Fitzsimons confirms retirement
As predicted in the newspapers yesterday, Jeanette Fitzsimons has announced she is stepping down as Green co-leader in June.
The Greens are going to have to think hard about their choice and strategy. They only have to drop 2% to be out of Parliament, and they failed to significantly attract votes in 2008 from what I call “ethical lefties” who were appalled by what Labour had done, but didn’t want to vote centre-right. In the end many more ex-Labour voters went to National instead of the Greens.
Elections for the new co-leader will happen on 30 May and 1 June.
Sounds like a good futures market for ipredict!
Sue Bradford and Metira Turei have both confirmed they will stand for the position.
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Tags: Greens, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Metira Turei, Sue Bradford
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The only people who would have any chance (other than random luck) on iPredict would be senior Labour party memebers. They afterall are the ones who will tell the Green party who they can and cannot have as leaders.
It’s such a shame the Green party don’t know how to be critical of labour – they might get better public support if they didn’t shackle themselves to the corrupt self serving Labour party.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
i just hope sue bradford get the job…. she will destroy that party with her loopy agendas woohoo!!!
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Why is Sue Kedgely not a candidate? Retiring already?
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Sue Kedgley ain’t a candidate cause she ain’t red enough!
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Bradford is a strong leader who will take the Greens where they need to go.
3%, I’m guessing….
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Lofty is dead right, if the Greens were a environmental party they would make Kedgley co leader, she (Kedgley) is simply not acceptable as a candidate to the hard left wing faction of the party.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I hope it’s bradford, ’cause that would push the Kommunisten under 5%, but my money’s on Turei
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
This is the beginning of the end for the Greens. They do not stand up to real scrutiny and with Fitzsimons gone they become a target. She looks like everyones favourite granny and never really got a hard time from critics and also attracted votes for the same reason. Game on and then game over is my prediction.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
it will be turei..
..she is young/maori/intelligent/articulate/lawyer..
..(that she is bi-racial is a big plus..
..the green party and the maori party..(if they survive their diet of dead rats..from national..)..need to work together..
..and tho’ bradford has much respect from maori party mp’s..
..turei will be an acceptable face for young maori voters..and young green voters..
..the age question is almost as much of an imperative for choosing turei..as it is against choosing bradford..
..this is generational change time in the green party..
..and turei..save for getting her puppies out for a walk/dance on ‘k’ rd..a coupla times..
..as a student..
..is pretty much a blank sheet..
..and .. as far as the voting punter is concerned..
..has none of the (undeserved) baggage of bradford..
..so..for all those reasons..those still addicted to the demon gambling..
..should place their money on turei..
..(tho’ ..intellectually..bradford is equally competent for the position..
..it’s just those baggage/age-questions..
..that will tip it to turei..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
..btw..my understanding has always been that kedgely has never publically aspired to the role..
..anyway..she is too valuable in her role of warning the nation of the crap we are peddled..disguised as food..
..more power to her..!
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
casual watcher said: This is the beginning of the end for the Greens
Yeah, we heard all that “beginning of the end” stuff when Rod Donald died too. Only to see the Greens get three more MPs at the last election. I guess some of you guys just have to keep on hoping, but we won’t go away.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
(um..!..it’s not really time to ‘bray’..toad..)
..(are you celebrating/lauding a political history of achieving s.f.a..?
..all of our environmental markers are the worse for your time as a labour party appendage/toady..eh..?
..a/any sober reflection on what the greens have actually achieved..except for an income/meal-ticket for a coterie..
..in all these years in parliament..
..should really have you just shutting the fuck right up..?
..eh..?
..(‘three more m.p.’s..?..
..cry me a fucken river..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm
As painful as it was to read, philu’s first comment was most probably right on the money.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I think the sane decision is Turei, for all the reasons Phil outlines. It’s a no-brainer.
But when have the Greens ever made a sane decision when it came to positioning?
So, what to bet on – the Greens making a sane decision, or an idiotic one….
Hmmm……..
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Well, well, well, I never thought I would agree with Philu, I am staggered.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Hollow men and women. Toomany in parliament, clutterintg up our de3mocratic electoral process.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Of course philu would be a fan of Turei’s given her past links to the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party …
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Peter said: “But when have the Greens ever made a sane decision when it came to positioning”
Despite the general air of derision for the Greens, commenters here have not quite been able to disguise their (grudging) admiration for Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald and the pairing they presented to the political scene. Perhaps that answers your question Peter. The Greens have made and will continue to make excellent decisions. Tell me that their decisions are worse than the one Key made, to include Peter Dunne in the Government! Now there’s an idiotic decision right there! (p.s. – I’m a Metiria Turei fan for sure She’s very clever and adroit (ask Eric Roy just how sharp Metiria is
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
>>Perhaps that answers your question Peter.
