A clear choice

New Zealand First held its party conference over the weekend, and among all the weirdo cooker shit and outright racism, Winston dropped another election policy: a billion dollar subsidy for gas exploration, lest we be left behind in destroying the planet.

And today the Greens offered their alternative: a billion dollar investment in renewable firming for the grid, to help our energy transition and keep power prices low:

The Green Party wants to use its ‘Super Rich Tax’ to establish a publicly owned renewable energy company called Kiwipower, to fill the gaps they say the market has failed to fill.

The party says Kiwipower could use a combination of pumped hydro, geothermal and batteries to backup more intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar, making them a far better investment.

The party’s freshly released energy election policy would also see the wealth tax used to put solar panels on more than half of all public homes within four years, give renters access to plug-in solar, and expand the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme for insulation.

It would also invest $200 million for community-owned renewable energy and commit another $80m to Māori housing.

NZ First naturally offered no clue as to where their billion dollars would come from. The Greens, after years of the media crying "how will you pay for it!?!", said so explicitly. But its also worth noting that Kiwipower is an asset, and so the "spending" is largely an exercise in moving money from one column of the government's books to another. Ditto the mass installation of solar on state houses. And given what we know about home insulation, the "spending" will be more than saved in reduced downstream health costs. What does NZ First offer us? At best, a billion dollars down a black hole. At worst, the continued destruction of the global climate, with ongoing increased costs for health and natural disasters.

There's a clear choice here, and it should be obvious which one is a better deal, both for us as individuals, and for Aotearoa.

Eating Labour's lunch

Yesterday the Greens announced a significant election policy: default union membership. New employees would automatically be enrolled in a "default union", but would be able to opt out. Unions approved, of course, but what did Labour, the supposed party of the union movement think about it?

Yes, they were "non-committal". The same way they're "non-committal" about anything actually left-wing these days (when they're not actively hostile to it, like taxing the rich).

Snark about Labour useless aside, this is actually good policy. It's a nudge towards union membership, making it frictionless to join, while still respecting freedom of association. People can easily opt out, and the first month of temporary membership will cost them nothing. The big question is how many will. Union membership dropped to about 20% after National's Employment Contracts Act, and has never really recovered. This will almost certainly see a significant increase, and provide a place to build from.

The core of the Clark government's industrial relations policy was "give unions the tools, and let them fight and win gains for themselves". That worked quite well. And it will work better with stronger unions. Membership by default will enable that, but also put real pressure on the unions to deliver real benefits for those new members, to demonstrate their relevance and utility - because people are not going to stay members if membership delivers nothing. Its a direct recipe for greater union power - a thing employers actually fear.

The Ardern government's alternative was to spend years building supposed consensus with employers for "fair pay agreements" - essentially a system of centrally negotiated industry-specific awards. These would supposedly deliver to workers regardless of union membership (if employers didn't drag out negotiations and litigate to prevent them from being completed). But then after all that work and despite that supposed consensus, the current regime simply repealed them. It turns out that the employers simply lied about supporting them. Who'd have thunk it?

The same can happen to any replacement system, or any legal tweaks a Labour-led government puts in (see National's reinstatement of the 90-day law, its removal of workplace protections for contractors, and what its doing to the Holidays Act). But the beauty of the Greens' proposal is that it is insulated against such moves. While a new government can repeal the law, union members will remain members until they decide not to be. So the boost to union power will survive a change of government, in a way that laws don't. And the concessions unions win in the interim, and the legal minimums they have written into their contracts "just for certainty" will survive too, and be that much harder to get rid of.

The Greens putting this out there puts the pressure on Labour to support it. And if they don't, or if they want to play silly buggers and pretend not to so they can "surrender" it in coalition negotiations, voters can vote for the party which will deliver the policy they like. If Labour doesn't like that, maybe they should start living up to their name, rather than being NeoLiberals in red ties.

Time to tax the rich

Aotearoa has a problem: the rich don't pay their fair share. They benefit from our society: the state protects their wealth and provides peaceful conditions allowing them to carry on business without fear. And yet they refuse to pay for it. Meanwhile, their cartels suck the money out of ordinary New Zealanders, so they can spend it on bigger and bigger houses, bigger and bigger yachts, helicopters, and so on.

