John Key offered the Green Party the opportunity to abstain on confidence and supply in return for which the Greens would have got some policy concessions.
That will no doubt please their hard core members but it also provides an opportunity for National.
Before the election the Greens tried to pretend they could go left or right if in a position to do so. Their refusal to go as far as abstaining on confidence and supply shows it was merely posturing. They are a party of the left, and probably further left than Labour.
But while people who voted for them share the Greens’ concern for the environment not all share their more radical economic and social views.
That’s where there’s an opportunity for National with blue-green policy that balances environmental, economic and social considerations.
Winning the next election requires winning voters from the left. Labour’s close to its bed-rock support but some of the Green support is from swinging voters who could be wooed towards the centre right.
Homepaddock 
You are not seriously suggesting that the watermelons are anything but redder than a baboons arse? They are determined to return us to the stone age to “save us from our selves” by any means and with all scare tactics they can muster. Would I like their promised utopia… sure.. but in the mean time some of us have to work for a living…
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“a party of the left, and probably further left than labour”
You’ve only just realised that? The real problem is National. Now occupying political space so far left that it is entertaining doing shady backroom deals with rampant communists to retain power at any cost.
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National disgust me.
They should be projecting right wing non socialist alternatives to the NZ voters rather than surrendering more ground to the communists.
Gutless incoherent fools.
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PM and Redbaiter – don’t let the rhetoric from the left and the green bit of the left in particular put you off.
Contrary to what they say, environmental policies don’t have to be socialist.
It’s possible to have sensible enivronmental policies that fit with right and centre right economic and social policies.
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I have always thought that the Nats should strengthen their Green policy for a number of reasons .. 1/ because they should and 2/ to make the Greens irrelavent.
I would avoid any contact with that bunch of weirdos. The Greens only want the good policies attached to them and don’t want any of the tough decisions blamed on them .. they are a watste of time
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It’s Key who wasn’t serious. If he was, he would have talked to the Greens earlier when he could put something real on the table. Pretending to talk about abstention after the govt has formed is just posturing on his part. This was no test of the Greens because Key probably put nothing on the table. If he had, we’d have heard about it.
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The Greens have yet again relegated themselves to irrelevance. When Liabour next get the chance to form a government they can continue to ignore the Greens, as they did under Clarkula, as the Greens have nowhere else to go.
Paranormal
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“right and centre right”
You’ve got to be joking. National is nowhere near that space as it firmly turns hard left even attempting to do deals with rabid tree huggers.
One day New Zealand will again have a right of centre party. It will not be National on its present course.
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“Winning the next election requires winning voters from the left.”
Nope.
Winning the next election, for National, may well mean winning back conservative voters who have been utterly disgusted by Key’s performance and who are now looking elsewhere.
The large number of votes for the brand-new Conservatives were a protest against National’s failure to offer a credible alternative to socialism and welfarism, among other things.
Anybody who now regards National as a credible alternative to Labour is a gullible fool.
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“environmental policies don’t have to be socialist”
Ele, I can’t think of a single ‘environmental policy’ anywhere in the world that fits with free-market capitalist economic theory. The broad category of ‘environmental policy’ invariably involves either banning something (such as nuclear power, or chloroflurocarbon sprays) because it doesn’t fit with the meme of cleanie-greenie-ness, or forcing inefficient, expensive delivery mechanisms (e.g. solar or wind power).
Both of these remove the concept of the free market from the equation in favour of central command-and-control style planning. Exactly the type of thing the current crop of Nationals love so much. Big-government, watermelon Keynesian socialists to a man (or woman).
Team Key wouldn’t recognise the centre (let alone right-of-centre) if they fell over it.
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“I can’t think of a single ‘environmental policy’ anywhere in the world that fits with free-market capitalist economic theory.”
Why shouldn’t “user pays” extend to business as well?
Why shouldn’t “conservation” and “conservative” be words used happily together?
Why can’t people that vote for the cuddly international green brand be encouraged to think a bit harder about the fact, that if you want to be “sustainable”, first you have to be profitable?
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James, there’s no reason why the “can’t”. The fact is, they “don’t”. The extreme left communists have utterly obliterated any benign tree-huggie elements that may have existed within “environmental” groups throughout the world, so now “environmentalism” is nothing more than an euphemism for communism.
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JK. Has to make a stand for the hard working person in this benighted country..
He has not done so ..So far…
His last chance is now !!..
Twelve months is how long he has to set the principles..
Giving 24 months to see the results..
If not.. !!!.. ??????…
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