Defining the ground

The Greens held their annual conference over the weekend, and co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons took the opportunity to position the party for future coalition negotiations next term by putting forward some symbolic questions to Helen Clark and John Key. Two of the questions were about climate change policy, and are really worthy of another post; the others highlighted the Greens' interest in social justice, and made their position clear. To John Key, she asked:

what you intend to do about the people you have labeled as the "underclass". Will you make a public commitment now that benefits levels will not be cut and the conditions for receiving them will not be made more stringent under any government you lead? Will workers still enjoy the options of seeking collective agreements? Will the minimum wage be frozen at the level you inherit or will it continue to rise? Will we see bulk funding or vouchers introduced in education?

While to Helen, she asked:

how you feel about the growth in inequality since you came to power, and what plans you have to address it

and highlighted benefit levels, child poverty and housing affordability as areas that need government attention. The message is clear: that if National wants to govern (and despite recent polling, they are likely to need a partner post-election, and their options are likely to be limited to the Greens or the Maori Party), they are going to need to restrain their urge to screw the workers and transfer wealth to their rich donors, while if Labour wants another term, it is going to have to do much, much better than it is at present. The ground should naturally favour Labour, but given the slow progress we've seen on these issues (particularly that of benefit levels), I'm not sure they can be relied upon to rise to the challenge. And OTOH, the latter two are centrist issues, of interest to both of Labour's current coalition partners, so they may have political room to move.

And as part of my ongoing snark against Jordan: this is an example of a political party definining the political ground, and trying to lead public opinion rather than cravenly following it. It would be nice if Labour would try and do the same, rather than continually wasting its bully pulpit.