once upon a time, the idea of protestors picketing the Green Party offices would have been unheard of. But Green support for two highly contentious Government law changes is exposing the Greens to a possible backlash, as HAMISH CARNACHAN discovers

Passing motorists can’t help but touch the brakes and flash a sideways glance. They look just as perplexed as the pedestrians forced to sidestep the protest as they keep one eye out for detached drivers in wandering traffic, the other on the placard waving rabble. There are only a handful of people picketing outside the Green’s West Auckland headquarters - they’re colourful, suitably well behaved, which are all prerequisites of protest these days – but more importantly, they’re still eliciting more attention than their numbers would usually warrant.

Indeed, there’s something altogether unusual about this demonstration. One might easily assume the Greens would be proud of such a gathering, only there’s a slight problem - it is actually the Green Party that is the focus of this group’s frustration. It may be their home turf but this is certainly groundbreaking territory.

The focus of their anger and disgust? A Green Party decision to support the scrapping of the Privy Council and establishment of the Labour Party’s Supreme Court, even though polls show 80% of New Zealanders were opposed to the Labour/Green plan to ram it through by a bare parliamentary majority of three.

Perhaps even more significantly, the protestors themselves have impeccable street-cred: Jonathan Eisen, the author of the just-released book GE Sellout; and Penny Bright, warrior princess for the Water Pressure Group, among others.

And while the demonstrators may only be small in number on the ground here, across the airwaves nationwide the voice of other concerned New Zealanders is deafening. In talkback land switchboards are jammed with a steady stream of irate callers who have been whipped into a frenzy by equally angry radio hosts.

Talkback radio is rarely tame but today it’s particularly volatile - there’s a queue of callers vying to offer their personal pearls of wisdom on the Green Party’s “sell-out” support for Labour’s plans to scrap the Privy Council.

“If they [Green Party] think they’re getting my vote after this, they can forget it. I’m done with that mob,” notes Margaret, a “first time caller from Blockhouse Bay”.

It’s a tone echoed in the daily newspapers throughout the country too. Regarding the decision, letters to editors penned with equal poison run, at a glance, five to one.

“This Labour Government, with the anarchist Greens, have given us a local Supreme Court which will be contaminated with local baggage and easily influenced through strategic appointments by small, quasi-independent committees,” lambastes Gary Putt from Hillsborough in his correspondence to the Herald. “Access, the only real argument for a local Supreme Court, could easily have been dealt with by other means.” 

And while there is ample fear that the move to set up a local Supreme Court in place of the country’s highest appeal court in London is less about nationhood than increased political influence and agenda, the majority are more concerned with why such a significant constitutional change should not be put to referendum.

Nearly 80 per cent of voters surveyed in a Herald poll say the Government should let the people of New Zealand decide the matter. The results also show that almost a half are opposed to the change against just over a third who support it.

In what is turning out to be somewhat of a clichéd reaction by the Prime Minister in the face of overwhelming public opposition to her government’s policy, Helen Clark ignores the resounding outcry quoting “attack journalism”, “attack polls,” and all but questioning the intellect of New Zealanders when it comes to letting the population shape their future democratically.

Enter the Greens and the surprise backlash against that party.

Labour not only needed the support of its coalition ally, the Progressives, but also that of the Green Party, which has no formal alliance with either, to push the legislation through Parliament.

History now dictates that Labour’s coalition has managed to abolish appeals to the Privy Council with 63 votes out of 120, but the miniscule margin raises questions in some quarters about the legitimacy of such a major constitutional change.

And the Greens’ willingness to support the bill when United Future, a Government partner, initially agreed to it but later rejected the proposal outright, also raises serious questions about whether the Green Party has the teeth to keep Labour in check when there is a clear outcry for proper implementation of the democratic process.

The passing of the Supreme Court Bill has shown that a minority gov-ernment, aided by the Greens, an even more minority party, is able to simply combine votes and force a major constitutional change through Parliament on a bare majority of three. As a minority party itself, Labour would have had no ability to enforce the change on its own, and the Green Party would certainly have been ineffectual.

Given that neither party can singularly claim a genuine mandate for such a move, opponents argue that joining forces does not make it any more legitimate.

In the same fashion as the fiery debate that has been generated in the public forum, the Greens took a grilling in Parliament during the third and final reading of the Supreme Court Bill too.

Act leader Richard Prebble asked: “… how is there any moral basis for the Government’s intentions to do away with this important part of our constitution?

“How does the Government claim to have any mandate to change the constitution in that Labour got 41 per cent of the vote last election, and the Greens who are supporting them, their public position was that they would not agree to a doing away with the Privy Council unless Maori agreed?”

