Green Labour fighting
September 21st, 2011 at 11:00 am by David FarrarThe Nelson Mail reports:
A spat has developed after the Greens took exception over Labour MP Maryan Street labelling them more blue than green in Parliament.
Nelson Green candidate Aaryn Barlow, who is on his first election campaign, hit back at Ms Street saying she was desperate for votes while she maintained National could not be trusted.
In Parliament, Ms Street had been making reference to the Greens voting for National’s Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill, which establishes an environmental protection system for the ocean beyond this country’s 12-mile territorial limit.
She claimed: “This Green Party is beginning to align itself in a foreshadowing of its possible coalition arrangements with the National Party that makes it look now more blue than green.”
The bill passed its first reading by 76 votes to 44 on Tuesday with the help of the Greens, United Future, Act and the Maori Party. Mr Barlow said the Greens would support it until select committee stage, but did not believe it went far enough to protect the environment.
He said: “I find it rich for Labour to accuse us of aligning ourselves with National when Labour have voted for National’s bills four times as much as the Greens this term. Maryan is obviously concerned about Labour voters who are leaving them in droves for the Greens and she is getting desperate.”
I think Labour are starting to get very worried about the extent of their possible vote loss to the Greens.
Let’s say you are a centre-left voter. You’d like a centre-left Government but like over 90% of New Zealanders, think National will win. You then have a choice. You can either vote Labour, knowing they will oppose pretty much everything the Government does, or you can vote Greens knowing the Greens will work with the Government to make it greener in areas they can find agreement, and that the more votes the Greens get the more influence they will have with Government.
Related posts:
- A Labour-Green coalition
- Former Green MP joins National
- Green voters say Greens should accept a coalition with National
- A Labour-Green-NZF Cabinet
September 21st, 2011 at 11:09 am
Agreed DPF, if the Greens can’t make big headway this time round then there’s something wrong.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 11:13 am
Labour is looking at the downward trend in the polls and starting to seriously panic. I have to admit that this is fun to watch.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 11:17 am
Fun to watch? Its glorious, better than anything on TV, apart from the rugby
I also noticed this week – the billboards in New Plymouth tell a story. National, candidate and the PM on the billboard. Labour, candidate only. Isnt Mr Little proud of his fearless leader, does he not want to be associated with Goofy?
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 11:31 am
3-coil, we (my wife and I) laughed about the posh and becks thing at the time – our second child, based on that, could have been called 10th floor Byron on Spencer
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Not Axminster or parquet or dining table?
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Dining Table? That would be John Collinge’s choice, would it not?
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 12:50 pm
And someone called Mark might have the middle names Four and Cortina?
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 1:07 pm
@rightnow
Talk to anyone who works in social services, medicine or teachign in some of our more ‘deprived’ areas and you’ll realise that those names are not jokes – the joke is the parents would have the sense to only make them middle names. Oh no, not true unfortunately.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Hmmm, i prefer labour to the greens.
The greens would have this country going into economic suicide.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Lucky Posh n’ Becks didn’t spend the night in Peckham, really.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Labour have no new ideas. After this election the Greens will be the real opposition party in this country.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 1:52 pm
In the past couple of weeks I have done a few miles on the road, every single Labour party sign I have seen is of the local candidate only, Goff is nowhere to be seen.
Why can’t Labour be honest with the public and stop pretending they support Goff, ditch the man and elect a new leader before the election, at least that way they might stop leaking votes to the duplicitous Green party.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 1:56 pm
You can either vote Labour, knowing they will oppose pretty much everything the Government does, or you can vote Greens…
You what?
Voting stats:
http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/parliaments/49
http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/parties/labour/national
http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/parties/green/national
Based on the evidence Labour’s problem might be the number of times they’ve unexpectedly supported the government.
[DPF: I wasn't referring to voting in the House, but actually sitting down together in certain policy areas and agreeing on future initiatives]
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 2:38 pm
If you vote Green for those reasons they will think they are more popular than they really are. The risk is they will get uppity and try to throw their weight around – that’s potentially not good for stability. Better to vote for who/what you believe in and let the chips fall where they will.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Not how I see it at all. You can either vote Labour, knowing they will oppose pretty much everything the Government does and knowing they’d be doing very similar things themselves if they were in Government or you can vote Greens who have a more identifiable left-wing set of policies.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 4:41 pm
A nice demonstration that Ms Street is such a hard-line leftist that even the watermelons are to her right.
Vote:September 21st, 2011 at 10:14 pm
The Green’s are killing Aussie Labor, and the same thing appears to be happening here.
The Greens are masters of political marketing – I’m not surprised in the slightest that lefties are drawn to them. The idea that Utopia is just around the corner.
Vote:So where does that leave a slightly more realistic left leaning party like Labour? Struggling that’s what.