Government partners: NZ First leader Winston Peters, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Green Party co-leader James Shaw. Photo / Greg Bowker
Government partners: NZ First leader Winston Peters, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Green Party co-leader James Shaw. Photo / Greg Bowker
COMMENT
The relationship between the Green Party and New Zealand First is somewhat akin to that of Kermit and Miss Piggy from The Muppets.
The Greens (Kermit) play nicely, singing about rainbows, when along comes NZ First and karate chops them.
When it is not karate chopping them, NZ First pretends Kermit does not exist at all.
The Miss Piggy in this equation has a shameless tendency to crow loudly when it manages to block a Green Party policy (such as a capital gains tax) but to try to take all the credit when the Greens manage to squeak something through.
Surprise, surprise, it was NZ First's Shane Jones who ended up with the billion trees policy wrapped into his forestry portfolio.
Suddenly it was all NZ First's idea all along.
Then there was the response to the mental health inquiry.
All three Government parties had policy to reinstate the Mental Health Commission, but it had been longer standing for the Greens.
Somehow, it ended up in the NZ First agreement rather than the Greens'.
NZ First issued a press release claiming credit even before it was announced – and claimed that "NZ First identified that mental health was a major issue facing our country," as if no other party had realised it.
This was rather breathtaking gall since Labour and the Greens had both campaigned harder on mental health than NZ First.
There was the Pike River re-entry, in which Peters claimed he was to thank for ensuring it came to fruition, despite Labour and the Greens campaigning on the same thing.
Then came Climate Change Minister James Shaw's announcement of the centrepiece of the Green Party Government agreement: the Carbon Zero Act.
NZ First first watered it down and then issued a release welcoming the Bill as a "coalition agreement commitment" without naming Shaw or his party.
Usually the Greens have simply suffered in silence through such indignities.
This week they got a little revenge – and Peters did not like it much.
After Defence Minister (NZ First MP) Ron Mark and PM Jacinda Ardern announced the decision to withdraw New Zealand troops from Iraq, Green MP Golriz Ghahraman was tweeting it up as a #GreenWin and claiming the Greens had influenced the decision.
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Peters was quick to shoot this down, telling Sky News he was dealing with "facts, not concocted fiction" and saying only NZ First ministers and the Prime Minister had made the decision.
He pointed out the troops would be there for another year, until June 2020: "Let's be logical about it … How can it be a win if they're still there?"
It is, of course, about as logical as Peters' attempts to claim maximum credit for climate change action.
Nonetheless, Ghahraman persisted pointing out only the Greens had consistently called for the withdrawal, while Labour and NZ First had renewed the deployment despite Labour's pledge to end it.
It is something of a moot debate. It remains possible the drawdown would have happened anyway – there is much speculation Australia's next rotation will also be its last for the Taji-based training mission, and New Zealand has always been tied to Australia.
There are, of course, some Green initiatives for which NZ First is more than happy to let the Greens take the credit. Top of these is the referendum to legalise cannabis.
The two polls out this week were at odds on the matter of the party vote, but did return similar results on the question of support for a referendum to legalise cannabis.
Both showed support for legalisation was shrinking as the prospect became a reality – in both significantly more people were against legalisation than in favour.
The legalisation of cannabis was always going to struggle once the reality of it started to become clear.
That "reality" includes things like cannabis shops, albeit limited in number, and people growing their own in areas where shops were scarce.
Just this week there was an outcry in Flaxmere over the renewal of a licence to sell alcohol. The same outcry has happened in many neighbourhoods around New Zealand.
No matter how much evidence the Greens put forward to try to win support for legalising cannabis, it does not take much imagination to think what might happen when an application for a cannabis shop comes up.
