Green Support

The NZ Herald has a story on the Greens and who they may support after the election.

It has one significant mistake in it. The article says National’s policies is to cut carbon emissions “so they are at least halfway back to 1990 levels by 2050”. In fact the policy is that the 2050 levels should be one half of the 1990 levels. This is a massive difference and a very ambitious target (and one on which costings and details are yet to come).

I wouldn’t over-read too much into John Key saying that the Greens could get a Cabinet seat. He didn’t raise the issue, he just in response to a question said it wasn’t off the table. It will however remind the Greens that Labour have taken them for granted and never made an offer of Ministerial roles.

But I still find it most unlikely the Greens will ever not support Labour over National (which is why Labour takes them for granted), Even if Labour is worse than National on environmental policies, the Greens are pretty hard left on economic policies being against free trade, low inflation, public/private partnerships etc. and their supporters would never be happy with supporting the Nats I suspect.

What could be interesting is the scenario where a Labour led Government is not feasible (if say Labour gets 33% only) yet National does want to do an abstain on supply and confidence deal to give it a bigger working majority.