Will the Greens get Finance
October 30th, 2012 at 3:00 pm by David FarrarFrom The Nation:
Rachel Okay you said that you’re open to potentially, you know helping to form a coalition. Presumably you’d want a ministerial position in that coalition. What do you think you’d be best suited to?
Russel Yeah I mean I think the Green team would want ministerial positions. So you know we come as a package, so we’ve got co-leaders, and we’ve got some really talented MPs, so we’d be looking at some of those key portfolios, both economics and finance portfolios, but other social and environmental portfolios as well.
Rachel Okay so what would sit well with you? Minister of Finance?
Russel You know obviously that needs to be sorted in a post-election negotiation. Obviously we are interested in positions like that, but in terms of the detail you couldn’t really sort it out until you know what the vote were. It’s up to the voters to decide how much influence the Green Party has.
Rachel Would you rule it out?
Russel I wouldn’t rule it out, I wouldn’t rule it in. You know at the end of the day we’ll go to the election, the voters will determine the level of influence we have, and that will determine the outcome.
In 1996 National got 34% and NZ First got 13% and that was enough to get Winston Peters Treasurer. If there is a change of Government, then the Greens are looking will placed to demand the same. They are currently polling around 12% and Labour 32%.
We’d be the first country outside Eastern Europe I suspect to have a former Marxist (or was it a Maoist – always get them confused!) as Minister of Finance!
With at least three parties needed to form a centre-left Government, it would be a fascinating thing to observe. On current polling it could be Labour gets only 12 – 14 Cabinet Ministers, with the Greens getting 4 – 6, NZ First 2 – 3 and possibly Mana 1.
From a political observation point of view, it would be fascinating. From a taxpayer point of view, it would be less fun.
Related posts:
- Russel wants Finance and seven Ministers
- Why wouldn’t left voters support the Greens?
- Greens aim to win Mt Albert with Norman
- Will Don be Finance Minister?
October 30th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
And Labour would want to place Associate Ministers to cover the portfolios where other parties had Ministers, copies to the associate Ministers of all papers passing between these Ministers and their departments as well as full access to these departments. Arguably in 1996 Bill Birch was de facto Minister of Finance and Winston Peters merely a figurehead Treasurer with some baubles to keep him happy.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
> From a taxpayer point of view, it would be less fun.
How many thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared since these clowns have been in power? Must be loads of fun for those being made redundant…
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Greens will be in no position to demand the Finance portfolio.
Russel:
We want the Finance Ministry.
Cunners:
LOL!
Russel:
No, seriously. We want the Finance portfolio.
Cunners:
No. You would be a bad joke in that role.
Russel:
Fuck you we’re leaving then. Se if you can form a coalition without us.
Cunners:
And where else are YOU gonna go? Your mates the National Party?
Russel: Oh that’s right…
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
You’re too generous. In fact, it would be a fucking nightmare.
ETS-related hikes to the power of 10, new fees, higher PAYE taxes, capital gain taxes, etc. The list goes on and on.
In a nutshell: the ruining of the NZ economy for the mythical pursue of social justice and wealth-redistribution as envisaged by Labour and the Ludiites.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Are you kidding? Wed Wussel as MOF? In reality the leftard bloc will need the Maori Party to get them over the line, so that is more Ministers jobs to be assigned.
In this government scenario (Liarbore/Watermelons/Winston First/ Maori Party/manaLESS Party) New Zealand would really have the ‘Coalition of the Losers’ aka A 7-Headed monster.
I would give them 9-10 months to self destruct
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
russ69 said: How many thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared since these clowns have been in power? Must be loads of fun for those being made redundant…
Not many. Most of them were lost at the end of the last Labour error, err I mean era…
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Thank you RRM for the best post I have read here for a while! Apt and clever. Well done!
Vote:Bloody hell, you could imagine it though…
October 30th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
“From a taxpayer point of view, it would be less fun”
DPF, master of the fecking understatement.
That’ll be an unrealised capital gains tax, there btw…
I feel we are all going to get our sorry little arses whipped, so why is it NOT enough to make me vote national?
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
The worst part about it is they show no signs of understanding how crazy they are. I mean how could they not know.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Meanwhile the aloof Smile-and-wave is missing in action, his weak government seems paralysed by fear, and no decisive economic measures are taken.
