New Government sidelines Greens

Green Party co-leaders Jeanette Fitzimmons and Rod Donald leave the Beehive after their meeting with Labour leaders. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Prime Minister Helen Clark has stitched together a Government giving New Zealand First and United Future ministerial posts but leaving natural allies the Greens out in the cold and bitterly disappointed.

As part of the unusual arrangement, NZ First leader Winston Peters is Foreign Minister outside of the Cabinet and United Future leader Peter Dunne is Revenue Minister outside of the Cabinet.

It is the first time in New Zealand such a senior post as Foreign Affairs has been held outside of the Cabinet.

Labour and the Greens publicly courted each other during the election campaign but the Greens have been pushed from the centre of power by NZ First.

Mr Peters said yesterday he was keeping his pre-election pledge not to join a coalition Government. But the nature of Mr Peters' job will mean frequent and detailed contact with the Labour leadership and other ministers.

Helen Clark describes the result with the two parties as "enhanced" confidence and supply agreements rather than coalition agreements but in many respects the arrangements will operate as a coalition.

But other than on confidence and supply issues, NZ First and United Future will vote on a case by case basis.

In a dramatic deviation from collective responsibility among ministers, Mr Peters and Mr Dunne will have to exercise collective responsibility only for their own portfolio areas. That means all Labour ministers will be required to support their initiatives but not the other way round.

But the ministerial deal has soured the Greens, who were vetoed from holding similar positions by Mr Peters and Mr Dunne.

The Greens have decided to abstain rather than support Labour.

Co-leader Rod Donald predicted it would be a "reactionary" Government and said many of the demands Labour had accepted from NZ First and United Future were "socially, economically or environmentally destructive".

But the deals give the minority Labour-led Cabinet a majority on confidence and supply votes - the first of which will occur this month a few weeks after the opening of Parliament.

The Maori Party has decided it will not commit its support in any direction, though co-leader Tariana Turia thought it would probably vote for the Government on the first confidence vote.

Labour in coalition with the single Progressive member, Jim Anderton, have 51 votes.

The confidence and supply agreements with NZ First and United Future give them 61 votes, a majority, albeit bare, in the 121-seat Parliament.

If the Greens had supported Labour, its majority would have climbed to 67 but the Greens' abstention does not threaten the safety of Labour. National and Act combined can muster only 50.

Helen Clark used the scenario National had been promoting last week of the potential "deadlock" - 57 (Labour, Progressives, Greens) to 57 (National, Act, Maori Party, United Future) and with NZ First abstaining - to justify extracting a stronger deal from NZ First and United Future.

She said in a press conference that Mr Peters had requested a ministerial post and foreign affairs specifically once they had talked about taking NZ First from an abstention to a positive vote.

However, Mr Peters told a press conference he had been asked to take the job.