Bradford says Greens are in mortal danger

Sue Bradford writes:

The Green parliamentary wing seem to be clueless about the mortal danger they face following news this week that their own minister, Eugenie Sage, has signed off on the sale and expansion of a water bottling plant at Otakiri Springs.

Not just any water bottling plant but a Chinese owned one!!

It’s one of the most common political truisms that small parties in government get eaten by their larger partners. Surely the Green caucus focus from day one of government formation should have been on honing their political and strategic strategy and capacity so that the sort of situation which happened this week would never arise.

It is not nine days since the Greens became part of government. It is nine months.

Hefty parliamentary resources are provided to all parties to employ staff who can help the caucus deal strategically and well with situations like the one that arose this week.  I’m sure there are members within the party structures who would be happy to assist as well.

As things stand, it feels as though the caucus and those around them do not think ahead about the consequences of some of their decisions, water bottling only being the latest of a string of stuff-ups (think waka jumping and giving National some of their parliamentary questions).

The Greens now have three Ministerial office so a load of taxpayer funded resources. But despite this, they seem to be unable to plan ahead.

Once again, it appears the real agenda here is a sodden acceptance that being a safe pair of hands for Labour is all that counts, and that those pesky members and voters are something to worry about in maybe a couple of years’ time.

Getting Labour into Government seems to be the main aim of the Greens, rather than achieving their own policies.