An impossible deal

Today, James Shaw went public and called the talk of a National-Green deal "speculation" and "noise", and ruled out talking to them unless there was no other option. In doing so, he's clearly articulating the views of his party and its voters, who have made it clear that they are not interested in propping up National. And yet, its unlikely to help, because the people spreading this shit - a mix of paid National shills like DPF and Matthew Hooton, and desperate National supporters unhappy with being forced to rely on Winston - have already shown that they're not interested in what the Green Party or its membership thinks. Which is yet another example of why such a deal simply isn't possible: there can be no partnership with such an attitude.

A deal is clearly off the table for this election cycle. So what about the future? Given the Green Party constitution, if National wants any chance of such a deal in future, they need to convince 75% of Green Party members that they're an acceptable partner. And this means ditching their anti-environment policies, their support for irrigation, dirty rivers, mining, drilling, gutting the RMA and destroying the climate, not just as part of a one-off deal because they've been forced into pretending to pay lip-service to the environment, but in the long term. And after a couple of terms of seeing National do that, Green members might just believe them.

Of course, that would require National to stop representing the people it represents: farmers, miners, polluters, developers. And to be honest, that's about as likely as the Green Party stopping representing greens. Given the support bases of the respective parties, such a deal is simply impossible.