Green co-leadership

The Greens are electing a co-leader this weekend to replace Rod Donald, and everyone seems to be weighing in. There's been a fair amount of media coverage in recent days, including a "candidate's debate" on Agenda (transcipt / video) and a "meet the candidates" piece in the Herald, and everyone seems to have an opinion: BlogGreen, Joe Hendren, DPF. So what's mine?

Well, actually, I don't really have one. I'm not a member of the Green party, so I don't get a say anyway, but with the exception of Mike Ward (who for some reason I've taken a dislike to), I think they're all good enough for the job. Russel Norman would make a fine co-leader. So would Nandor, and so would Dave Clendon. While some have played up left-right differences between the candidates and talked about the Greens not being a left-wing party, the fact is that all the candidates have a strong commitment to social justice issues, and I don't expect that to change. As for the bigger picture of future direction and coalition options, the blunt fact is that regardless of the exact balance between left and green, the party is still far closer to Labour than it is to the anti-RMA, anti-Kyoto, anti-environment National Party - and will remain so unless the latter has a fundamental change of direction. I don't expect this to prevent cooperation on any progressive legislation National may put forward in the future, but I expect it to rule out coalition support unless National shows far more commitment to the environment than it does at present. And that will be the case regardless of who the co-leader is.

The only downside is that two of the candidates aren't MPs, and consequently have a lower public profile. But that will hopefully solve itself at the next election, and in any case its more important that the Parliamentary party remain firmly tied to the Greens as a whole, rather than being an independent and mostly parasitic group as happens with most New Zealand political parties.