The point was reiterated by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who stated: “The Green Party said they would pay attention to what the Maori people wanted. This argument about the cost – that the benefit [of the Privy Council] is only for the wealthy – is spurious, totally false and a diversion.” 

Nandor Tanczos, Green Party Justice spokesman, admitted there were members of the Green Party who opposed the bill, particularly some Maori members, “But it was a decision the whole party democratically arrived at…”

The Attorney General, who proclaimed herself “midwife to this long-awaited change”, put forward a similar claim about the democratic nature of the process, which involved “broad consultation”.

Not so, said National leader Bill English in reply.

Adding to Peters “illegitimate at conception and illegitimate at birth” metaphor, English told Parliament that Margaret Wilson’s charge was also “damaged at conception”.

“This court can only succeed if it has broad support in the Parliament, or if that is not the case, then the broad support of the public because it is a constitutional change and the constitution belongs to the people,” said English. “…it has not gained that support so it ends up passing on a narrow leftwing majority.”

He added that there should have been debate and discussion to seek parliamentary support but there was none, which resulted in United Future’s condemnation of the proposal.

“Then they failed the second test…put it to the public and they have not. That goes to the core of the mistrust of this government and its social agenda. The way the government has dealt with that issue has been arrogant, elitist and contemptuous of public opinion.”

And that, perhaps, is the crux of the reaction against the Green Party for its involvement in this decision – some are starting to tag the Greens with the same label, particularly in light of the way the party ignored both public opinion on the new court, and the fact that 75 per cent of those called to make submissions, including Maori, business leaders and legal professionals, did not support the change. 

In spite of this, Tanczos hastily pointed out in Parliament that, “There is no evidence, in fact, of a widespread call for a referendum.” Yet, only a matter of days before this third and final reading of the Supreme Court Bill, Green MP Sue Kedgley was calling for the Government to take notice of the protestors and polls showing broad public opposition to the lifting of the moratorium on genetic modification.

Short of finding himself the first up against the wall when the revolution comes, it’s hard to imagine what more evidence the New Zealand public could provide of their anger on either issue.

The conclusion reached by most following this debacle is that the Greens are more than prepared to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds whenever it suits them.

One angry Newstalk caller asked the pointed question of the Green MPs, “You want Labour MPs to do a U-turn on supporting the lifting of the moratorium…How about leading by example, by yourselves doing a U-turn on supporting the abolition of New Zealand’s legal ties with the Privy Council?”

Similar queries have been posed elsewhere in the public domain and also in Parliament where the Green Party has been accused of doing some sort of deal for its backing.

“Some would have us believe that, because this policy was mooted in Labour’s manifesto, there is some sort of mandate. Labour did not gain a majority at the election and nor did the Progressive, together or separately, and they are relying on the support of the Greens who did not campaign for this bill,” says Peters.

But Tanczos asserted that the Green Party could not have traded its support for the Supreme Court Bill for concessions on bottom-line policies like genetic engineering because the party did indulge in horse-trading on legislation.

“We think it means we act with integrity.

“We support legislation we think is good. We don’t support legislation we think is bad.”

And, he asked Parliament, “A deal on what? A deal on GE perhaps? We have yet to see the Government budge one millimetre on the GE issue.”

Still, a constitutional change of such significance effectively being railroaded through the House, arguably without public mandate, appears to fly in the face of the Green Party policy of “increasing participation of the wider community in justice procedures”. 

But some commentators and opposition MPs suggest concern surrounding the Green Party now seems to go beyond politics and is more about its association with what appears to be a steady erosion of fundamental political processes. 

United Future’s Murray Smith says the Greens have achieved nothing by helping dump the Privy Council, rather, “They’ve sold out their constituency.”

“This won’t be the last time they sell out the constituency – they have promised to bring the Government down after the end of this month if the moratorium is lifted… well it will be interesting to see if they welch on that as well,” he says.

The Supreme Court Bill is not the only unpopular piece of legis-lation the Greens have helped Labour push through Parliament. A case in point is when Labour MP Harry Duynhoven breached the Electoral Act by restoring his Dutch nationality.

It states that a seat becomes vacant if an MP “does or concurs or adopts in any act” to become a subject or citizen of another power. Duynhoven’s New Plymouth seat was only spared, and Labour saved from contesting a by-election, after Parliament opted for a fast-tracked retrospective bill to clear him.

But thanks to a bare majority of Labour, Progressive and the Greens, the Duynhoven bill was also extended to cover the whole of Parliament for the rest of this parliamentary term. The move subsequently persuaded National, Act, United Future and New Zealand First that some other Labour MP or minister was in the same situation - allegations raised in Parliament suggested that it might even have been a Cabinet Minister. 

