Claire Trevett: Tax and pies get Greens' dags rattling again

COMMENT:

The first sign the Greens were starting to rattle their dags was the call to ban pies.

The party's MP Gareth Hughes announced the party wanted to re-introduce "guidelines" for school tuck ships which stopped them selling foods such as pies, chips and fizzy drinks.

The Greens love nothing more than a jolly good banning when they want to get things happening.

But the call for this one may be short lived.

The chances of NZ First (or even Labour) going along with it are approximately zilch.

NZ First's Shane Jones was in Labour the last time it imposed the ban.

Four months later he and Labour were out of office - and some blamed the "nanny state" measures such as pie bans, shower head sizes and lightbulb regulations.

So it may be futile, but the pie ban marked the end of the Greens' self-imposed year of convent-esque silence on anything other than government business.

They did at least restrain themselves to whispering in the cloisters (let us not forget co-leader Marama Davidson's call for proud use of a certain word starting with C).

That year of low profile was aimed at settling into government for the first time and showing voters they were a reliable and stable force, not the lunatics some painted them as.

But it has also seen them criticised by some of their own supporters for being too quiet and failing to use their power to its best effect while NZ First got away with too much.

Rectifying that means starting to buck against Labour and NZ First on occasion.

Things got a bit more serious after the pie ban call.

James Shaw pushed for a capital gains tax, saying the Government should ask itself whether it would deserve to be re-elected if it did not go ahead with it.

There too he is up against NZ First.

And as with the pie ban stand-off, the politics works well for both of them: the Greens are seen to be holding Labour to its own policies to tax the wealthy while NZ First is seen as a handbrake, stopping poor elderly people from having their nest-eggs pillaged by Government decree.

This suits them both, and likely suits Labour as well - they can take pot shots at each other while Labour stands aloft.

But Labour will be watching the Greens' positioning with care.

That will be heightened the more it seems possible Labour and the Greens can form a government alone, especially if NZ First does not make it back.

In particular, care will have to be taken when matters such as the Budget Responsibility Rules come up for a debate.

Both parties are reviewing those rules, which set fiscal standards the Government has to keep, such as reducing debt and remaining in surplus.

Shaw has already said he wants them loosened to allow the government to deliver the change it promised.

There is a case for this which many have made. But thus far Finance Minister Grant Robertson sees those rules as the gospel - and he has staked his reputation on them.

They were in some ways a stunt - a tool of Opposition and something that one that is not needed in Government where people can judge you according to your record rather than solely your promises.

Shaw is hoping that the stability of the government will be evidence enough that Labour and the Greens will be responsible with the books, and allow them to free things up more.

However, Labour may well want to keep those rules tight as a form of insurance, should parties such as NZ First and National campaign against the prospect of a Labour-Greens government alone.

To get that, the Greens have to get back in. On current polls they are bobbing dangerously round the 5 per cent threshold. They are in a much better position than NZ First - but while NZ First's vote tends to be higher than its polling between elections, the opposite tends to happen to the Greens.

The Greens take some heart from having survived and secured 7 per cent in 2017 given the year that preceded that election.

But no party can be too complacent. The Greens cannot afford to let down that base who did expect change.

Expect the dag rattling to reach the volume of a maracas band before too long.