Fair call, Greenfly. I should have said “lately” (post 2005)
>>the Greens have made and will continue to make excellent decisions
Like making the decision to tie a rope to the HMS Titanic (Labour)?
>>to include Peter Dunne in the Government
Better to have him inside the tent. One more guaranteed vote….
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
In fact, I’d put Metiria Turei (if I could) up against any , make that any two of your sluggish NActional women, any day! She’d hush the ‘Crush’!
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Peter, you may crave to have Dunne in your tent, but it’s the last thing I’d want!
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
It’s hard to imagine that the Green Party won’t vote Metira Turei as its next co-leader. She has a lot going for her, as others have already pointed out. In many ways she is the ideal “New Green”.
Sue Bradford is very unlikely to be voted leader, mostly due to the fact that she is – for better or worse – very strongly associated with the so-called anti-smacking bill and the public perception of the elitist style of process for pushing forward this social change. She has effectively been typecast, and the wider party will be wary of electing someone that is associated with the public’s fear of the Green Party ‘extremism’.
The parallel case can be found in the election of Russel Norman over Nandor Tanczos following Rod Donald’s death. Although Tanczos was well-liked within the party, and had a very high profile, many members felt that he was too strongly typecast as a “dope-head” and a “drug legaliser” to be the main public face of the party. They therefore went for the safer option of Norman, who was (correctly) seen as being able to present a more mainstream image to potential Green voters.
Despite the paranoia and rhetoric of many rightwingers, the Greens have actually been on a clear ideological moderating trajectory over recent years. Bradford definitely doesn’t fit this new direction. In fact Bradford is one of the key barriers to the “New Greens” strategic direction of being more of a centrist environmentally-oriented party. This makes her election very unlikely.
Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Perhaps Fitzsimons can see the writing on the wall?
As I said a few days ago:
If the “Right” got its act together now, what with Green forestry non-management policies setting up mass deaths in bushfires and Green anti-development policies setting up economically destructive housing price bubbles; on top of Green bans on DDT resulting in tens of millions of deaths from malaria, and Green biofuels policies driving up the price of essential foods for the world’s poorest and starving a few more million to death………in a just world, the Greens would be electoral POISON.
“Peter”: YOU SAID IT:
“……take the Greens where they need to go.
3%, I’m guessing….”
Hear, hear.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Something I have been wondering about for a long time, and I’ve asked “philu” this question before.
Trevor Loudon, in an Investigate Mag article a few months ago referred to the Green blogger “PhilU”, who had been expelled from the party because he was more of an environmental purist who objected to the takeover of the party by the neo-communists. Yet I’ve never detected any streak of dissention from the neo-communists ideological position in philu’s comments on the blogosphere at least in recent years.
I do actually wonder whether there have been two different “philu’s”; I long suspected that the title belonged to someone who is paid to blog; maybe the person paying can sack and replace at will?
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
PhilBest – I think you are an ignorant lout who talks shite. I recommend that you should keep to cutting and pasting vast slabs of unsubstantiated text from other authors – I know it annoys everyone here, but at least your own malnourished views remain hidden
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Why can’t they just grow up and have one leader…this dual leadership, man/woman PC bullshit is so Passe.
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
philu (3882) Vote: 6 4 Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“(um..!..it’s not really time to ‘bray’..toad..)
..(are you celebrating/lauding a political history of achieving s.f.a..?
..all of our environmental markers are the worse for your time as a labour party appendage/toady..eh..?”
And here is the reason why, philu:
I recommend you get the book “The State of Humanity”, ed. Julian Simon, and read the chapter:
Mikhail S. BERNSTAM: “Comparative Trends In Resource Use and Pollution In Market and Socialist Economies”
No URL available, unfortunately.