That makes lunatics like the Luddites appear like a possibility to govern in unholly alliance with Labour.
Vote:C’mon National Party.
October 30th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Norman as finance minister??? God help New Zealand if that were to occur. We might as well shut up shop.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
” From a taxpayer point of view, it would be less fun.”
Depends on your tax residency status.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Thanks DPF, that’s my sleep gone for some time!
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
@Jim – I’m a contractor, working for an overseas company. Any ideas on if they got in, what the best course of action would be to minimise the inevitable tax hikes?
Get my income paid into an overseas account (that the IRD can’t trace?)
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Imagining Norman as a porn actor evokes less cognitive dissonance than trying to imagine him as a Marxist.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Putting The Greens in control of finance would be like fielding the Labour front bench in the All Blacks.
Good for a laugh, certainly, but only if one is a resident of Australia.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Given the disagreement between Peters and National was economics – of course his price was Treasury. He was in a stong position, after all he and Labour campaigned against National’s economic policy and only his decision to form a coalition with National, rather than Labour, allowed them to stay in government.
This does not apply to a Labour and Green coalition, they are more often in agreement on economics – except on the degree of adovcacy for the poor and the importance of a sustainable economic direction.
The larger party is near always given the leadership position/economic spokesperson role for a coalition, but of course Norman would not want to just concede the position before negotiations over cabinet appointments.
There are enough contenders within Labour, the real question is whether the Greens preference between them carries any weight.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
How many thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared since these clowns have been in power? Must be loads of fun for those being made redundant…
So, you want to fuck over the rest of the nation just to ensure a bunch of Labour voters get to keep their jobs?
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
yeah norman lost me at “really talented mps”
which one?
cant be holly walker, her lobbying law is a turd
cant be delahunty, shes too busy trying to be more maori than maori people and competing with penny dim for deadest cat on head.
cant be hughes, he spends all his time trying to build up hysteria about sinking boats that are not true and flying all around the country telling people about how bad global warming is (so they shouldnt fly). even shane jones handed him his arse.
cant be mojo mathers, she is only there so the greens could jump up and down and get more media attention so they could demand more tax payer money over the 57000 hrs worth they already get. since then she has been invisible.
Is it turei? she was a better larper than an mp.
So who is it? show me the green with decent private sector experience (not 6 months shilling for greenpeace gareth) where they have actually increased someones wealth through their work. and i dont mean companies funded by govt troughs, thats not private sector.
the greens make labour look competent, labour makes the greens look coherent.
the only thing the greens are good at doing is spending taxpayers money, and destroying private property (and gettign the media to ignore it).
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
From a political point of view no time like the present to put the idea out there.
Vote:The way things are working out, Labour is in a sort of holding, introverted position so better for Norman to put these ideas abroad so that they enter the public mind. It’s positive politics that we are not seeing a lot of lately. Whether one is a green supporter or not most would admit that Norman has lifted his profile well this year, possibly at the expense of not only Key but also Shearer.
It’s not unrealistic that Norman might hit the right note with the electorate at a time there is discontent or malaise with National and Labour. He’s showing a confidence toward that end.
October 30th, 2012 at 4:13 pm
It will be back to the 1980s Muldoon era. Rent freezes to ‘fix” the Auckland house crisis. Price freezes to “fix” inflation. Command the RBNZ to “fix ” the currency rate problem. Remove GST on food. Raise taxes on incomes above the mean to 50%/ 60%. Capital Gains tax on investment properties plus the bach plus shares.
Vote:Wonderful stuff. They will barely survive a term and get kicked out.
October 30th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
One is actually Green Party policy – Capital Gains tax on investment properties plus the bach plus shares. Treasury tends to agree.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
highly unlikely that Labour would concede Finance to anyone else including NZF or the Greens.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Couldn’t we just make Russel governer of the reserve bank, at least his name would be on the funny money and we’d know it was worthless.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
“Tom Jackson (149) Says:
October 30th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Imagining Norman as a porn actor evokes less cognitive dissonance than trying to imagine him as a Marxist.”
WTF? Really ——- W T F ?
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
I don’t know why DPF continues to insinuate Winston will choose the options with the most heads, given he has always chosen the option with the least heads (NAT/NZF over LAB/NZF/ALL in 1996, LAB/NZF/UF/Anderton over NAT/NZF/UF/MRI/ACT in 2005).
