Mike Hosking: Blue-Green Party has a good chance

COMMENT: So what chance we get a blue-green party? What chance we get a conservative replacement for Colin Craig's party?

What chance is there any minor party under this current environment starting up in 2019 and being a proper force come September next year?

And that's before we get to The Opportunities Party (TOP) and the Māori Party looking to join forces. So as we sit here, three live options.

One, the TOP-Māori idea is troubled. Mainly because the Māori Party was born out of protest, Tariana Turia and her fury over Labour's foreshore and seabed mess got her across the line. But that is a classic lesson in politics, you need more than a single issue to sustain your success.

As the seabed and foreshore faded so did the party's votes, until last election it was wiped out of the house. TOP suffered from two things: Gareth Morgan and a series of grab bag polices that made no sense.

Now how you put those two parties together in a way that makes sense is beyond me but good luck to them, because I think what most of us would agree on is we need a few more parties, a few new ideas. This is a system we run whereby small parties should thrive, and yet they don't.

United Future is gone, the Māori Party gone, Alliance gone, Social Credit gone, ACT, virtually gone. So if something can be drummed up out of these options, then that's no bad thing.

The Colin Craig conservative replacement is led seemingly by David Moffett, the former New Zealand Rugby boss, is there a gap? Could be, Colin Craig got close, and the Christian grouping with Graham Capill before him got dangerously close, so we know there is some sort of constituency.

Where they fit in between National and ACT I am not sure, and in that is the real problem. We must remember that we at all times are slicing up 100 per cent. No matter how many players front up the pie is still the same size.

Which brings us to the so called "blue-greens" - what does that even mean? You need, as a political force, to have a recognisable identity. Greens are about snails, national parks, and climate change. And history shows the people motivated enough to vote for those issues tend to be bearded, and wear roman sandals.

Where the "blue-greens" just might have hope is where the current Green Party have let themselves down. They're not just Greens, they're social engineers. They're the Sue Bradfords and Sue Kedgleys, and the Metiria Tureis. The tell you how to run your life, communist sort of branch of the Greens.

So yes, you might like to save the world, but still smack your child so that could be your blue-green "in." But most importantly of all, along with the thinking you need execution. You need brains, preferably name recognition, and experience.

Put all those things together, you have a chance.

As it stands, TOP-Māori, 500 to 1.
A conservative party, 100 to 1.
The blue-greens, 10 to 1.

But given choice is always good, good luck to the lot of them.