It is discussed in the following essays:
National Centre For Policy Analysis: “Progressive Environmentalism: A Pro-Human, Pro-Science, Pro-Free Enterprise Agenda For Change”
“……With the opening of the communist countries to the Western media, we have been treated to a litany of environmental horror stories from behind the iron curtain. Mikhail Bernstam has shown that these are not isolated cases of misdirected policies. Higher levels of pollution are inherent in all socialist economies. Because they are so inefficient, socialist economies necessarily use more resources and emit more pollutants than market economies to produce a given amount of goods and services……”
http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s162/s162b.html
Jo KWONG; “Environment And Free Trade”
“…..Perhaps the biggest reason for environmental gains in Mexico from freer trade, however, would result from increased economic prosperity. To some environmentalists, this seems backwards. Many argue against trade because it encourages industrialization, which in turn, is blamed for pollution. Yet the experience of Western developed countries is just the opposite. Over the long term, emissions eventually fall, even as economic growth continues to increase. Several years ago, Hoover research fellow Mikhail Bernstam detailed what he calls “the environmental split of the 1970s and 1980s”–a divergence between consumption and pollution involving Western market economies and the socialist world. He found that resource use and discharges began to decline rapidly in those nations with competitive markets, even as economic growth, continued. In contrast, during the same two decades, consumption and environmental disruption were rapidly increasing in the USSR and European socialist countries even though their economies slowed down and eventually stagnated.
Bernstam’s conclusions are borne out by other studies as well……”
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/environment-and-free-trade/
Jane S. SHAW: “Environmental Protection: The New Socialism”
“……most people don’t know that economic growth and environmental protection are closely and positively linked. Economists are well aware of this. A study by Gene Grossman and Alan Krueger of Princeton University suggests that at low levels of income, economic growth puts initial stress on the environment, but after a certain level of wealth is reached the environment begins to improve. They indicated, for example, air pollution begins to decline when per capita income reaches between $4,000 and $5,000 (in 1985 dollars).
Another indication of this link is the affluence of environmentalists. For example, members of environmental organizations tend to be among the more affluent Americans. A typical reader of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, earns twice the average American income.
In other words, as people become more affluent, they become more interested in protecting environmental amenities. That doesn’t in itself eliminate pollution, which will continue as long as the air and water are, to some extent, “free goods.” But in a system based on private property rights, several factors encourage people to limit pollution…….”
http://feetest.aristotle.net/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3312&print_view=true
Richard L. STROUP and Jane S. SHAW: “An Environment Without Property Rights”
“When Eastern Europe began to open up in the late 1980s, one of the great shocks was the severity of its environmental problems. Journalists reported on skies full of smoke from lignite and soft coal, children kept inside for much of the winter because of unsafe air, and horses that had to be moved away from the worst areas after a few years or they would die.
Many of the environmental ills reflected an abysmally low level of technology. Old, polluting factories of the kinds that are dim memories in the United States were the mainstay of socialist industry. Smelly, sluggish automobiles polluted the roads.
Energy waste was tremendous. Their own statistics showed that socialist economies were using more than three times as much steel and nearly three times as much energy per unit of output than market economies.1 One cannot look about in Warsaw or Moscow, Budapest or Zagreb, Krakow or Sarajevo, wrote economist W. W. Rostow in 1991, without knowing that this part of the world is caught up in a technological time warp.2
Not everyone realized it at the time, but the state of the environment was directly connected to the absence of property rights in the Soviet system. The authorities had refused to allow most resources to be privately owned. Most market exchanges were criminal acts, and entrepreneurship of most kinds was declared to be criminal behavior. Production was centrally planned, with land and other resources owned by the state, not individuals.
Although there were many repressive acts in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European nations, the absence of property rights, along with the absence of the markets that result from the exchange of property rights, was enough to devastate the environment.
To understand why, it is helpful to look at the reasons why private property rights protect the environment. There are several:……”
http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=196
Warren T. BROOKES: “How Government Turns the Learning Curve From Green To Brown”
“…..Tragically, we seem to need many reminders of the essential source of our greatness as a nation — namely liberty, and all the economic rights that go with it: property, mobility, innovation, individual expression, the pursuit of truth both scientific as well as spiritual.
We tend to take these rights and the market economy they have generated so much for granted, we are always in danger of losing them. Even as it watched the collapse of the socialist planned economies of Eastern Europe, Washington was deeply in the grip of the most advanced case of regulatory fever I have ever seen in that city, as Republicans tried to outdo Democrats in demonstrating their concern that free markets are destroying the environment — and threatening our health and safety…..
