Labour vs Greens

There’s some increasing tension between Labour and the Greens.

The Greens feel somewhat betrayed by the budget. They made the mistake of mistaking a slogan from Helen Clark about carbon neutrality as actually meaning something, and couldn’t believe how little there was in the budget about carbon neutrality.

They also feel that United Future with two votes has massively more influence than they do with six votes. They are correct – Dunne (and others) has got Transmission Gully agreed to, a business tax cut and donations to charity tax deductible. The Greens have got a slogan. This is because Labour knows when push comes to shove, the Greens are so red that they would never seriously consider not supporting a Labour-led Government.

But the Greens went too far in threatening to block Transmission Gully, and Cullen has now fired back with threatening to remove funding for rail electrification of the Greens try to black individual projects.

The irony is that the Greens are worried the new regional petrol tax will not be high enough!! The first 5c can go on roading only or a mix of roading and public transport, while the next 5c has to be public transport if the first 5c was all roading. So they want to guarantee a 10c petrol increase, even if local authorities only want a 5c one.

Personally I think public transport, when there is a case for it, should be funded from taxation, not petrol tax.

The petrol tax issue will be one to keep watching, to see who blinks first.