Time for another #NZPol poll

@libroraptor @jeremy_pm Trust me though the culture needs to change too many new MPs will be a mess and ultimately backfire on Greens this election lets get more MPs next election be a MAIN party

@ArrestJK

Without wanting to disagree as I understand the point you're making, the outcome will be what it will be and on a personal level I believe the best Greens & TPM can hope for is about a 40% representation in the next govt but you only need to look at the fear of the Greens coming from National, Actlas and US First to understand how desperately Aotearoa NZ needs strong Greens representation in the next govt.

@libroraptor

@jeremy_pm @libroraptor Yep the outcome does not care what we'd like and reality says 40% is upper limit, that said politics changes quickly and I won't be upset if Greens are the main party in the next Govt

@ArrestJK @jeremy_pm Yes, I would like there to be five or six main parties so that every government is a coalition. Not just a business compromise, but an actual coalition.

Or no main parties, for another perspective. We've had MMP only nominally for far too long now. Current government is like New World+Four Square+Nosh and the other side is like Woolworths+Fresh Choice.

@libroraptor @jeremy_pm Well seeing as we're talking about what we want

I'd like a Govt where parties represented different interests and would negotiate outcomes that worked for most if not all...like MMP is designed to work.

@libroraptor @ArrestJK

Curiously, recent polling shows a notable loss of support for the 2 main parties and that support shifting across the spectrum to the minor parties.

@jeremy_pm @libroraptor Yes people don't like National, and don't trust Labour to not sell us all out AGAIN

@ArrestJK @jeremy_pm Labour's brand right now seems to be snotty Hipkins trying really hard to dig at National to cover up not having anything to offer. He doesn't even do insults well so all we're left with is a niggler in the corner.

I was especially disappointed when he said in a recent interview that it's really just a personality competition and he's going to eat fewer sausage rolls. What a dipshit. All about politics, nothing about government.

@ArrestJK @libroraptor

I enjoyed listening to Marama Davidson's kōrero in the #NZPol debate on the Prime Minister's statement in the House yesterday.

She spoke of the parliamentary system being built on a system of conflict and competition rather than cooperation. It's really worth listening to.

Marama Davidson begins at 1:59:35

https://www.youtube.com/live/EGJSeuFbxVQ?si=q9kObCXnh8KnP6qY&t=7175

@jeremy_pm @libroraptor Westminster system is, MMP isn't. We've carried the old into the new slowly changing

@ArrestJK @jeremy_pm I agree – asinine combat is not essential to MMP, but a carryover of poor culture by people who refuse to learn or otherwise improve. When the Greens first started getting seats their rationality was furlongs ahead of the National–Labour blabber. But they never had the capital to resist being held down by the two behemoths. Now, at last, we see the behemoths cutting themselves down. Might be an opportunity for Parliament to move beyond its school bully mentality.

@jeremy_pm I’ve chosen “below 30%”, but with some specific reasoning.

The baseline should be that the total number of ministerial roles is proportional to the number of seats the parties bring to the coalition. However… for smaller parties the raw numbers aren’t enough: it's important that they remain visible in the media and can demonstrate that their most important policies are taken seriously. The coalition will fail if smaller parties disappear from view, so they shouldn't accept just a bunch of associate roles: they need a disproportionate number of senior Cabinet posts.

At the same time, Cabinet isn't huge. So if the trade-off is that a prominent Cabinet post comes at the expense of a less-than-proportional total number of ministerial roles, so be it.

This means that ambitious people in the larger party need to recognise that they're not guaranteed Cabinet posts. Which I feel is good, because it means they have to understand that a coalition isn't just on paper.

@isaacfreeman

I am not sure I follow your logic. Surely the higher the number of minor party members in a coalition government the more influence and control they have over government decisions.

I appreciate that this could lead to a more fractious coalition but as we’ve seen with the other lot, the main party has two choices either risk losing control by refusing to accommodate coalition partners or cooperating with them to create at times compromised outcomes that work for all.

@jeremy_pm It's not just about the numbers, because ministerial roles have different degrees of influence. A finance minister has effective veto power over all government decisions. A Deputy Prime Minister gets constant media attention. A minister inside cabinet gets to participate in all collective decisions. A full minister outside Cabinet can only has influence over their particular portfolio, to the extent Cabinet allows. An associate minister outside Cabinet… is ignored until there's a scandal they can be blamed for.

So if Greens and TPM are 30% of MPs and have 40% of roles, but all the roles are outside Cabinet and mostly associates, I'd consider that a bad deal. I'd rather have 20%, but in Cabinet with significant influence over collective decisions, not just isolated portfolios.

@isaacfreeman

I still don't understand your argument. If Greens have a larger proportionality in govt than 30% then they have more of a mandate to demand ministerial roles etc.

The New Zealand Green Party has never been in government as a coalition partner only under a confidence and supply agreement with the Labour-led government in 2017.

@jeremy_pm So far, Labour has only ever shared Cabinet with New Zealand First. They've never had a coalition with Greens in Cabinet, and they've treated the achievements of Green ministers outside Cabinet as things to rip up at the first opportunity in order to court National voters.

I don't think Labour is prepared for a full coalition with Green ministers inside Cabinet. While some Labour people may have absorbed that it would be different, I expect there to be mid-ranked Labour MPs who resent Greens getting posts that they feel entitled to based on their positions within the Labour Party. I'd like to see more evidence of a cultural shift in Labour to be ready for this situation.

@isaacfreeman

Yeah, I'm not much of a hurry up and wait kinda person particularly when we have an economic and environmental existential crisis to deal with.

@jeremy_pm Me either. We're dealing with multiple interlocked crises and we've wasted the last century or so making them worse. I want to have strong values and know what the right direction is, then seize every opportunity to move in that direction.

In government, you can only do that short-term opportunity-seizing inside Cabinet. Outside, you can get wins, but you're always vulnerable to Cabinet deciding they don't care about your longer-term direction.

The most powerful Green minister so far was James Shaw for Climate Change. The best he could achieve was a framework system for the longer term, deferring most of the actual work, and punting the obvious problem of agriculture that Labour were too gutless to confront. It's been comprehensively ignored by National. I'm not excited by more ministerial roles like that. I think we need to make hundreds of short-term concrete decisions in the right direction, not a few big abstract ones.

@isaacfreeman

This is where and how I disagree with you.

Firstly the only reason Greens were left out of cabinet in the first Jacinda Ardern Labour led govt was Winston Peters refused to work with Labour if Greens were coalition partners. Labour really had no other choice but did as you say work with the Greens in a number of areas outside of cabinet. The 2020 election result delivered Labour the first majority single party government so Labour had no reason to form a coalition with the Greens.

Labour might be far more centrist than the Greens but they’re not stupid, they can read the room. If they try to ignore a large mandate from the voters to share more power with the Greens then that will be detrimental to Labour as a party.

And that’s why I am in favour of a large turnout for the Greens in the next election.

@jeremy_pm I disagree that we disagree. You're quite right that Labour's coalition choices have been defined by rational political calculus. I'd have made the same decision each time in their position.

But I also don't expect them to offer more to the Greens than the absolute minimum they can get away with. Not because they hate us or anything, but because they have their own people to be loyal to. They will want to fill powerful positions with Labour people.

So I expect Labour to offer the same deal even if NZ First isn't in the picture: Cabinet posts for Labour ministers only, one important ministry for a Green co-leader outside Cabinet, a smattering of associate roles. And I think we should be willing to sit on the cross benches instead of accepting that, because it seems like a similar degree of power in practice.

I guess my bottom line is that we're consulted on everything, whether that's in Cabinet or seeking our votes in Parliament for every bill.