NZ First's Winston Peters, PM Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw from the Green Party. The Greens have shown they are prepared to adopt pragmatism. Photo / Greg Bowker
NZ First's Winston Peters, PM Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw from the Green Party. The Greens have shown they are prepared to adopt pragmatism. Photo / Greg Bowker
Opinion by Heather du Plessis-Allan
Heather du Plessis-Allan is the drive host for Newstalk ZB and a columnist for the Herald on Sunday
If we handed out an award for political winners each week, the Green Party would've won it two weeks straight.
In the last fortnight, the Greens have notched up major wins. They've helped drag farmers into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). No one's managed that for 20 years. They'veannounced likely subsidies for climate-friendly cars and penalties for gas guzzlers. They've proposed a reasonably sensible road safety package.
Their supporters should be cracking open the vintage kombucha.
But, I suspect that kombucha's staying wherever it is that one stores one's kombucha. Because, what might look like a win to the rest of us, looks like a huge backdown to true Green believers.
Take the ETS. To mainstream New Zealand that's historic. To the true Green, it's pathetic. Sure, the farmers may finally be in, but they're getting a whopping 95 per cent discount. They're only paying 5 per cent of what they should be for their belching cows and smoky tractors. Former party leader Russel Norman called it "laughable".
Nor does this party go far enough on electric vehicles for some. Even the best-case predictions show the discount scheme won't sell enough electric vehicles to help meet the country's climate targets.
It's really not surprising some Green supporters are unhappy. Their party's really ramped up the mainstream makeover recently. Sure, there's been a slow and steady transformation from the morris dancing days to James Shaw's sharp suits. But in the last three months alone, they've compromised on three of their election promises.
The Green Party has steadily transformed from their morris dancing days to James Shaw's sharp suits. Photo / Supplied
Gone is the commitment to making New Zealand's electricity 100 per cent renewable. Now, 96 or 97 per cent will do. Turns out a little bit of coal or gas isn't worth dying in a ditch over.
Gone is the capital gains tax. This was an issue so important that co-leader James Shaw asked whether this Government would deserve to be re-elected if it walked away from the CGT. And then it walked away from the CGT.
And gone, it seems, is the commitment to New Zealand remaining GM-free outside the lab. That nugget slipped out in an interview late this week. Shaw admitted it was time to have another look at our GM restrictions because GM might be able to save the planet from the ravages of climate change. And it's ridiculous that we might be able to solve the problem of belching cows with a modified ryegrass, but we can't test the grass in New Zealand.
Modified ryegrass could reduce emissions, but cannot be used in NZ - yet; James Shaw admits it's time to have another look at our GM restrictions. Photo / File
Boy, I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out with the party's supporters. Because it's one thing to relax renewable energy targets by a few percentage points or drop the CGT for the possibility of another political term.
But it's quite another to mess with GM. That GM is evil is one of the 10 commandments of true believers of green politics in New Zealand. Long after the rest of us settled down from the Corngate affair of the 2002 election, the Greens continued to hold true to their belief. Even two years ago, despite the enormous help GM could give to reaching our pest-free target, the Greens in Government said no way.
The Greens have announced likely subsidies for climate-friendly cars and penalties for gas guzzlers. Photo / Alan Gibson
There's the ongoing risk that this mainstreaming could lose supporters. The idealistic, radical supporters in the party aren't there to incrementally save the planet.
They're there to force immediate change in what they believe is a climate emergency. The good news for the party is that they have nowhere else to go politically. The bad news is they can wage war from the inside.
The wins over the last few weeks suggest a coming-of-age for the Green Party. Instead of being the loony in Government - as some predicted they would be - they've matured into a sensible support party, prepared to adopt pragmatism.
