call a party that runs on a ticket of environmentalism, but in fact actually spends more time pushing social justice and communist agendas?”
Damn right…. and what do you call the so called journalists who collaborate in this patently obvious deceit? If the media were doing their damn jobs, they would be exposing the junk science behind most of the scare mongering carried out by the watermelons, and exposing their real agenda, ie the use of alarmist environmental rhetoric to scare people into accepting communist style interference in their day to day existence.
The stark and arrogant promotion of the tin pot religion of environmentalism by means of the abuse of our schools and education system and the infiltration of watermelon style zealots into the mainstream media (where they pose as objective journalists) is a rank assault on the democratic system. The truth is the propaganda onslaught directed at our living styles by these leftist cretins is just another politically motivated attack on capitalism. You only have to look at the people to see that. Russell Norman. Keith Locke. Sue Bradford. Guardians of our environment??? Pull the other one, its got bells on it.
If the media were doing their damn job they wouldn’t be reporting so gushingly on lame gimmicks like the subject of this thread. The story they’d be printing would be one exposing the greens for the charlatans deceivers and political opportunists that they really are. Yet they persistently refuse to do that, and that makes them just contemptible lick spittle cowards, and collaborators in the political deceit of the decade.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
toad said…
It gives the transport and agriculture sectors a free ride on the taxpayer
But that is exactly what the Greens stand for? Give free ride on the taxpayer, by promoting socialist policies, ie, policies that require the government to dish out money here and there and a good example is the working for families which is a taxpayer free ride.
Don’t you see that you’re being hypocritical here? You have rewritten the law of the excluded middle in logic into a law of the inclusive (middle), ie, you’re agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously to a proposition.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
radvad – it would be a problem if the climate were to “change” away from one that supports OUR kind of lifestyle and our intensive agricultural food supply!
August 24th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
“So how many messages do you reckon they got? Ten thousand? Five thousand? Three thousand?? They got three hundred.”
I wonder if the Greens would care to share with us how many of these informed the Greens not to support any climate change legislation due to it been a huge pile of BS?
August 24th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
“It may be a myth, however the windfall in tax dividends that will accrue from the Act are very real.”
Very true…and who do you think will be paying that tax? The big corporations who recover their costs in sales to the public? The high earning company management staff who pay accountants to ensure their tax is minimal? The thousands of government bureaucrats who can’t pay tax anyway because they’re paid from tax revenue? None of those. It will be NZ’s hard working middle class- families struggling to meet their mortgage and put petrol in their cars and food on the table.
These are the people who will end up paying for this circus. ..and they’re deliberately being kept in the dark about this outcome by means of an agreement between the watermelons and their partisan media plants.
This whole environmental issue is just a political beat up designed to ensure that a bunch of past their use by date commies and losers get their clod hopping boots into the corridors of political power. That the media is deliberately refusing to inform the public on the reality of this disgusting scam is one of their most shameful acts in a time when the traditional principles of journalism are daily swept under the carpet at the expense of truth and light.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
““Then what do you call a party that runs on a ticket of environmentalism, but in fact actually spends more time pushing social justice and communist agendas?”
The Greens have to run on the environmental ticket, there is no other way for them to role out their ultimate goal of a socialist/communist state.
The hard left and Alliance refugees have hijacked the once pure Green ideology, they see the Green brand as they only way they can (over time) achieve their goals.
The length of time they (the Green socialists) are prepared to wait should not be overlooked, they have watched and learned from Clark, if Clark had campaigned on what her real agenda was way back in the late 90′s she would never have been elected.
Had Clark campaigned on gay marriage, gay adoption, 24 hour child care, an alteration to the family “unit” that would include triples, state funded welfare for all but the rich, a ban on smacking, lower education standards, a ban on those who wish to speak out against the government in election year, higher and higher taxes, the politicisation of the once neutral public service, a massive increase in the bureaucracy and the elimination of all right wing or even suspected right wing bureaucrats from positions of power the country would have rejected her, Clark knew that she had to introduce these measures slowly and over time (the really scary thought is what she might do given a fourth term)
So the Greens have learned that they must play the long game, they have also learned that they cannot reveal their true agenda as the public simply will not support it, therefore they have adopted the Clark death by 1000 cuts approach.
They are smart enough to work out that they can use the climate change con as a way of justifying almost anything, yes there are a small percentage of the public who see so called climate change as the number one problem we face and to them the ends justify the means.
The first of the 1000 cuts has already been inflicted upon us, they have told us what food we can feed our kids, they have told us how we can discipline our kids.
Over the last six years they have also quietly moved from being a Green party to being a party of the hard left, I suspect the death of Rod Donald was seen by some as a golden opportunity to accelerate that move, certainly the election of Russell Norman as co leader would suggest that is the case.
