June 5, 2017 12:00pm by David Farrar

HDPA says she’d put Labour down if it was a pet

The Green Party has been nothing but impressive over the last fortnight. So impressive, in fact, it’s tempting to predict a future where the Greens become the major party of the left.

Or that may be Winston?

It says everything about the list that, after its release, it took me hours to register just how many women are in the top 20. There are 12.

This is extraordinary. A sitting party releasing a majority-women list without a moment of controversy must be unprecedented in our politics. The Greens made it look as normal as brushing your teeth.

They made it look as if there really are enough capable women available for selection, as if there are times when the woman is a better choice than the man, as if we’re living in 2017.

Contrast that to Labour.

That party has consistently managed to make an inferior version of this outcome far more painful.

Yep the Greens did it well.

National snookered everyone with its Robin Hood cash-for-the-poor package. So the Greens made the only move available and voted for that part of the Budget that would put money in the pockets of people who need it.

Not Labour. Oh no. Labour had the audacity to vote against a measure that will benefit its core supporters.

Labour voted against a measure that will reduce the number of children in “poverty” by a third. Yet they claim that is their main purpose as a party.