“……Eastern Europe is filthy today not because of too much technology, but of entirely too little; not because of too much economic growth, but entirely too little; not because of too few controls, but far too many. Its factories are not merely decades, but generations out of date. The older the equipment the higher the pollution; the cruder the products the higher the waste………”
http://www.americanexperiment.org/publications/1991/19910418brookes.php
Don’t diss me, philu, I have gone to a lot of trouble to educate you about how the environment is affected by the alternative types of political economy. If you really care about the environment, you will read and learn with an open mind.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I don’t believe it but I finally agree with something Philu has said.
FWIW I associate with alot of people who are not politically interested at all and Toad and Greenfly it would shock you how many people vote Green because of Jeanette. Whether you understand/accept it or not she is the acceptable face of the party. To put forward anyone else will remove that carefully projected facade of being environmentally aware.
My evidence is annecdotal but since I am a playcentre mum you should be concerned as this is where alot of the support comes from. Rip away your facade and show Tureti or Bradford to the world will just scare off the voters.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Greenfly
>>may crave to have Dunne in your tent
I don’t think anyone, anywhere, craves to have Dunne inside their tent.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 pm
The last time the Greens elected a leader, it was someone not in parliament. So they don’t have to restrict themselves this time… it could be anyone. In which case the interesting questions are:
1. Who will fall on their sword to allow the new leader to campaign while on a taxpayer paid salary?
2. I hear that this leader MUST be female. We know that most of the Green MPs are at or near retirement age and presumably have values that date back to the olden days when it comes to matters of race and gender. But why can’t they get with the program and drop the sexism? It’s 2009 folks, not 1892!
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
This isnt the beginning of the end for the Greens, it is just the continuation of the end.
With Fitzsimons gone they lose another of their “Green” faces.
The Green Party is not an environmentalist party, not really. Personally I doubt they ever were. Sure, they may have a lot of people who call themselves environmentalists as members, but when push comes to shove they are too ideologically stagnant to accept a wide range of solutions to environmental problems.
At some critical point, their ideology will trump their concern for the environment.
They try to brand themselves as a single issue party. What that means is that they will get people voting for them who are concerned about that single issue who will assume that the Green party would be experts in things environmental. Eventually though, people start to notice that the Greens, are butting in on a whole lot of unrelated issues. Not only that, they are taking stances that are anti-democratic, interferring, and embarassingly stupid.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Peter – so it’s not only greenies who prefer an outdoor dunny
(I’ll apologise right now for the lame joke, saving my detractors the trouble)
chfr – here’s something for you and your playcentre mums to consider – would someone as trustworthy and highly respected as Jeanette Fitzsimons spend all that time working with people she didn’t trust and admire? The impressions you have of other Green female MPs is, I suggest, incorrect and the result of media ‘demonising’ especially that of Sue Bradford. FYI – I was, some time ago a playcentre supervisor (that’s my ‘credibility plug’) and (seperate issue) I have had the oportunity to talk with Sue Bradford several times, in an informal, conversational way and found her to be warm hearted, thoughtful and very intelligent. As for Metiria Turei, I’m willing to bet you and your friends would love her! She’s down to earth, honest and generous.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Damn, I’m agreeing with PhilU too. Except for the comment about bi-racial, don’t know what that means. Does it mean Maori and pakeha (in which case, every Maori would qualify, since none of them are full blood), does it mean Maori and something else (Island of some sort?), or does it mean that she is comfortable in both worlds – you know, Uncle Tom or some such suggestion?
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I’ve worked out how philu does it … if we take DPR’s top statement above starting with “As predicted in the newspapers …..”
and then run it through here http://rinkworks.com/dialect/ choose hacker dialect and the result is perfect philu
A PREDICTED IN THE NEWSP4PERS YESTARDAY, JEA|\|NATTRE FITZSIMNONS HAZ ANONUNCED SHE SII STEPPING ODWN AS GR3EN CO-L34DEDR IN JUNE th greens are going t0 haVe to hink harfd about tehir choice nad strategy!!!!!!!!!!!!11 They only have to d0rp 2% to be opur of par7iamnen, anjd they failed to signmiFicantly attract votes in 20O8 fRom what i call “eThical leftei”w ho Were app4lled by what laboUr adh dom,ebut didn’t Wamnt t0 vote centre-right,,, lolololololololoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11~~~~~ IN THE END MANy MORE E-XLABOUR VOTERZ SWENMT TO 4T1ONLA INSTEAD OF THE GREENS. e73tcions For the new co-l3adar wi7l aphpEn on3 0 maay and 1 june!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1~~~~~~~ sounds lick a g0od fuTures msarket fro irpedict~~~~~~ sue bradford a|\|d metira turie 4hve both confirmed tehy wi7l stand fro teh position, OLOLOLOL~~
Add a few carriage returns and we’re in!!!