I suspect unless LAB/NZF (and maybe UF) have the numbers, it’s more likely that we’ll see NZF either on the crossbenches, or with National.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 4:41 pm
It’s bloody scary- But I actually think Wussel becoming Finance Minister is going to happen, he has been making noise about it for some time now…
Vote:Just as scary is the comment “but other social portfolios as well”
Meaning Keith Locke for Minister of Justice or Police??
October 30th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Well if John Key and his bunch of halfwits carried on a more professional manner this post wont have been made.
Nationals approach to almost evrything has been so piss weak that they are alienating everyone. They have been doing just enough to:
1. Piss of their supporters who see what National is doing as being nowhere near enough.
2. Piss of the left because what theyve done is just enough to piss off most of the left
3. Piss off those in the middle because what National are doing doesnt give a clear signal about what they are really trying to achieve.
It seems that its not a case of trying to please most of the electorate most of the tuime – but of trying to piss off as many as possible most of the time.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
The trouble with National is that they haven’t presented any kind of alternate vision for the future of the country. People will put up with almost any level of incompetence in the present (cf Gweens) if they buy into the future vision. The Nats haven’t done this and as a result we have the serious prospect of NZ becoming the next Venezuela because of the unbelievably stupid Gweens and Labour…
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Manolo at 3.14
Vote:Spot on!
October 30th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
barry…
Can we test that with how national are polling at the moment? Because, based on what youve said, they should be around 30% in the polls – or less.
See where Im going with this? You *saying* national are alienating everyone doesnt make it true. And the polling would seem to contradict what you are saying (thats a polite way of calling bullshit BTW)
But do correct me, Im all ears.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
One industry will thrive if Russel Norman gets anywhere near the Treasury Benches.
The printing industry
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
“One is actually Green Party policy – Capital Gains tax on investment properties plus the bach plus shares. Treasury tends to agree.”
Yes but treasury also thinks it should be fiscally neutral.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Shazzadude,
Vote:You seem to think that Peters’ choice of coalition has some basis in achieving stable govt. I suggest that in reality his three top considerations are:
a) who will give me most baubles?
b) what choice will most humiliate my personal enemies
c) what choice will get me the most sustained media exposure
In essence it is all about Peters’ ego, not about good government.
October 30th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
If you want to tackle tax then why not take on the trust regime? That’s a rich fertile ground if you really want to close down “tax minimisation” amongst the wealthy.
So why don’t the Gweens talk about doing that? Because they’re mental.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/5357138/Bob-Jones-wins-4m-over-bad-tax-advice
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
I completely sympathise with those on here saying that the reason the Melons get traction is because National are so ineffectual.
So ineffectual that the disgusting turncoat Nick Smith, who was against Global Warming when in opposition but fell in love with it in government, actually decided he would out green the Greens, and formed the Bluegreens within National.
This seems to be the only strategy the Nats can ever come up with- whatever ideas the left have, we won’t oppose them, we’ll just do them a bit better.
Led by a so called “businessman” who only knows to sell high and buy low, the Nats have stood around with their fingers up their collective arses while the Greens have wormed their way into our education system and in the manner of the Nazi party, have turned naive and impressionable children against their “greedy environmentally destructive” parents.
So every time a cluster of these young indoctrinated missionaries for the Watermelons turns 18, there’s a bunch of votes for these disgusting brainwashers from their dumbarsed little “Environmentalist” zealots who are so spaced out on their religion they make the Scientologists look normal.
And while all this has been happening, the Nats, who were the only ones who were ever going to do anything, have done, as usual, sweet fuck all.
Key has always wanted to be PM, since he was a kid, and when he got there all he wanted to be was popular, and the country and the National Party have paid the price for this egocentric ambition. We needed Maggie Thatcher, and instead we got the PM you’re having when you’re not having a PM.
National’s lack of purpose and ambivalence on policy has created a vacuum in terms of political leadership, and the Greens have used this vacuum to their advantage.
There is only one real way forward for this country and this is for National to return to its founding principles and start fighting for them. Its not going to happen under John Key. I doubt if he even knows those principles exist-
“To promote good citizenship and self-reliance; to combat communism and socialism; to maintain freedom of contract; to encourage private enterprise; to safeguard individual rights and the privilege of ownership; to oppose interference by the State in business, and State control of industry”.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
DPF, as a National insider and staunch supporter, shouldn’t you be advising your party to work towards all New Zealanders, not only their self-confessed acolytes and yes-men?
