First, the Green Party leadership. What a complete and utter bust that has been. If you were looking to make a dick of yourself, you could not have done it better than the Greens have this week.
They vote to open nominations for co-leader because James Shaw isn't what they like. And what happens next? A media that looks desperate to fill the space with speculation as to who might run.
And slowly but surely two names that could be, might be running, don’t.
Chlöe Swarbrick, who may or may not be a political talent, doesn’t want it. That's probably wise.
And Elizabeth Kerekere, who is only known by anyone outside the party because she famously as Covid spokesperson got on a plane as a household contact, thus, showing us she didn’t have the slightest idea about the Government's Covid rules.
So here we are with crickets chirping. Shaw will hold his job, as he should because he is the best thing about the Greens, but they are too thick to work that out.
Then the other unresolved issue, what, if anything, the Government do about donations to political parties. They have legislation in the Parliament already, but that doesn’t deal with what some lawyers are calling the loophole that has been unearthed by the New Zealand First case.
A case the two involved were found not guilty of, thus alarming those who know about these legal matters.
Whether there is a hole or not I don’t know. What I do know is whatever you do, short of publicly funding political parties, you will have trouble.
Whether you call them loopholes and whether any of them pass a legal test if tried in court doesn't really matter. If you insist that the public in some way shape or form should be allowed to fund political parties, someone, somewhere, like tax law, is going to find a way to be tricky.
We do, of course, want voters funding parties because that is part of democracy.
And if we merely funded it out of state coffers it would cost a fortune we don’t have.
And it wouldn't allow those who are good at fundraising and appeal to large numbers of punters to reap the rewards of their policy settings.
Whether they can even attempt to tidy all this up by this time next year is highly debatable. But what I suspect is what we have currently doesn’t work all that well.
But what they change it to won't work all that well either.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.
And Elizabeth Kerekere, who is only known by anyone outside the party because she famously as Covid spokesperson got on a plane as a household contact, thus, showing us she didn’t have the slightest idea about the Government's Covid rules.
So here we are with crickets chirping. Shaw will hold his job, as he should because he is the best thing about the Greens, but they are too thick to work that out.
Then the other unresolved issue, what, if anything, the Government do about donations to political parties. They have legislation in the Parliament already, but that doesn’t deal with what some lawyers are calling the loophole that has been unearthed by the New Zealand First case.
A case the two involved were found not guilty of, thus alarming those who know about these legal matters.
Whether there is a hole or not I don’t know. What I do know is whatever you do, short of publicly funding political parties, you will have trouble.
Whether you call them loopholes and whether any of them pass a legal test if tried in court doesn't really matter. If you insist that the public in some way shape or form should be allowed to fund political parties, someone, somewhere, like tax law, is going to find a way to be tricky.
We do, of course, want voters funding parties because that is part of democracy.
And if we merely funded it out of state coffers it would cost a fortune we don’t have.
And it wouldn't allow those who are good at fundraising and appeal to large numbers of punters to reap the rewards of their policy settings.
Whether they can even attempt to tidy all this up by this time next year is highly debatable. But what I suspect is what we have currently doesn’t work all that well.
But what they change it to won't work all that well either.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.
2 comments:
So James gets ditched by failing to reach the 75% voting threshold for co-leader.
It would appear to us all that not enough Greens want him as leader. But now the obvious candidate - Swarbrick - says she's not running!
She's a politician - right? And the only Green to be a REAL MP with an electorate seat. But she doesn't want to be leader???
I wonder if Chloe is playing the classic politicians game of "I won't be running". Then, within a short space of time they announce "OK, I will be running".
Either way I couldn't care less. It shows what a shambles Green Party politics is. Hopefully people with a functioning brain who vote Green can see this for what it is - a party too involved in their own internal politics to play real politics!
greens got one electoral seat - the auckland cbd. looking at the place since the last election should be enough for people to understand their folly in voting based on 'feelings' instead of an actual vision & execution abilities. if chloe is considered leadership material despite this, it is time to sing 'god defend new zealand'.
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