I had to break the run of lots of people being nice to philu and agreeing with him – it will only cause confusion
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
The old commies know their philosophy is a dead duck so they recycle it as a response to concerns about the environment all wrapped up as the Green Party. Every response the Green party has to an issue, it is to either: ban it, tax it or get the government to run it. That is the marxist way of doing things.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Bradford will get in.
She is the harder, tougher performer, and will stop at nothing in her quest for power.
She will eat the youngling alive.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Sorry Greenfly you lose me with Fitsimonds, I am afraid she has looked oportuinistic and very out of touch this term and the last. Agreeing with the EFA and still defending it. You may not like to face it but people, including the very pc world of playcentre, have moved on now.
It does not surprise me you supervised at playcentre, you sound the type.
The ploy of stalling MP’s saleries for 3 years, we all know she is going and it looks like a stunt.
IMHO S59 has tainted your party forever. I am a parent for whom smacking is the LAST cab on the rank but I want it there as a last resort when my daughter is not behaving. Your mob didn’t take us into account with your one size fits all approach.
Bradford…I remember the “Unemployed workers union” days (a misnomer if there ever was one) and the spitting at cops in protests. You will forgive me if I do not take her sereously now.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
It was interesting to see Sue Bradford’s face twitch when Turei blandly announced they are both equally experienced politicians. Turei neatly eclipsed Bradford’s main selling point. This fight might get a bit nasty from here on in.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Phil U is right. I think. Kedgely wont be a starter, Anyone who was tupped by Tim Shadbolt would be doomed anyway. Bradford is a surefire ticket to political oblivion but Turei, like Tariana Turia, can thrust aside the radical label and set herself up as an able and pragmatic politician.
She would be 33% better than Bradford. 4% party vote instead of 3%.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
TVB
Interesting observation.
Bradford is the better known of the two players, but this fight will be played out amongst the greens, as much as the VRWC would like to get involved. Agree though, it will be a bitch fight not the like seen since Ripley took on the Queen in Alien 2
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I said in a previous contribution that there is no reason to celebrate Fitzsimons retirement.
I’d ask you to look at the roll call of the Green Party MPs, which is destined to continue the undermining, fifth-columnist campaign started by the grandmotherly Fitzsimons. The list of Luddites include:
• Norman, neo-communist and EFA apologist;
• Turei, radical and an unknown quantity;
• Kedgley, monothematic fanatic and enemy of progress;
• Locke, avowed communist from decades ago;
• Delahunty, demented to the point of disbelief;
• Bradford, long time bludger advocate, and now bludging from the other end of the spectrum.
How can any one have confidence in any of the above characters? Every one of them is determined to take New Zealand backwards, to the Middle Ages if possible, all in the name of submission to a mythical Gaia.
These people deserve not only our contempt, but the Green Party and its ideas/policies must be fought against at all levels.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
“Anyone who was tupped by Tim Shadbolt”
Adolf – how do you know she wasn’t?
“..and turei..save for getting her puppies out for a walk/dance on ‘k’ rd..a coupla times..”
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Manolo – congratulations – 1st time I’ve seen the word monothematic used outside of a musical context. There should be some sort of award for use of interesting and unusual words – I’ve saved up defenestration. I hereby officially reserve it for later use.
However, isn’t the issue that the new potential bosses are less likely to be seen as reasonable and mainstream except for a tendency for crystals and tree hugging? Fitzimons had that trust me image but the rest come across more accurately as well enough from mainstream to scare mr & mrs average. The average kiwi has absolutely no idea how extreme the greens are – this event is more likely to make this more obvious – just a thought. A good thought ……
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
No matter who gets it, the public is slowly starting to wake up to the Green party lies.
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
chfr – your views on jeanette fitzsimons are out of kilter with the majority of New Zealanders, who voted her ‘Most Trusted’ politician. Seems to me you might have other views equally out of step – fancy dissing a playcentre supervisor! Don’t you like anyone ? Do nuns upset you as well?
As for your failure to come to terms with the repeal of section 59, that’s no surprise. Country fell to bits the moment that ‘legislation of the devil’ came into being, didn’t it!