If that was the case, it could have had a profound effect on the political landscape. As Herald commentator Colin James wrote at the time, “Who knows what important affairs of state that MP might – unlawfully – have signed off?”

The minister may have backed the prostitution law reform (contentious in certain quarters), which passed by only one vote. This and a host of other significant features of what some call “Labour’s social engineering” tenure could have been declared void.

Furthermore, Labour’s majority isn’t that significant and more than one by-election could feasibly have caused the Government real problems. Which presents quite a trump card for a minority party like the Greens – holding the balance of power may have had a marked effect on Labour’s stance on GM.

So why didn’t the Greens play that hand?

It’s a question some of the party’s constituents have asked, admits Green Party co-leader Rod Donald.

“Some of our voters are frustrated we haven’t gone the other way by trying to get concessions on GE,” he says, but he reiterates Tanczos’ stance on plying political favours.

“The position we adopted back in 1999 is that we don’t trade between issues. It was tempting to say, ‘we are going to change our position and pull the plug on this issue,’ but that can get you into a bind because you can end up owing a favour in the future – compromising your policies.”

Donald says the Green Party’s view of the Duynhoven situation is that dual citizenship is not a crime.

“He broke the law but he didn’t commit a crime.”

Pardon? It wouldn’t be difficult to take issue with that statement.

“Let me rephrase that,” says Donald. “There are always going to be people dancing up and down on a pinhead saying, ‘the law is the law,’ but our view was that this was an anomaly in the legislation that we saw fit to change. It would have been irresponsible for us not to fix that anomaly.

“What we didn’t want to do was just pass a law that saved Harry, like United Future and New Zealand First wanted. That would have looked like we were trying to protect him.”

OK, so now it looks like the Greens were protecting Harry and someone else, perhaps even the entire Labour Government.

In terms of forcing a by-election on two fronts, Donald says the gamble was too great because the “other minister involved, even if there was another, could have been just a list MP”, in which case he or she could easily have been replaced.

Which misses the point entirely: everything they signed or voted on would have been void, and may still have brought the Government down. And a wounded Labour Government may not then have been able to lift the moratorium. And none of this would have required any “horse-trading” – just following the law to its logical conclusion.

It’s probably fair to argue that only a purist would require Duynhoven to be ousted, but according to some observers, when the constitution is an inconvenience, the current trend in New Zealand is to go around it.

“Laws have been passed which in other countries, even Australia, would be found unconstitutional,” Colin James’ concludes in a Herald commentary on the Duynhoven debacle, which is conspicuously careful of singling out the minority parties.

Critics on the far right of the spectrum are less timid in attacking the Greens for apparently towing Labour’s line on the legal, and ultimately social, restructuring of New Zealand.

Penned one individual on a internet news bulletin board: “The old Values Party could never make their neo-socialist agenda appeal to the inherently freedom-loving New Zealand electorate, so they stole an environment policy from the then Social Credit Political League, bought the New Zealand franchise for the international Green Party, and voila, the Green Party of Aotearoa was born.”

That certainly seems a rather extreme point of view but it does pose questions about where the origin of the party lies and the extent of its ties to Labour.

So, wind the years back.

The Values Party, which reached its political pinnacle in 1975 after wining 5 percent of the vote, was founded on a growing wave of young people disenfranchised with the National Party’s dominance, Labour’s conservatism, and a failing economy in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Political commentator and editor of New Zealand Political Review Chris Trotter says the party stood as a rejection of the consumer society and the corporate state, and campaigned on concerns like proportional representation, acknowledging the treaty, gender equality and parenting issues.

“If you think of PC [political correctness] and the issues that term covers, that was values,” says Trotter.

Support for the Values Party steadily declined after the 1975 election when Trotter says “everyone who wanted to get rid of Rob [Muldoon] realised Values was a luxury vote so they backed Labour instead”.

But this Values Party environment was one in which a number of the current Green MPs cut their political teeth.

Jeanette Fitzsimons was the Values Energy spokesperson from 1977-82 and party candidate in the 1978 and 1981 elections. Rod Donald was a Values member from 1974-79, and Mike Ward had a 13-year tenure with the party from 1975-88, assuming the co-leader role in the party’s dying days.

While not directly involved in Values, other members of the Green Party have Red-tinted backgrounds too.

