Professor Richard Shaw: With so many parties ‘ruling out’ working with other parties, is MMP losing its way?

There has been a lot of “ruling out” going on in New Zealand politics lately. In the most recent outbreak, both the incoming and outgoing deputy prime ministers, ACT’s David Seymour and NZ First’s Winston Peters, ruled out ever working with the Labour Party.

Seymour has also advised Labour to rule out working with Te Pāti Māori. Labour leader Chris Hipkins has engaged in some ruling out of his own, indicating he won’t work with Winston Peters again. Before the last election, National’s Christopher Luxon ruled out working with Te Pāti Māori.

Barbara Mckenzie: What’s Wrong with the NZ Green Party?

In August 2022 Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau, along with other Green and Labour candidates and sitting councillors, attended a counter-demonstration organised by the Wellington section of Antifa, a worldwide organisation known for its chosen strategy of intimidation in order to achieve its ends.

It hardly seems a coincidence that the toxic NZ Green Party subsequently fought a toxic local election campaign in Wellington. Wellington Antifa self-describes as opposing ‘fascism and anti-vax ideology’ thus correlating the two, and in line with Antifa philosophy the Greens insisted on a vaccine election, demonised the unvaccinated and made great use of intimidatory tactics.