National – Greens MOU

Busted Blonde has a nice little scoop – that National and Greens wll today announce an MOU between the two parties.

I doubt it will include any voting commitments but will identify some areas they can work together such as home insulaton.

Now as readers will know, most Greens policies scare me so badly I need to take Imodium after I hear of them. And they want to ban anything Gaia doesn’t approve of.

But there are some areas where their policies have merit, and it is sensible to have National and Greens formalise a way they can work together in those areas they do agree.

It is a bit of a win-win as the Greens gain relevance rather than just be a lonely voice in Opposition, and National gets kudos for showing a willingess to work constructively.

I just hope John doesn’t get carried away and appoint Sue Bradford as the new Children’s Commissioner 🙂

UPDATE: The MOU is online. Greens get some reaonable stuff. In agreed policy areas they get access to Ministers and departmental officials for briefings and advice and get input into Cabinet papers. The laeders will meet quarterly to review progress. Agreed areas of work are home insulation, energy efficiency and regulation of NZ natural health products. More areas may be added later.

As I said above, this reflects well on both parties.