Labour could be the biggest loser this election if it embraces some of the Greens' more radical ideas
Opinion: With the release of its election manifesto at the weekend, the Greens stole a march on other parties in the lead-up to the election in three months' time. The manifesto is detailed, containing about 200 specific policy points, and implicitly challenges other parties to be as bold in their policy offerings to the electorate. Depending on one’s political outlook, the Greens’ manifesto is either a visionary statement for the future, or a comprehensive political suicide note.
The Greens’ basic problem still is being taken seriously by Labour. Even though its constant warnings about the dire nature of the environmental and climate change crisis enveloping the world are coming to pass, it has been a long struggle for the Greens to become part of a governing arrangement.
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It took them 21 years – longer than any other new Parliamentary party formed under MMP – to achieve that. And that was through an emasculated support agreement with Labour because New Zealand First wanted to call all the shots by itself as a formal coalition partner. After New Zealand First’s demise, the Greens have operated a looser co-operation agreement with Labour, which, because of the outright majority it secured in 2020, did not need a confidence and supply partner in the current Parliament.
Nevertheless, despite its slow journey to even an arms-length governing arrangement with Labour, the Green Party is the only smaller party to have grown its vote share, albeit marginally, while in a governing arrangement. With current opinion polls showing that Labour looks likely to lose about a third of its current seats, the Greens know it will be key to the government remaining in power after the election, so long as its vote share holds up.
Ruling out too many of the Greens’ policies in advance may backfire. That runs the risk of encouraging a section of the electorate to support the Greens simply to ensure it has the numbers in the next Parliament to demand those policies be implemented anyway
Having consistently ruled out any prospect of working with National, it has become an all-or-nothing approach for the Greens, hence the specificity of its manifesto. It knows Labour needs them, as much as it needs Labour. Otherwise, another spell in the political wilderness beckons.
Yet, ironically, Labour is potentially the biggest loser from the Greens’ manifesto announcement. Labour risks shedding some of its more moderate, first-time supporters from 2020 if it embraces some of the more radical ideas in the Greens’ manifesto. These are the people who voted Labour mainly because of Dame Jacinda Ardern’s Covid-19 management, not because of any of its other policies.
Those voters already feel Labour has gone too far in its second term, so Labour’s signing-up to many aspects of the Greens’ manifesto would therefore likely be a breaking point for them. At the same time, however, current circumstances require Labour to throw aside its historical diffidence, bordering on antipathy, to working more closely with the Greens if it is to remain in office. It is a potentially no-win situation.
Moreover, this tension is exacerbated by the increasing likelihood Labour will also have to rely on Te Pāti Māori with its even more radical agenda to govern after the election. Any specific embrace by Labour of the Greens’ key policies will undoubtedly embolden Te Pāti Māori’s demands.
The Prime Minister may find it becomes more difficult to portray himself as the reasonable broker, focusing on the “bread and butter” issues that matter to New Zealanders in such circumstances. Already he is being pressured to spell out which of the Greens’ and Te Pāti Māori’s policies he would consider unacceptable in a governing arrangement.
Herein lies a second problem for Labour. Ruling out too many of the Greens’ policies in advance may backfire. That runs the risk of encouraging a section of the electorate to support the Greens simply to ensure it has the numbers in the next Parliament to demand those policies be implemented anyway. At the same time, there is the potential to alienate both the Greens and Te Pāti Māori to the extent that each chooses to sit outside government on the cross benches, making for a very unstable governing arrangement, almost certainly leading to a fresh election within a few months.
All this puts further pressure on Labour to spell out soon what its plans are for a third term in government. Its line to date that it will release its election policies in good time, is starting to wear a little thin. Many voters already believe that the more controversial policies Labour has promoted this term were not well-publicised before the last election and are therefore wary of Labour being similarly deceptive this time around. The longer it delays releasing its own policies the more Labour leaves the field open to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori to make the running, with the greater the likelihood those parties will be seen as setting the agenda for a future centre-left government.
Though National may be tempted to rub its hands on the sidelines that all this confirms the accuracy of its “coalition of chaos” prediction, it should not forget it could face similar problems with Act. ACT has never been short of detailed policy plans, many just as radical on the right of the spectrum as those of the Greens and Te Pāti Māori on the left. National, too, will be under pressure to spell out which Act policies it would accept, and which it would not. It has, for example, already ruled out Act’s demand for a referendum on the role and place of the Treaty of Waitangi. What others will it similarly rule out?
The Green Party deserves acknowledgement for the boldness and candour of its manifesto, qualities not always apparent in government. But it is unlikely it will hold fast to these if it faces making difficult compromises after the election to stay a party of government.
The Greens have learned the hard way since 2017 that in politics virtue is seldom its own reward and that a seat at the table always counts for far more than lofty visions about what might be.
