Some readers are likely to have choked on their cornflakes this morning as they contemplated the prospect of a Green Party Minister of Finance.
That prospect was raised by a few ominous headlines.
That prospect was raised by a few ominous headlines.
Readers would have recalled from a week or so ago …
The only relief – of sorts – comes from…
The report beneath the first headline tells us the results of the latest 1News Verian pol.
It shows both Labour and National at 28%, while the Greens rise to 16%.
Monday night’s poll had Labour on 28%, down two points since the last poll, and National down one point, also on 28%.
The Green Party is on 16%, up four points; ACT is on 11%, up two points; NZ First is on 9%, up a point; Opportunity is on 6%, down two points; and Te Pāti Māori is on 1%, unchanged.
The implications for the next Parliament and government?
On these figures, if it is assumed that Te Pāti Māori wins one seat and no overhang is created, then Labour (34 seats) is able to govern with the help of the Greens (20 seats) and Opportunity (seven seats) – a government with a one-seat majority of 61.
National would have 34 seats, ACT 13 and NZ First 11 – a total of 58 seats, not enough to form a government.
The only comfort to be taken from those permutations is that this is just another opinion poll and how people behave when they cast their votes may well generate a very different outcome.
But let’s suppose the Greens can flex significant muscle in the shaping of the next coalition government.
In that case, take note that Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says her party is “not here to play silly buggers”. It would want cabinet posts, if its record 16% poll result is repeated at November’s election and it’s in a position to form the next government.
Swarbrick told Breakfast the party wanted “to actually do the things that we were put in Parliament to do”.
“We will be negotiating hard to get the best possible outcomes for New Zealanders,” she said. “I’m not being silly about this.
“We are in a very privileged position right now, and I want to be completely clear with New Zealanders: We’re not here to play silly buggers.”
Asked how many Green ministers she’d like to see in a potential coalition arrangement, Swarbrick said she wanted portfolios that delivered the party’s election priorities – “affordable lives, healthy nature, and honest politics”.
Earlier this week she had said finance, energy, state-owned enterprises, and climate change were on her wish list.
Today, she specifically named finance as the job she wanted.
“Where the power exists to actually transform this economy into something that works for people and planet, instead of extracting from and exploiting both.”
As the report beneath the third headline shows, Chlöe Swarbrick is more trusted to manage the economy than Nicola Willis.
The Green Party co-leader, whose party sits firmly on the far left of the mainstream political spectrum, has proposed some $88 billion in new taxes and has little chance of ever being finance minister.
A better chance than the writer of The Post report seems to think, PoO suggests.
Yet she has edged ahead of the finance minister in The Post/Freshwater Strategy Poll with Infrastructure NZ, with 24% of voters trusting Swarbrick to manage the economy compared with 23% for Willis. Both were well ahead of Labour’s Barbara Edmonds, who was languishing on just 9%.
The same poll show Chris Hipkins is more trusted than Christopher Luxon to manage the economy.
But he shows no signs of wanting to take the Finance portfolio, should he be in a position to stitch together the next coalition government.
If he did, he would be the first Prime Minister since Sir Robert Muldoon to also serve as Minister of Finance.
Muldoon was criticised for holding both roles simultaneously, concentrating significant power in his office.
Hipkins has said ruled out Swarbrick as finance minister in a Government he led.
“No, Barbara Edmonds would be finance minister in a Labour-led Government,” he told 1News on Tuesday morning. “One poll does not make an election result. We’ve got six weeks to go. No one should be divvying up office space at this point.”
On RNZ, Hipkins reiterated that message: “There are two non-negotiables for Labor in any post-election discussions around positions,” he said. “One is that I will be the prime minister and only prime minister, and Barbara Edmonds will be the minister of finance. She is the best qualified person in Parliament to be the minister of finance. That is a bottom line. It’s not negotiable.”
Swarbrick, nevertheless, says that in order for the Greens to deliver its election priorities, it would have to hold the key ministerial portfolios she has identified.
And then:
“I’ve been asked time and again throughout this election campaign, in the last three years, what my ideal portfolio would be, and I’ve been straight up: it is finance where the power exists to actually transform this economy into something that works for people and planet, instead of extracting from and exploiting both.”
National has exploited that prospect in an email to supporters on Monday night.
“If Chris Hipkins wins, he will have no choice but to appoint Chlöe Swarbrick as New Zealand’s next finance minister,” the party said. “Do you really want Chlöe Swarbrick at the helm of the economy in this volatile world?”
According to the poll referenced earlier in this article, the answer is yes if the alternative as manager of the economy is Nicola Willis.
A strategy based essentially on drumming out a promise of no new taxes under National, accompanied by dubious warnings that umpteen new taxes will be imposed by a left-leaning government, is crying out for an overhaul.