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Manolo – your assessment of the qualities of the Green MPs reminds me of the demented rantings of a Peter Dunne in mid-warble. Are you him?
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Of course it will be Turei, let’s hope philu doesn’t pretend he was the only one who predicted it like he does with respect to the GFC.
Big deal.
She’s an idiot, unable to compromise like most of the Greens. Poisoned by idealistic naive ideology, a twisted racist view of the world disguised by alleging she weally weally cares.
The only thing she has shown she cares about, to date, is absolute adherence to her own agenda, which you never ever ever get in politics.
Perhaps leadership will give her a different perspective, I have my doubts though. In her time in Parliament, exposed to the machinations of govt and with the best possible research resources that NZ can offer, she hasn’t changed her naive tune one little bit. Instead I suspect she’ll spend most of the next 3 years loudly bewailing all the twagedy wought (in her twisted mind) solely by the vicious towies and how it would have all been diffewent if only they weally weally cared, like she does.
At this point, IMO she’s a proven idiot, not worth 5 cents of taxpayer funding, let alone what she actually gets from us. If she ever once comes out with a decent original practical workable political policy then I’ll listen, until then, she remains an idiot. The only good thing is between her and Norman, you couldn’t get a better epitome of the Greens. Voters will notice. I predict their strongest competitor in 2011 will be the Mcgillicuddy Serious Party.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
reid – if you release the tourniquet, the blood will rush, life-savingly, back into your brain Good luck!
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
reid is right. Poor wee Norman is soon going to be assailed by a pair of large, swinging bosoms. It won’t really matter which of the ladies they belong to. His courage in the face of this terror will be a delight to see. Bless.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
with any luck, some unknown fruitbat from motueka or other hippy-dippy region will throw their hat in the ring and the media will lap up their Monster Raving Loony Party press releases with gay abandon. I love it when the Greens have a leadership election because it really does show their true colours – i.e. at the top they’re a bunch of single issue (and no, it’s not the environment) nutbars. Greenfly demonstrates this every time it posts.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
“In the end many more ex-Labour voters went to National instead of the Greens.”
I think that’s an astounding statement. A huge social and political paradigm.
Is it easier for younger voters to switch allegiance?
I’m older and find it hard, near impossible to vote a National candidate.
This in view that I like John Keys. I’m proud of his new govt. I’ve met and like Nationals Ham East member, David Benett.
I have close friends who say they will definitely vote National next time around for the first time in their lives.
I am also a friend of Matamata’s staunch National party member Garth Huston, some of you may know, including David.
But somewhere there’s a pyscological block. Even though I despise the socialists.
Guess its Act for me lol.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
reid, where did you hear all this stuff from Turei? I just say that cos she’s…pretty low profile really.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
That’s the thing isn’t it, Buggerlugs.
The environment issue is their greatest strength.
It’s the one Green issue that crosses party lines and gives them broad support.
Fitzsimmons has more credibility than anyone in NZ, on this issue.
(BTW, personally, I don’t buy it myself. I’m only saying, a lot of people do. You had Alana Currie as the epitome of the Remuera Housewives voting for them a few years ago for example. That’s how much support they have.)
It’s their golden goose.
And what are they going to do. Kill it.
Stephen, which bit would you like me to expand on?
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 pm
buggerlugs said: ” they’re a bunch of single issue (and no, it’s not the environment) nutbars. Greenfly demonstrates this every time it posts”
Go on buggerlugs, tell me what is that single issue (remember, it’s not the environment) that I post on, every time?
Reid – tell us about the ‘Eel Tour’ Metiria Turei recently undertook around the country, or the Wetlands establishment and protection work she’s been driving over the past few years. Remember to outline how her work there isn’t environmental. Come on.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
On of Turei’s selling points is that she served a political apprenticeship with the Macgillicuddy’s. SEE!! I told you the Greens stole the MSP’s Great Leap Backwards policy.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Greenfly – buzz off to bed and get some sleep – you need it.
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I don’t understand why people here object to the male/female co-leadership model.
Obviously men and women bring different strengths and perspectives to the role…
As do Maori and Pakeha
And straights and gays
And environmentalists and communists…
So where do I apply for the role of 16th co-leader – I’ll be the straight pakeha environmentalist fella.
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Sry JohnMcc – no call for that sort straight white nonsense in todays world!