Its time we made them pay their fair share. And over the weekend, the Greens put up their election year tax policy, which will make them do it. A wealth tax, targeted at the super-rich, which will finally bring them into the tax system. A new top income tax rate, for those earning top incomes. A capital acquisitions tax, targeting gifts and inheritances over $1 million, to limit intergenerational accumulation and tax-dodging. A higher corporate tax rate for big companies. A bank-levy, targeting our biggest cartel parasites, Aussie banks. Stopping foreign tech companies from dodging New Zealand taxes by pretending the profits happen elsewhere. And reversing Luxon's landlord and property speculator tax cuts.

These are not radical socialist policies. They are all perfectly normal overseas. But the rich have bought so much power in our society since 1984 that they've been able to gaslight us into thinking that the normal is abnormal, that other countries don't have wealth taxes, inheritance taxes, more progressive income taxes, restrictions on tax cheating. And they've been able to do that, in part, because they can use their money to buy politicians and media outlets, steering our society in their preferred direction, despite huge public support for taxing them.

Taxing the rich and limiting their ability to accumulate and weaponise their wealth is a necessary thing for the preservation of our society. And the best bit is that it won't affect the vast majority of New Zealanders. Only a tiny proportion of people - the Chris Luxons of this world - have more than $10 million. Only a tiny proportion of people inherit or are given more than $1 million. Only a tiny proportion (which includes every MP) "earn" more than $160,000. None of that affects us. Instead, what we get in practice from this policy is a reduction in inequality, a restriction on the power of the rich, better-funded public services, and a tax cut! Because most of us will end up better off, thanks to a shift in the tax burden from the poor to the rich. Which is perfectly sensible the moment you think about it. There's no point taxing people who don't have any money. Instead you go after the people who do have it, the bloated accumulators who have sucked all the wealth out of our society into their own pockets.

Sadly, Chris Hipkins - a man paid $305,900 a year plus slush, who rorted his parliamentary superannuation scheme into buying his holiday home and then said "it's my money" - is saying that none of this will happen if he's in charge. Voters should take that as a challenge: if we want these policies, we have to vote for them. We need to put the Greens in a position where they can force this policy on Labour. Otherwise, nothing will change, and the rich will just keep on leaching and looting us.

Typically useless

On Saturday, the Herald's Thomas Coughlan reported that Labour was inching its way to a capital gains tax. But in typical Labour fashion, they're watering it down so much as to exclude almost everything:

It would probably look like a maximalist bright-line test: family homes exempt, farms also likely spared, but residential investment property and the family bach are all in.

Tax would be levied at realisation, not the once-favoured “deemed return” method, which is a wee bit too much like a wealth tax on people who aren’t always that wealthy.

[...]

Trade-offs abound. Political saleability comes at a fiscal cost. Oliver’s paper reckoned his limited CGT would raise barely 39% of the broad CGT’s take – around $2.4 billion after 10 years. Not trivial, but still less in 10 years than Labour’s 2023 wealth tax would have netted in one. At worst, it could make Labour look unserious about tackling the alleged austerity it’s spent the parliamentary term prosecuting.

So, they're going to pay the political price of a CGT, in order to not raise enough money to do anything useful. All cost, no benefit. And meanwhile, their rival parties, on whom they depend to even be a government, are going for simpler wealth taxes, which whack the rich to raise enough revenue to actually fix things, while leaving normal people - almost everybody, in fact - completely unaffected. Which seems simpler, easier, and clearer than Labour's bullshit.

If you're on the left, and you want better public services and a reduction in inequality, why vote for half-measures? And why vote for a party which waters its policies down, in order to comply in advance with the rich? Fuck the rich. By definition, we outnumber them 99-to-one. And if our country imagines itself to be democratic, our government should serve us, not them. It is an appalling indictment of our mainstream political parties that they continually pander to this tiny minority, while screwing over almost everybody who actually votes for them.

So next election, if you want change, vote for it. Vote for parties who will hold a metaphorical gun to labour's head to force them to do what is necessary. Don't vote for useless bootlickers.

Aotearoa is no longer a democracy

A regime Minister uses their parliamentary platform to slander an opposition MP as a pedophile, resulting in escalating threats to their safety. Eventually, they are forced to resign in order to protect their child from harm.

Putin's Russia? Orban's Hungary? No, it's Winston Peters' New Zealand:

The Green Party’s Benjamin Doyle is resigning as an MP, citing concerns for their safety and the wellbeing of their whānau.

[...]

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Doyle said they decided to resign after their young child had asked them to leave Parliament for their own wellbeing.

“After having baseless and violent accusations thrown at me, and an onslaught of hate, vitriol and threats of real-world violence directed at me and my whānau, I have decided to move on from Parliament.

“Whānau is the most precious thing in the world. From the start, I have always said my child is my priority. My tamati asked me to leave Parliament, and I am leaving for them and for my own wellbeing,” they said.

This is clearly the right decision for Doyle and their family (and good on them for putting their kid first - something too few MPs do). At the same time, its a terrible precedent for our democracy.

This is not the first time this has happened. Jacinda Ardern was bullied out of office. And there have been systematic campaigns against Golriz Ghahraman and Tory Whanau. It is clear that the right are pursuing a deliberate campaign of harassment and threats of violence as a way of over-ruling the will of the voters and eliminating effective opponents. In a normal country, the people responsible would be in jail. But clearly, we're not a normal country any more. Instead, we have a regime, whipping up mobs and using terror to silence opposition.

In a democracy, who represents us is meant to be decided by voting. A country where elected representatives are bullied out of office by threatening their children is no longer a democracy.

Principles versus parliament

Yesterday the regime announced that it wouldn't consider recognising Palestine as a state until next month - so basically, waiting until Israel has murdered or deported every last Palestinian and stolen all their land. Parliament had an urgent debate on this today, with a banger of a speech by Chloe Swarbrick:

At the end of it, she challenged government MPs to support the Greens' Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill, saying that "[i]f we find six of 68 government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history".

The Speaker threw her out.

I guess he didn't want a politician with actual principles making the rest of the cowards look bad.

Meanwhile, there's an obvious comparison here with John Key's famous "get some guts" over backing America's re-invasion of Iraq. On any normal analysis, its a similar allegation of cowardice. So why was it OK, when Swarbrick gets ejected?

I think the answer is obvious: It's OK When You're A Man.

"Our" Parliament is an archaic, deeply racist, deeply misogynist institution, whose "rules" are applied arbitrarily and nakedly for the political advantage of the regime and to lynch its opponents. Its no wonder MPs don't respect it. And its no wonder the people don't either. If it wants to retain its social licence to legislate, to rule by anything other than naked force, it needs to be better, to reflect modern Aotearoa, to drag itself into the present, to not do shit like this.

But good luck getting the fossils in there to understand that.

Wag or be wagged

The Greens held their AGM over the weekend, and in her speech, co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick claimed to be leading the opposition. Which seems to be obviously correct, in that the Greens are setting the direction for the entire opposition bloc, by virtue of being the ones providing the ideas. And this isn't just a question of Labour's current policy-silence, but of their long-term ideological emptiness and their focus on being managers of the status quo (and getting the prestige and salaries) rather than leading the changes we need to make.

The only policy area Labour has any real interest and skill in is workers rights (and even then: income insurance? Really?) In other key areas - income inequality, tax policy, climate change, industrial policy - they just follow the Greens. Green policy one election tends to become Labour policy at the next one (and, if the public is won over, National policy after that - see home insulation schemes, or the bright-line test). And partly this is a victory by default: Labour's perpetual cowardice and fear of criticism means they're too chickenshit to put their own ideas out there, so the Green ones become the de facto left solution because Labour isn't offering any alternative.

Which makes the stuff about the Greens wagging the Labour dog amusing. They're already wagging that dog - just very slowly.

Obviously, as a Green voter, I would welcome speeding up that process. The more MPs the Greens and Te Pāti Māori bring to a left coalition, the louder their voices will be, and the more Labour will have to give them. But also, I want them to play hardball on this. Which will admittedly be easier if Labour doesn't have any agenda of its own.

As for Labour concern that the prospect of Green-led policy could drive voters to National, that sounds like a "you" problem. It also sounds untrue, given public attitudes towards wealth taxes and higher public spending. In fact, in light of those polls, one might also call it an elite lie to deter change to the status quo. But either way, Labour's solution is obvious: if it doesn't want people to think it will adopt Green policy by default, get some of your own, and stop whining that people expect you to actually stand for something.

An alternative vision for Aotearoa

Its the budget next week, where National will inflict another round of cuts on kiwis in order to keep funding handouts to landlords and rich people. And while Labour is doing nothing (sorry, "keeping its powder dry"), the Greens are acting as the main opposition, releasing an alternative budget to show what we could be doing. The core idea? Tax the rich properly, with a wealth tax, higher company taxes, and reversing the landlord tax breaks, and using the money to pay for things people need: a better health system, more state housing, free dental care, free ECE, better public transport, and better support for students and people out of work. Oh, and there's a "fuck you" tax on private jet passengers, because fuck those people and their polluting luxury lifestyle.

Its a compelling vision, which shows us that we can have a better society; all we have to do is vote for it.

The return of dirty politics

At the 2005 election campaign, the National Party colluded with a weirdo cult, the Exclusive Brethren, to run a secret hate campaign against the Greens. It was the first really big example of the rich using dark money to interfere in our democracy. And unfortunately, it seems that they're trying again, with the Sensible Sentencing Trust running deceptive billboards purporting to be Green party ads advocating for the defunding of the police.

[Photos by Johnny Cans]

While the ads carry an authorization statement, the use of Green Party branding in this way is clearly deceptive and intended to mislead people into thinking it is a real Green Party ad. It is likely a violation of rule 2(b) of the advertising standards code. More importantly, insofar as it might reasonably be regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to actually vote for the party - and there are people for whom it will - then running it without the permission of the party is an actual crime. Which is kindof ironic, given what the SST supposedly stands for.

(Of course, given its support of Bruce Emery for stabbing and killing Pihema Cameron, we know that the SST really only opposes some crimes: crimes committed by poor or brown people. Crimes by richwhites, especially against poor brown people, are OK.)

There are deep links between the SST and government parties. Winston Peter's current chief of staff, Darroch Ball, led the SST when he was kicked out of parliament. And former ACT politician and stealer of a dead baby's identity David Garrett was a lawyer for the SST before entering parliament. So you have to wonder about the level of coordination here (especially with the government also running a hate campaign against the Greens in question time), and whether we are once again seeing astroturf groups being used by the parties of the right to wage dirty politics campaigns and circumvent political spending limits.

Climate Change: An alternative plan

The government is supposed to release its second Emissions Reduction Plan any day now, and if its anything like the draft, it will be a pile of false accounting and wishful thinking, which will do nothing to actually reduce emissions. The central problem here is that national is legally required to have a plan to meet the emissions budget, but they have repealed virtually all effective policy, leaving them with a carbon capture fantasy and an ETS that doesn't work because it excludes our biggest polluters and is full of pork. Meanwhile, their plans to increase the gas industry will increase emissions, in a way that is wildly incompatible with all future emissions budgets.

So, what's the alternative? The Greens have just released one. He Ara Anamata: Alternative Emissions Reduction Plan is exactly what it says on the label. The core of it is a return to the successful policies of the previous Green-Labour government: public transport funding, the clean car standard and discount, the GIDI fund to reduce energy-sector emissions, a coal phase out, and the offshore gas exploration ban. But in addition to that, it goes further, by bringing agriculture into the ETS, immediately eliminating industrial allocation, and kicking forestry out (as recommended by He Pou a Rangi). Plus a "green jobs guarantee" to ensure a just transition, more regional rail, a sinking lid on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, and direct government investment in renewable electricity. Together this will reduce emissions by 35% by 2030, and 47% by 2035 - setting us up nicely for a rapid shift to net zero and negative emissions.

Can we do it? I think so. Bringing agriculture into the ETS at the processor level is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, with He Waka Eke Noa modelling estimating that its worth an 8% cut in total emissions by 2030 alone (which was far more than the bullshit they eventually came up with). The rest puts us at least back on to the He Pou a Rangi demonstration pathway. Of course, these numbers are if the Greens were in power now; we don't know what impact three years of lost progress will have.

Finally, its good to see this development. Climate change is the core policy of our era, and parties should be offering alternative plans for voters to choose between. So far we have spin, bullshit, and denial from National, and a real plan from the Greens. The question is "will Labour offer anything"? Or is this an area of policy where they are happy for the Greens to do all the heavy lifting?

Saying what needed to be said

National today announced that it would be introducing its corrupt Muldoonist resource consent fast-track legislation to the House today, and ramming it through its first reading under urgency. Unusually, the list of projects that will be pre-approved will not be included in the bill, but will be added later, so the public will not have a chance to scrutinise it and submit on it at select committee. Which smacks of yet another attempt to limit public scrutiny, in violation of our constitutional norms.

Labour has been weak on this, but today in Question Time James Shaw said what needed to be said, asking RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop (at 4:30s]:

is he aware that rushing legislation with such extraordinary executive powers through parliament under urgency with little public scrutiny creates a risk that any of the projects that are approved as a result of this bill could find themselves subject to future scrutiny, which could include the loss of the consent, possibly without compensation.

And all Bishop could do is splutter about the need to avoid "sovereign risk". But creating such risk is the point: what is legislated can be un-legislated. And where the legislation is passed by an abusive process, contrary to our constitutional norms, and to be honest, simply corrupt, repeal and cancellation without compensation is a necessity. Those bribing Ministers to have their projects included on their Muldoonist list need to be very aware of that.

(The next stage to keep them aware is obviously a Member's Bill. But that'll have to wait until the fast-track law actually passes).

As for Bishop, its a bit fucking rich of him, having just so viciously demonstrated how policy can change when the government does, to complain that a future government might not respect his decisions. Unlike Bishop, the Greens will at least do it with a proper select committee process, allowing everyone to be heard, and for the law to be considered legitimate. Though "stopping people from profiting from an ongoing crime" might in fact be one of the few justifications for all-stages urgency...

James Shaw: At least he tried

The big political news of the day is James Shaw's resignation as Green co-leader. It was expected: his refusal to contest Wellington Central clearly signalled that he was planning to leave Parliament if Labour lost the election, and the change in government was the time to go. And with the Greens winning a record vote last election, there's a good depth of talent there to replace him.

Shaw's big success as a Minister was getting the Zero Carbon Act over the line. His big failure was failing to get agriculture into the ETS and make our biggest polluters pay their fair share of the damage they do. That failure was forced by Labour's cowardice, which is Shaw's Ministerial career in a nutshell: trying to do the right thing and being constantly undermined by a partner who just didn't grasp the seriousness of the problem, didn't care, or thought they could PR their way out of it, as if an existential crisis could be handled by their usual lies and bullshit. I'm not trying to paint Shaw as a radical here, but I credit him with at least recognising what needs to be done. He didn't always do the best job in presenting that to Labour - too much pre-watering-down to try and get their agreement (again, see agriculture) - but at least he tried. And events over e.g. the ETS proved him right again and again.

(And now we have a climate minister who doesn't care about the climate, doesn't recognise what needs to be done, and isn't interested in actually trying to keep us all alive. And we are going to notice it in policy, and in disasters. You have been warned...)

Shaw will stay in Parliament to push his member's bill to put the environment in the BORA (something I expect National to vote down out of pure spite). And then he'll finally escape. Which is good: Parliament is a toxic environment which ruins people, and its good for people to get out before they are institutionalised into it. There's a lot of other good work which can be done outside of the hellmouth - possibly better, more effective work - and I look forward to seeing what he will do next.

Climate Change: Stopping oil

National is promising to bring back offshore oil and gas drilling. Naturally, the Greens have organised a petition campaign to try and stop them. You should sign it - every little bit helps, and as the struggle over mining conservation land showed, even National can be deterred if enough people take action.

That said, if the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are serious about killing this, there is one simple action they can take: promise that the ban will be immediately reinstated when they have influence over a future government, and that any permits granted will be immediately revoked as part of a wider move to sunset all fossil fuel permits. Offshore gas exploration is expensive and has long investment timeframes. Foreign companies need certainty to engage in it. Take away that certainty, and they won't do it. National has effectively deterred business decarbonisation in this way, by spewing climate denial and promising to roll-back action; its time we used it too to send a clear message: if you invest in pollution, you won't make money.

This really sounds like a "you" problem

The Spinoff today has an article complaining again about the Greens' success - this time not about "vote splitting" undermining the careers of hard-working Labour apparatchiks, but about the "diversion" of activist effort to the Greens and how this is Harming The Left (and the careers of hard-working Labour apparatchiks). The "problem" as the author sees it is that activists and organisers just don't want to work for Labour anymore, and would rather put their effort into an organisation which actually represents their values. Which, from a Green supporters' POV, sounds very much like a "you" problem. And it speaks volumes that rather than, say, considering why those people have fled Labour, and work out how to win them back (by, say, doing a better job and representing their values), they'd rather just complain about it.

Insofar as there's an argument here, its some galaxy-brain stuff about how, if deprived of left-wing activist energy, Labour will be even more centrist. Again, this sounds like a "you" problem. Underlying this is the idea that the Greens need Labour to be a cooperative partner in order to enact their policies. Which assumes of course that the current major party / minor party dynamic between them will remain. And I don't think that's a given. Green activists are pretty explicit that their goal isn't to work with Labour, but to eat them, and while I'm cautious about the speed at which this might happen, the current trajectory certainly suggests it is possible. Unattractive, arrogant whining like that discussed here only makes that more likely.

Major parties have fallen before. In 1919, the Liberal Party, which had been the progressive force in New Zealand politics for thirty years, was challenged by an upstart on its left. That party was Labour. The Liberals did some very familiar whining about "vote-splitting" - which meant more under FPP than it does now - but ended up being gutted by the departure of their progressive activist base. Just a few elections later, they were dead, rebranded as United. Two elections after that, their remnants had merged with Reform, their former professed enemies, to become National (which is what centrists always do: go right). Labour can avoid that fate, by not being crap. But again, that sounds like a "you" problem.

Can the Greens overtake Labour?

With Labour doing so badly this election (and indeed, doing badly every election since 2008, except when Jacinda was in charge), Sue Bradford has suggested that they might soon be overtaken by the Greens:

The Green Party could surpass Labour at the next election if it does not get its act together, former Green MP Sue Bradford says.

Bradford told Morning Report Labour has been taking more of a middle-ground approach to its policies.

"At this point, if Labour goes on like it is, I think that there's every chance that Greens can even potentially overtake them in terms of percentages and numbers in the House, unless Labour does get its act together and become a lot clearer about who they stand for..."

While I'd like to see this happen, a dose of realism is in order: on preliminary results, Labour won roughly two and a half times more party votes than the Greens, and more than twice as many as the Greens and Te Pāti Māori combined. They'd need to collapse to well below their historic minimum (with all votes going to the Greens) for the Greens to come close. And even with their recent awful performance, I just don't see that happening soon, because there's generations of tribal loyalty there.

Longer term, though, its a different story. Every election brings more young voters, who have different values to Labour's older core, and who are energised about Aotearoa's core problems of climate change, inequality, and housing. And every electoral cycle, the Greens convince more of the public that their solutions – emissions reduction, a wealth tax, increased public spending – are what we need. If Labour continues to resist offering those solutions, if it continues trying to protect the status quo and the wealth of its house-hoarding MPs, then voters are going to look naturally to the party which does offer them. Botched, status quo responses to the crises those problems will cause will only strengthen that trend. So it's nowhere near unimaginable for the Green vote to grow and eventually overtake Labour’s, especially if Labour remains crap.

If Labour wants to avoid this fate, they need to not be crap. They need to actually respond to our problems, and promise to fix the bits of the status quo which are so obviously rotten and not working, rather than simply promising to manage it better. And its not clear if they even want to do that, or if the "no more revolutions" / "vision is for people on drugs" conservativism ushered in by Clark has so infected their party as to make it utterly unresponsive to the real world. I'm hoping that they do want to do it, and that they decide to be a better party which offers people something. But if they don't, if all they ever offer is endless austerity as things fall apart, then they deserve to be eaten for lunch.

The afternoon after

So, yesterday we voted, and unsurprisingly, the party which stood for nothing and offered nothing lost. Anyone surprised by this clearly hadn't been paying attention - the collapse in Labour's party vote had been clear for the past two months, and while there was a bit of a rally in the last week, it was too little, too late. So, we're stuck with National and ACT - and if the specials go the usual way, they'll be forced into the clammy embrace of Winston, which means its chaos ahoy!

Labour hacks are already blaming the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, both of whom had a very good night, which just shows that the relic status quo party still doesn't understand MMP. As a reminder, electorates don't matter - all that counts is the party vote. And the equation for the left there is that the Greens need to deliver 10%, and Labour 40% (TPM and the wasted vote can fudge these numbers a bit, but that's the basic shape of it). The Greens kept up their end. Labour didn't. This is their loss, and they need to own it, recognise why (I'd start with being a bunch of useless, uninspiring, status quo hacks), and most of all, fix it. But this being the Labour Party, I doubt that will happen. Instead, we'll have three years of them deciding they need to be more centrist and promise even less - and then they'll whine "why does nobody like us?" again.

(That equation above also explains why the Greens are happy: whether they're in government or not is largely up to Labour, so all they can do is deliver their end. They did, plus won a bunch of electorates to build their party's long-term base, and are on-track to have their highest vote ever after the specials. And all after having been in government, breaking the minor-partner curse for the second time. They're also very much playing a long game, but for policy, not power. Its never a good time for a party to be in opposition (and now is a very bad time for the right to be dismantling climate policy) - but its going to happen in a democracy, so its a time to advocate and build. Success or failure will be measured in how far the political consensus shifts towards core green policies in the next three years, not in how many people get ministerial salaries).

I expect the next three years to be vicious, cruel, and stupid - and that's before even considering the divisive effects of ACT's proposed Treaty referendum (which is an invite for social unrest). My hope is that National is forced into the arms of Winston, and then suffers his curse (two out of three governments forced to work with Winston have lost the next election - the exception being Ardern, who was saved by covid). My big worry is that Labour has fucked things up so badly they won't be able to present a credible alternative against even that low bar in three years, and so we'll all suffer the consequences of their uselessness.

No way to run a partnership

Yesterday, in an effort to screw the PREFU and narrow the space for National to promise tax cuts, the government announced a $4 billion austerity program. Part of this was a $226 million raid on the climate emergency response fund - meaning less climate action. You'd think the government would have bothered to tell its Climate Change Minister about that. But of course they didn't:

As part of a $4 billion savings initiative announced on Monday, the Government will cut $236 million from climate policies on agriculture, transport and forestry.

One unusual aspect of the move is that climate funding is supposed to be ring-fenced solely for climate policies, but the savings will instead be returned to the general coffers.

Another unusual aspect is Minister for Climate Change James Shaw wasn't aware it would be happening. He told Newsroom he knew the Government was doing a savings exercise and evaluated a couple of policies he was responsible for, which didn't get cut. He was also briefed on a $10m cut to a waste policy.

But he found out about the remaining $226m in climate cuts at the same time the public did.

Regardless of what you think of the merits of cutting climate action in the middle of a climate crisis, this is a shitty and arrogant way to run a political partnership. And its worse because the Prime Minister thinks its perfectly appropriate. The casual attitude of disrespect displayed does not bode well for any future coalition arrangement between Labour and the Greens.

The opportunity costs of Labour's stupidity

In 2022, Labour finally committed to building light rail in Auckland. Unfortunately, they chose the stupidest, most expensive option, putting trams - which should run on streets to be easily accessible - in tunnels. Effectively they were committing billions extra to stifle criticism around construction disruption, at the cost of limiting the network and creating an all-or-nothing solution which would be easily cancelled. But over the weekend, the Greens released their transport policy, which highlighted the opportunity cost of Labour's stupid decision: for the cost of that tunnel - again, designed solely to limit bad PR for the government - we could have surface light rail not just in Auckland, but in Wellington and Christchurch as well.