Let’s hear what a National Party will do to improve our wellbeing – if it wants to claw back the support it has lost – rather than what it won’t do.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE.
It shows both Labour and National at 28%, while the Greens rise to 16%.
Monday night’s poll had Labour on 28%, down two points since the last poll, and National down one point, also on 28%.
The Green Party is on 16%, up four points; ACT is on 11%, up two points; NZ First is on 9%, up a point; Opportunity is on 6%, down two points; and Te Pāti Māori is on 1%, unchanged.
The implications for the next Parliament and government?
On these figures, if it is assumed that Te Pāti Māori wins one seat and no overhang is created, then Labour (34 seats) is able to govern with the help of the Greens (20 seats) and Opportunity (seven seats) – a government with a one-seat majority of 61.
National would have 34 seats, ACT 13 and NZ First 11 – a total of 58 seats, not enough to form a government.
The only comfort to be taken from those permutations is that this is just another opinion poll and how people behave when they cast their votes may well generate a very different outcome.
But let’s suppose the Greens can flex significant muscle in the shaping of the next coalition government.
In that case, take note that Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says her party is “not here to play silly buggers”. It would want cabinet posts, if its record 16% poll result is repeated at November’s election and it’s in a position to form the next government.
Swarbrick told Breakfast the party wanted “to actually do the things that we were put in Parliament to do”.
“We will be negotiating hard to get the best possible outcomes for New Zealanders,” she said. “I’m not being silly about this.
“We are in a very privileged position right now, and I want to be completely clear with New Zealanders: We’re not here to play silly buggers.”
Asked how many Green ministers she’d like to see in a potential coalition arrangement, Swarbrick said she wanted portfolios that delivered the party’s election priorities – “affordable lives, healthy nature, and honest politics”.
Earlier this week she had said finance, energy, state-owned enterprises, and climate change were on her wish list.
Today, she specifically named finance as the job she wanted.
“Where the power exists to actually transform this economy into something that works for people and planet, instead of extracting from and exploiting both.”
As the report beneath the third headline shows, Chlöe Swarbrick is more trusted to manage the economy than Nicola Willis.
The Green Party co-leader, whose party sits firmly on the far left of the mainstream political spectrum, has proposed some $88 billion in new taxes and has little chance of ever being finance minister.
A better chance than the writer of The Post report seems to think, PoO suggests.
Yet she has edged ahead of the finance minister in The Post/Freshwater Strategy Poll with Infrastructure NZ, with 24% of voters trusting Swarbrick to manage the economy compared with 23% for Willis. Both were well ahead of Labour’s Barbara Edmonds, who was languishing on just 9%.
The same poll show Chris Hipkins is more trusted than Christopher Luxon to manage the economy.
But he shows no signs of wanting to take the Finance portfolio, should he be in a position to stitch together the next coalition government.
If he did, he would be the first Prime Minister since Sir Robert Muldoon to also serve as Minister of Finance.
Muldoon was criticised for holding both roles simultaneously, concentrating significant power in his office.
Hipkins has said ruled out Swarbrick as finance minister in a Government he led.
“No, Barbara Edmonds would be finance minister in a Labour-led Government,” he told 1News on Tuesday morning. “One poll does not make an election result. We’ve got six weeks to go. No one should be divvying up office space at this point.”
On RNZ, Hipkins reiterated that message: “There are two non-negotiables for Labor in any post-election discussions around positions,” he said. “One is that I will be the prime minister and only prime minister, and Barbara Edmonds will be the minister of finance. She is the best qualified person in Parliament to be the minister of finance. That is a bottom line. It’s not negotiable.”
Swarbrick, nevertheless, says that in order for the Greens to deliver its election priorities, it would have to hold the key ministerial portfolios she has identified.
And then:
“I’ve been asked time and again throughout this election campaign, in the last three years, what my ideal portfolio would be, and I’ve been straight up: it is finance where the power exists to actually transform this economy into something that works for people and planet, instead of extracting from and exploiting both.”
National has exploited that prospect in an email to supporters on Monday night.
“If Chris Hipkins wins, he will have no choice but to appoint Chlöe Swarbrick as New Zealand’s next finance minister,” the party said. “Do you really want Chlöe Swarbrick at the helm of the economy in this volatile world?”
According to the poll referenced earlier in this article, the answer is yes if the alternative as manager of the economy is Nicola Willis.
A strategy based essentially on drumming out a promise of no new taxes under National, accompanied by dubious warnings that umpteen new taxes will be imposed by a left-leaning government, is crying out for an overhaul.
Let’s hear what a National Party will do to improve our wellbeing – if it wants to claw back the support it has lost – rather than what it won’t do.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE.
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