The Green Party “consultation”

As I blogged at NBR, I think the Green Party consultation is a sham, and the decision is already effectively made.

Chris Trotter is assuming it is genuine, and unimpressed with the leap away from Burkian principles:

Basically, this is avoidance behaviour on a truly disreputable scale. The Greens know that the ETS falls well short of what they believe (and what all the evidence suggests) is necessary. Equally, they know that nothing better is on offer from any party with the power to deliver on its promises. They have bitter memories of what happened to them the last time they took a stand on principle against Labour (over the issue of genetic modification) and don’t want to repeat the experience. Realistically, they appreciate that backing the ETS is the only viable political decision they can make. But they don’t want to make it. So, in a politician’s version of making another cup of coffee instead of going out to dig the garden as promised, they have appealed to “the people” for guidance.

Trotter then uses one of my favourites quotes from Edmund Burke:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Chris goes on to ask where was this commitment to follow the people when they foisted the anti-smacking law on a populace that didn’t want it. So he concludes:

Really, the whole Green Party deserves a damn good smacking!

And Danyl at the Dim Post in unimpressed:

Aren’t the Green MP’s supposed to be experts in this very area? Don’t they claim to know more about it than almost everyone in the country? And haven’t they specifically been elected on the basis of this expertise with the expectation that they can make informed decisions about environmental policy?

They’ve spent the last three years lecturing the country in a condescending manner to ‘buy kiwi made’ and not to smack your kids – but when it comes to the issue that is the raison d’etre for their party they’re little lost sheep.

As Paula points out this might just be a stunt, or a bargaining strategy. If that’s the case its a conspicuously stupid one.

It is a stunt, and I feel sorry for all the people who take the time to e-mail in their views on a decision that has already been made in substance, if not in form.