Less spin, more action, should be the party’s motto.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
National are effectively only a “caretaker” Government, that is why they have refused to undo any of the policies of the last Labour government. All they can do is look back on 4 years of wasted opportunities.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Yep well said, we’re treading water to the next election with most gnats round here already admitting defeat.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 7:02 pm
bringbackdemocracy @6.47: If so, they deserve electoral defeat and the rejection of the NZ public.
The current useless and ineffective second Labour lite term has confirmed its real nature: a spineless version of its socialist brother.
Vacuous Key and his coterie of appeasers have a lot to answer for.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
As I’ve said before, I think NZ probably needs a Lab/G/NZF/Mana etc coalition to shock the entire constituency to a position whereby the current administration style IS regarded as left wing! We are definitely drifting towards this scenario anyway aren’t we.
Short term pain, long term gain.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
DPF:
And from the viewpoint of this New Zealander, it would be a total disaster that would take generations to fix.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 10:18 pm
I have sympathy for DPF’s view, ELC.
It’s how I feel about a Romney victory.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Why not ask some real Marxists what they think? Any Marxist worth the name would rightly identify Norman as the milquetoast social democrat he is.
If there were as many Marxists in New Zealand as people on Kiwiblog claim there are, most of you would be posting from a gulag.
Vote:October 30th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Tom the gulags already exist.
Try having an opinion that doesn’t conform to progressive expectations.
Today’s commies know how to work their soft tyranny because its a strategy they worked out to replace the hard tyranny and the heavy handed approach. Some call it Neo-Marxism.
So far, its working fine.
But anyone awake to their plan can feel and see the pincers growing ever tighter.
Today’s train is being driven by commies wearing the uniforms of social democrats, but the end destination is Marxism, and when they get close to arriving at that station, the engineers and conductors will throw off those clothes and don their true blood red uniforms.
Vote:October 31st, 2012 at 12:36 am
cant be delahunty, shes too busy trying to be more maori than maori people and competing with penny dim for deadest cat on head.
Vote:October 31st, 2012 at 12:39 am
I can’t sleep now.
Thanks Farrar.
Vote:October 31st, 2012 at 8:58 am
Despite obvious lapses, at times I have been warming to Russel.
Vote:He has potential. Maybe he should swap to a decent party.
October 31st, 2012 at 9:17 am
Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Finance in South Africa, is a member of the South African Communist Party:
Vote:http://www.treasury.gov.za/ministry/minister.aspx
October 31st, 2012 at 9:20 am
Sorry- my comment in response to DPF “We’d be the first country outside Eastern Europe I suspect to have a former Marxist (or was it a Maoist – always get them confused!) as Minister of Finance!”
Vote:October 31st, 2012 at 9:55 am
DPF always puts NZF as part of the left coalition, due to his own predjudices. But surely even DPF can see Winston has learnt a bit over the last few years. Other commentators have moved on a bit, as has much of the National Party.
It is likely that NZF will get back in and will hold the balance of power. He can either to be part of the Govt or allow a minority Govt. However, Winston will always go for a Ministerial Post. He has always chosen simpler coalitions. He has always gone with the largest party.
Would he want to ply second string to Russell Norman – I think not.
So the Nats are the most likely bet for 2014, but they are going to have to work with NZF. Thats MMP.
[DPF: As National's policy has been to rule out NZ First, I always put them as part of a left coalition. If that policy changes (and no surprise I hope it doesn't), then I'll include them as a centre party like the Maori Party who could go either way.
I agree Winston will have reservations about being third string to the Greens]
Vote:October 31st, 2012 at 12:14 pm
The Greens’ drive to broaden their constituency could be self-defeating.
A large chunk of the Green voting base is said to come from the Remuera blue-rinse sector, dealing with environmental guilt. They figure that a few more eco-seats can only be a good thing, and the major parties will always keep a steady hand on the wheel as far as the economy is concerned.
If they now start looking at the Green’s economic ideas, it will be a whole new ballgame.
Vote:October 31st, 2012 at 4:32 pm
It would be a financial POL POT……if this sanctimonious hypocrite got a sniff of the Treasury benches, welcome Venezuela style politics and all the marxist stupidity it will bring. Just remember Venezuela has the oil, we dont
Vote: