Tuesday, December 10, 2019

The Greens abandon NeoLiberalism

Back in 2017, in order to make themselves "electable" in the eyes of rich people who oppose everything they stand for, the Greens signed up for NeoLiberalism, adopting a restrictive set of "Budget Responsibility Rules" which basicly prevented them from using government to make things better. Now, they're finally abandoning them:
The Green Party are ditching their commitment to the restrictive Budget Responsibility Rules, which set targets for lowering government debt and spending.

[...]

The most stringent rules include a commitment to reduce net core crown debt to less than 20 per cent of GDP within five years, and to keep government spending at or below 30 per cent of GDP.

These rules have caused serious upset within the Green Party base and caucus, with both female co-leadership candidates committing to get rid of them during the 2018 leadership race.

The rules went out for review earlier this year and the party's policy group have now decided to scrap them, replacing them with a new economic policy that promotes greater public spending.


Good. And now, they might be able to pursue some actual Green policy around inequality and underinvestment, rather than being tied to maintaining the unjust and broken status quo. A Green Party in government should mean change, not more of the fucking same.