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I think either option could potentially sink them, I think Bradford would be totally foolish; that said Turei wouldn’t be a great deal better, remember she was a former The McGillicuddy Serious Party member and also in the middle of the arrests of Norml (pro pot club) leaders at Otago University demanding police officer numbers and accusing them of injuring her constituents (all on youtube).
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
As you know greenfly, it’s not what she actually does but what the public thinks she does, that counts. I daresay that none of her environmental escapades has entered the mind of the electorate. I bet if the Greens did a survey asking the public to associate which Green MPs were most active in the environment, Turei would not rate highly. They’d probably rate Keith higher than her.
OTOH, if the Greens did a survey asking the public which Green MPs were active in lesbian affairs and Maori rights, she’d probably score No. 1.
Note that I’m not suggesting those necessarily are her portfolio areas or her particular interests, merely that IMO, that’s how the public frames her, and that’s all that counts in politics, as you well know.
Frustrating isn’t it, all those damned “uninformed” opinions?
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 pm
You know if or when Turei gets the nod, she could do worse than to try and take over some of the Maori Party vote, using the Green credentials.
A competition between the Maori Party and the Greens would be a very interesting tussle over the next 3 years. Maori have several significant interests to which the Greens could appeal, one of them is the environment, another is the Maori nationalism Turei strongly advocates and a third is the maintenance of the welfare state.
The power to effect real change given to the MP by their coalition with the Nats seemingly gives the MP the upper hand but the emotive nature of the Green party’s
politicspropaganda combined with the fact the Greens would have a lot of propaganda ammo to hurl at a party that goes into coalition with “the enemy” further combined with the exigencies arising from the GFC which I suspect, many Maoris (and many others as well), won’t accept as a reason for the upcoming hard times, would give rise to some most interesting manoeuvrings, on both sides.February 24th, 2009 at 1:08 am
greenfly…. I guess you don’t have any kids.
Now teachers teach children to judge their parents as criminals if they get a smack. That does wonders for family harmony. let alone respect. That poison will take a while to bite, too soon to call game over no result yet.
You think parents don’t know this? So what do they resort to instead? Fundamentally something less honest, like distractions, or bribes. It’s a slippery slope, and it breeds dishonest weak people who can’t face reality. Welcome to NZ in 20yrs.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:14 am
adc – my little daughter-in-law is coming along pretty well on a combination of smacked bottoms and/or “Time out” as and where appropriate, plus having right and wrong explained to her whenever her behaviour makes this necessary.
I don’t recall any bribes, and it doesn’t appear Mum gave out any before I met them.
But the minute it starts to look like the evil greenie socialists are destroying our familiar harmony, you’ll be the first to know!
February 24th, 2009 at 2:03 am
The sad thing is how little scrutiny Jeanette got by the mainstream media. She remains a rather dim woman. In 1998 she said that it was the last Christmas we could eat potatoes we could trust (If I could trust a potato I’d go into business with it, not eat it – maybe she talked to more). She is a monumental scaremongerer, over GE, over nuclear issues, over global warming. She once said Don Brash wants a world where the women bake scones and the only brown faces are tanned – so utterly despicably and inaccurate it is beyond words, but most of the braindead media reported none of it. Far easier for her to seem like the grey haired old earnest auntie who sometimes uttered words of wisdom, than to show she far more often talked nonsense.
I went into some of this a while back http://libertyscott.blogspot.com/2008/06/just-one-more-chance.html as I am tired of mild mannered Jeanette being thought of as so benign.
As for replacement? Greens would be mad to select Sue Bradford, her vandalising rough protesting past and her proletarian accent are a serious turnoff to most, even if her past Maoism goes largely unnoticed.
Metiria Turei has an odd past, but would shore up the Green party attempt to gather the Maori vote from the Maori Party. That in itself should please the left, and continue to weaken the Labour Party’s past near monopoly on the Maori vote.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Don’t need to expand, you just refer to a lot things specific to her – that i’ve never really been exposed to, even with my middling interest in political goings on – when so often we only hear such things about the high profile Greens like Locke and Bradford, and even then most of that stuff is pre-Green party. Guess you’re just the bigger boffin!
February 24th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Ratbiter … you smack your daughter-in-law? What does your son think of that?
February 24th, 2009 at 11:45 am
YAY
February 24th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
“is the Maori nationalism Turei strongly advocates and a third is the maintenance of the welfare state.”……both go hand in hand.