Why the Greens are better not to go into coalition

No Right Turn blogs:

With an absolute majority, Labour can govern in its own right, and doesn’t need partners. But while unnecessary, they’re a nice-to-have, both as backup and for PR reasons. Ardern has talked about “consensus”, and there are obvious benefits for her of having government policy endorsed by as many parties as possible. At the same time, that’s not hugely valuable, and nowhere near as valuable as votes to get something over the line, so the price Labour would be willing to pay is probably rather low. So should the Greens be rushing to sign up?

I’m doubtful, for two reasons. Firstly, as we saw last term, being in government has a cost. Being a good team player means not criticising your political partners, and in particular, not spending the next three years reminding Labour’s supporters and voters generally of what the government could or should be doing. Which is fine, if you’re actually getting real policy out of it. But its not something you give away for nothing, or next-to-nothing (which is what the Greens arguably got last term). Secondly, as noted above, I think the price Labour is willing to pay will be low. They don’t need the Greens, and while they could be used as rhetorical cover for increasing the ambition of their lowballed centrist policy promises, the numbers simply make such excuses laughable. So the net result of the Greens in government would be Green Ministers implementing and overseeing Labour policy. And as someone who thinks that status quo Labour policy is the problem, I don’t think that’s worth shit, and certainly not worth surrendering the rhetorical power of opposition for. I’m not interested in a Green Party which gags itself for other people’s benefit. So I’d favour a loose arrangement of (un-needed) confidence and supply in exchange for consultation on key issues and a few select-committee chairs, at best – friends, not partners.

I agree with this argument. If the Greens have their top MPs as Ministers, they will spend most of their time implementing Labour policy and administering their departments. They will have near zero policy leverage.

If they really want to shift Labour to the left, they would be better to remain outside Government so they can criticise the Government for its woeful lack of progress on reducing child poverty and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. National attacking Labour on child poverty and climate change doesn’t make Labour particularly uncomfortable. But having the Greens constantly pointing out their total lack of progress would cut through to the media, Labour activists and the caucus.