Micro-chipping fallout

Sue Bradford (who was in the Wgtn studio with me this morning) did a good job explaining why the four Green MPs voted for National’s amendment. A partial victory is better than a loss. It’s the same principle that you would expect ACT to vote for a cut in tax rates, even if the cuts don’t go as far as they would like.

It is no bad thing that the Greens split on a non-core issue. National MPs also have the ability to split votes. Labour of course do not – you get expelled if you vote against the party without permission.

What is unusual though is to have the party leader in the minority, and quite clearly pissed off with her colleagues. It seems she only found out late yesterday that they were definitely going to vote for the amendment.

Anyway well done to Keith Locke, Sue Bradford, Nandor Tanczos and Sue Kedgley for not letting a difference in approaches between United Future and the Greens get in the way of stopping a measure which less than half of Parliament supported.