Sue Bradford is a well-recognised activist who has campaigned on social issues for decades and was Vice-president of the leftist New Labour Party in 1989-90; Nandor Tanczos’ history of championing left wing movements stems from as far back as 1983; Keith Locke has continuously campaigned on a range of political and international social justice issues since 1963 for New Labour and the Alliance before joining the Greens – and between 1972-76 Locke was editor of the Socialist Action Newspaper; and Green Party Maori Affairs spokesperson Metiria Turei was involved in an anarcho-feminist performance troupe.

Still, Trotter says the gap between Values and the Green Party is quite a considerable one, and he adds that anyone who suspects a Green vote to be Red is colour blind when it comes to the current political spectrum.

“The Greens are not a socialist party – the Green ideology is very different,” says Trotter. “Sue Bradford and Keith Locke who were socialists in their youth are not today.”

Colin James alludes to a similar point in another Herald commentary, focussing on the Green Party: “The right often mistakenly class the Greens as ‘socialist’ of ‘left’ because they oppose free trade and international capitalism and demand more generous social services…[but] the Greens were a constant puzzle to their allies in the Alliance, who came from a background of union solidarity which submerges the individual in the collective mass. A Green debate is a cacophony of consciences.”

And it is that individuality that Trotter suspects appeals to a “whole cross-section of society”.

“They are very pro small business; they don’t look at society through class; they attract mothers concerned about what they feed their children; their stance on the prohibition of cannabis may attract the vote of young Maori,” he says.

“They may be radical but they’re not Red.”

So what is the Green Party’s relationship with Labour?

“I refer to it as constructive, creative tension,” says Donald. “It can be constructive and often is, but there is also a measure of tension.

“We challenge the Government every time they try and extend the surveillance state; free trade is another area where we’re totally opposed to the Government’s agenda. Those areas where we’ve made a difference in the other direction, the best example is the transport strategy. Labour has worked closely with us on the Land Transport Bill and we’ve got a green outcome out of that.”

Donald says the Greens don’t like to conform to any left/right spectrum because “we see ourselves as a two-dimensional party that takes a fresh look at politics, judging each issue on its merits”.

“Because Labour’s policy is more aligned to ours we’re more inclined to support them but we don’t call ourselves a left wing party.”

Unlike the previous parliament, the Greens have declined to make any formal alliance to Labour in terms of guaranteeing votes on confidence and supply, opting instead for an ambiguously termed “cooperation agreement”.

Regardless of the vague nature of this accord, being left out of the loop has hit the Green Party where it hurts – a reduced allocation of funds in the budget for implementing its environmental policy – but the rift over the lifting of the GM moratorium was too great for the party to “sell out”, according to Donald.

“I don’t think our supporters would have thanked us if we’d backed down either. They would have said, ‘They’re more interested in seats around the Cabinet table.’”

But what about the condemnation surrounding the Green Party support for the dumping of the Privy Council, will the public forgive the Greens?

If a Herald digi-poll is anything to go by then the answer is yes. Released after the party made it clear it would support the Supreme Court Bill, support for the Greens was up 4 per cent, polling at around 9 per cent overall.

Most agree that this leap in popularity came on the back of the GM debate but Donald is confident the party has placated any concerns the constituency had surrounding the Privy Council decision.

“I wouldn’t count talkback radio as the pillar of public opinion, nor for that matter letters to the editor, largely because of the intelligence of the host. It’s hardly the most intelligent public forum - callers are invariably coerced by the hosts talking half-truths and conspiracy theory,” he says, still smarting after listeners to Ian Wishart’s talk radio programme on Pacific blocked Green Party phone lines and cellphone mailboxes with hundreds of calls urging them not to support the Supreme Court bill.

“The polls I’ve seen were in support of a referendum but there was still no public mandate to keep the Privy Council. We’ve had some supporters call us but I’ve found that when you talk to them a lot are happy to see it go. You also have to remember we did not call for a referendum on the GE issue either.” 

Chris Trotter is not so confident that the party will escape its actions surrounding the Supreme Court Bill unscathed though. He believes that not only will some of the Maori supporters be “very disappointed”, but also flying in the face of public concern was “unwise” and could ultimately cost the Greens politically.

“Inconsistency has been their biggest mistake here and that’s going to cost them. You can’t point to majority opinion on one issue and ignore it on another. I think it will have a more long-term effect because by not supporting a referendum they gave the impression that they don’t think people have the wit to decide – that will stick in people’s minds for some time.”

According to Trotter, the fact the Green Party is different is what works for it best and the moment it starts acting like the old parties, ramming through legislation without a mandate, is when it loses that point of difference.

And the last word on the Green Party’s political future?

“To some degree it depends if they can ride this wave of anger over the lifting of the moratorium. I think as far as public concern goes, this protest over GE is going to get stronger. If that’s the case then they’ll be okay.”

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