The next phase of “cuts” is ready to be implemented, have a look at their candidate list, the candidates are becoming more and more radical and less interested in Green issues, for them it is all about socials justice and the redistribution of wealth.
The Greens (post Rod Donald) despise the rich and pity the poor, they have no real interest in helping the poor other than to throw more money at them safe in the knowledge that their votes are secure, they are of the opinion that they are far better at running our lives than we are, they know that the poor and lazy need leadership and they cannot imagine a scenario where that leadership is provided by anybody but the Greens.
And on the way toward the socialist republic of New Zealand the justification for these changes will be Climate Change, one only need look at almost all Green policy or listen to their left wing MP’s speak, EVERYTHING comes back to climate change and nobody seems to question their reasoning or argument, anybody who dares speak out is abused and labeled a denier, the end result is that few are brave enough to question them.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Toad
“Supporting an ineffectual ETS risks the Greens being dumped into the same greenwash bucket as Labour and National.”
Lets see if the Greens support Mallards latest SOP for the Waste reduction bill this Wednesday. The SOP allows ‘waste’ to be seen to be reduced by simply redefining it, and makes that Bill ineffective.
It’s a little like reducing unemployment by calling many of them sickness beneficiaries
August 24th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Damn well said Bruv. The watermelons are a bunch of dipshits who would run last in any race, and they desire for everybody else to run last with them.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
The Greens are so anti National they will back anything put up by Labour just to cut out National. That is why Labour gets away with treating them as pet poodles.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Hagues said: “So how many messages do you reckon they got? … They got three hundred.”
Not sure where you got your info from Hagues (maybe Redbaiter or bruv?) – the count at 1.48pm today was two thousand and fifty, and still going strong.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Toad I was quoting Redbaiter’s 10:11 post. I should have put him as the source, but was assuming people read all the posts.
Given that you know how many emails have been recieved care to share how many are of the opinion that no climate change legislation is necessary due to AGW being complete and utter rubbish. Further will the Greens pay any attention to such emails or will they just delete any emails from ‘deniers’ and ‘sceptics’?
August 24th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
toad,
The major reason I can’t support the Green Party is what is NOT among your reasons to oppose the ETS. The current ETS would cripple the NZ economy for NO (repeat NO) environmental benefit. It is this attitude that no cost is too high for miniscule environmental benefit that makes the Grens repeatedly look ridiculous.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Checkout
http://www.intrade.com/
for making political predictions.
(IANAL so I don’t know if Kiwi’s using this site is legal?)
August 24th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Stutta
“The current ETS would cripple the NZ economy for NO (repeat NO) environmental benefit. It is this attitude that no cost is too high for miniscule environmental benefit that makes the Grens repeatedly look ridiculous.”
You have hit the nail on the head, the Greens cannot hope to introduce their own style of socialism until they have destroyed the economy, at that stage there will be so many suffering they will gladly accept any administration that promises them food and shelter, there can be no other explanation as to why they want to destroy our economy.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Toad you tosspot, so the taxpayer is giving the transport industy and the farmers a free ride. What a fucking two bob, whoes taxes do you think keeps most of your voters alive, if it wasn’t for the farmers and such you bludgers would have been pushing up daisys years ago. It must really get up your nose that you are amongst such a large group of non- believers. They should all be dealt to, prehaps a good smacking would be in order,oh thats right the Melons don’t do smacking. Well as they say shit happens.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I agree that something needs to be done about polution of the water ways. The left wants to screw the biggest industry in the country to achieve it.
My view is the Govt should setup a fund (similar to the Waikato deal) to be used to reduce the effect of farming. The Govt makes so much tax from the dairy industry it makes sense to spend a small amount on this.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Ralston and DPF are both right – saying she hadn’t discussed it with her MPs is total bullshit. Announcing something like that and then hoping the media don’t ring a Green MP who says “are we? fuck me, that’s the first I’ve heard” is a recipe for disaster. More lies from the Communists.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
To come out of negotiations with some concessions, and to evaluate the new legislation, with it’s complex implications in only a few days?
They’ve done a brillant thing here, outsourcing the reasoning process, the throwing up of arguments for and against, asking the country’s brightest to put their brains to the problem. I hope that other parties consider greater use of deliberative democracy; mediated (as here), or open (as in citizens juries).
Don’t let the fact that the Greens are doing it put you off the idea!
August 24th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Has everyone seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ5Ty5iaO3E
Brilliant
PS Hattip to FrogBlog for alerting me to it
God knows why they did that – maybe trying to pre-emptively neutralize it becoming viral?
August 25th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Green party stooge comes to DPF’s and trys the secret agenda line again.
You’re an utter tool toad. Thanks for campaigning on the repeal of Sect 59 BTW along with everyhting else you want to ban.
Just another socialist failure.