Its a single line in each city. But the thing about surface light rail is that its easy and cheap to expand. So what the Greens are offering is the backbone of a network in each city, which can then be expanded as required. Which seems like a no-brainer. If we want liveable cities, and a liveable future, that means getting people out of cars. And this is a good way to start doing that.

Its also a marked contrast to the two status quo parties, whose transport policies have focused exclusively on promises to build more stupid, environmentally destructive motorways in Auckland. As one of the two-thirds of kiwis who don't live there, its nice to see a party offering something for the rest of us.

The Greens' clean power policy

Over the weekend the Greens released their clean power policy, promising a "clean power payment" of up to $6000, interest-free loans of up to $30,000, deductibility for landlords, and a massive investment program in putting solar panels on state houses. Unlike the current Warmer Kiwi Homes programme, it won't be means-tested, and it will fund a much wider range of upgrades: not just insulation and efficient heating, but also solar panels, batteries, double-glazing, and fast-chargers for EVs. So basicly, if you own your own home, the Greens will make it much easier to make it warm and efficient. And if you live in a state house, the Greens are going to make sure you get free power in summer.

Looked at just as a solar energy programme, its obviously not the most efficient way of installing panels. Take the state housing upgrade program, which would see solar panels installed on 30,000 (of 67,000) state houses: putting them on rooftops would cost ~$525 million for ~150MW, about five times the cost of an equivalent-sized array stuck in a field. But this is about encouraging distributed home generation for home use, for the direct benefit of the people who live in those homes. State house users not having to pay power bills for a quarter of the year or more is going to significantly improve their welfare, and that is going to have flow-on effects elsewhere. And the same is going to apply to homeowners who use the grants and loans to install panels and batteries.

And of course, its not just a solar energy programme, but about insulation, heating, transport, and the elimination of fossil fuels as well. Aotearoa needs to make a massive transition in the next two decades to a cleaner, more efficient economy, which means upgrading all of those things. And this is about pushing that. Banks are already offering similar loans for these upgrades. But government grants will push things faster, and interest-free government loans will keep the banks honest.

But while this is excellent news for people who own their own homes, that's an ever-declining proportion of us. The big problem for the national upgrade is landlords, who face very weak incentives to provide solar panels, heat pumps, and EV chargers for the benefit of their tenants. Tax deductibility may help a little, but its probably better to see this as a carrot to go alongside the stick of the rental WOF scheme. And its not hard to see that being eventually extended to require such things alongside insulation, heating, and ventilation. And of course I'd like to think that if state houses provide them (at income-related rents, too), private landlords will feel some pressure to compete. Alternatively, i am more than happy to see the government build, buy, and upgrade more state houses, and put the private landlords who won't compete out of business.

Climate Change: Underwhelming

The Greens had their pre-election AGM on the weekend, and released their manifesto, including their climate change policy. Unfortunately, its a bit underwhelming. Climate change is the biggest policy challenge facing humanity, and Aotearoa needs to do a lot more if we are to meet our Paris commitments and the 1.5 degree target. And the Greens are offering us... the status quo. Oh, there are tweaks: a standalone Ministry, moving control of ETS settings to the Climate Change Commission and out of the hands of politicians - but these are bureaucratic fiddles. There's no new policies for emissions reduction, no increased ambition, nothing substantive.

On the one hand, this is probably to be expected. James Shaw is the Climate Change Minister, and the status quo is (mostly) his policy. So of course he's focused on fixing the bits where Labour has over-ruled him. But on the gripping hand, it is clear that what we are currently doing is simply nowhere near what we need to be doing. And on that front, a wishy-washy promise to simply "price" agricultural emissions seems weak, leaving open the crucial questions of "how much" and "how much will you shrink the sector by". Because that dirty, inefficient, polluting sector needs to shrink if we are to lower emissions (and improve water quality), and pretending it doesn't does no-one any favours.

This is still the best climate change policy on offer. But I expected more from the Greens. And if they're not going to offer what's required, then who will?