Jonathan Milne: The perils of unbridled government

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei. Photo / Sarah Ivey

There's something tantalising about the idea of bike-riding yoga teacher* Julie Anne Genter working alongside Steven Joyce to sort out Auckland's transport woes.

Or Mojo Mathers, a profoundly deaf vegetarian, negotiating with beef and dairy farmers to clean up New Zealand's rural waterways.

But the way things are going, it won't happen. Come election day, the Green Party will not gets its Mojo.

Like the other small parties, the Greens will instead be gently squeezed to the periphery of politics. Already, NZ First is gone and all the serving Act MPs are retiring. So too Jim Anderton, the last scrappy remnant of the Alliance.

Hone Harawira, John Banks and Peter Dunne may each hold on to one last Parliamentary seat, but only by their fingertips. They won't be a powerful influence on the next parliament.

The Maori Party will be there, and so too the Greens, but the total vote share for small parties is withering. National and Labour are hoovering up 83 per cent of the vote, according to the latest Herald-Digipoll - a bigger share than in any other election for a quarter of a century.

Of course, some will welcome the marginalisation of the small parties. Many remember the line-up of previously unknown moral conservatives, sponsored by the likes of self-anointed bishop Brian Tamaki, who snuck on to the political stage on Dunne's coat-tails in 2002. They achieved little apart from the somewhat inconsequential Families Commission - but they did stall, stonewall and delay reforms such as the smacking ban.

And nearly a decade later, there has been minimal public scrutiny of the new batch of Green MPs-in-waiting - though party co-leader Metiria Turei insists they have jumped through the hoops internally. It's fair to surmise mainstream New Zealand probably doesn't want its roading policy designed by a Green yoga teacher, however well-qualified she may be.

But the alternative is far worse: a return to the days of the old two-party system or, more dreadful still, one-party government. It is what Sir Geoffrey Palmer called the "unbridled power" of an elected dictatorship - and he should know, he was prime minister.

The controversial free market reforms of the Rogernomics era were pushed through by the all-powerful fourth Labour Government without warning or by-your-leave. Similarly, there were few fetters on the National Government when Ruth Richardson presented her slash-and-burn Mother of All Budgets. No presidential veto, no senate or upper house sitting in oversight, and no small coalition partners to soften the hard edges of these governments.

On current polling, John Key is again looking at an absolute majority. Surely, even for the staunchest National support, such unbridled power cannot be a tantalising prospect.

* Herald on Sunday Editor's note: Julie Anne Genter makes the very good point that she is a full time transportation consultant.