Jones cites Greens influence as factor in departure

Claire Trevett reports:

Departing Labour MP Shane Jones’ antipathy for the Green Party went so deep he once told Labour’s leadership he would not be a minister if he was “second fiddle” to Green co-leader Russel Norman as deputy prime minister or in a senior economic role. …

Asked whether David Cunliffe had tried to keep him by promising a ministerial post if Labour regained the Government benches, he said he had told Labour’s leadership some time ago he would struggle to be a minister if Mr Norman or other Green MPs held senior posts.

“The Labour Party I came into is a party of New Zealanders. Some are on the left, some are on the right. The sweet spot is in the centre. I’m not interested in ever campaigning for the Green vote or going out there promoting Labour as only being able to govern if it has some sort of Green organ transplant.”

The reality is that Labour’s policies are all veering quite hard to the left. I’m going to do a more detailed blog post on this, but when you compare their policies today compared with say the Clark-Cullen Government – they have moved to the left in almost every case – and most of their new policies are Green party policies.

Stuff reports the response from the Greens:

Greens co-leader Metiria Turei hit back this morning, calling Jones sexist and questioning the amount of voter support he brought to Labour.

“It’s probably a good thing that he’s going, he’s very much a 19th century man in a 21st century world, and I’m not sure he’s going to cope with the changes that need to come,” Turei said on Firstline.

“I think there’s been real issues around with Shane and his sexism. I think the comments he’s made and the very derogatory statements he’s made about women in the past, in particular women in authority, has been a real problem.”

She denied Jones had appeal to working class men.

“He’s claiming he’s got lots of support, but not enough that’s kept him in Parliament. I don’t know that he has a great deal of support in his caucus either because that hasn’t kept him inside Parliament.

“At the end of the day, he’s leaving. The Greens are staying. He won’t be part of government, he won’t be a minister and the Greens are intending to be so after the election on September 20,” Turei said.

The problem for the Greens is they have little chance of being in Government, unless Labour also does a deal with NZ First.  And in a piece I do agree with, Tim Watkin states the reality:

Labour and the Greens simply aren’t a viable two-party government as the polls stand, which makes New Zealand First simply vital to any potential change of government. While New Zealand First has left its options open re coalitions and there’s plenty of smart money on Winston Peters’ preference for backing National-led – or at least incumbent – government, any path to a change of government currently looks to lead through New Zealand First.

Labour’s going to have to do some serious growing to find another path to government. So as it stands, if New Zealand First tells Labour it wants a formal coalition (something history tells us Peters prefers), but it will only consider a coalition if the Greens are excluded, well, Labour will have to exclude them.

Yep. Because what else can the Greens do?

When this scenario was put to Greens co-leader Metiria Turei on The Nation she said “if they [Labour] need us for confidence and supply, they need us to be government” and if the Greens are needed, “we, the Greens, are in a very strong bargaining position”.

Except they’re not. At all. If New Zealand First said they would only go with Labour if the Greens were sidelined and Labour bowed to that demand, the Greens would have two choices: Give confidence and supply to that government, or opt out and let a National-led government stay in power. Surely they couldn’t let the latter happen, so they would have to allow themselves to be sidelined. Again.

The Greens can not abstain on supply and confidence, because then Labour and NZ First would not be able to govern.  There would either be a new election or a National-led Government.

And considering how close Jones and Peters are, can anyone imagine Peters will let the Greens become Ministers, when their influence is what drove Shane Jones out of politics?