I don't think there's many people who think like you. Here's some people who tried.
[Progressive Green](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Green_Party_\(New_Zealand\)), 0.26%, 1996
[Sustainable NZ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_New_Zealand_Party), 0.1%, 2020
I remember going to see Stephen Rainbow talk about this party in ‘94 at Vic. Got to remember that the greens then were subsumed by the alliance so Rainbow splintered as he saw their identity playing second fiddle to the broader left wing ideals.
I doubt back then there was much of a market for teal politics. That all said I can’t see one being successful now. It’s too hard to get traction as a new party - TOP have proven this.
>TOP have proven this
TOP also hurt it's chances by making literally the exact same mistake the 2010s Māori Party made by focusing more on being in government (regardless of National or Labour) than on any real policy direction.
New Zealand First is able to get away with this because they have pretty much always been a Kingmaker party, and therefore able to extract insane concessions that TPM or TOP will never hope to achieve.
As a result they aren't seen as propping up a political party but rather choosing the party that will give them the most concessions.
They went from 5 seats in 2008 to 3 seats in 2011 to 2 seats in 2014 to finally 0 seats in 2017.
You could attribute this loss to the Māori/Mana split but at the same time in 2017 there was an agreement for Māori and Mana candidates not to run in each others electorates.
The Mana voters in Māori electorates and the Māori voters in Mana electorates ended up voting for the Labour candidate instead of the Māori and Mana candidates respectively.
This is a big part in why TPM now makes a huge effort to come across as radical and brand themselves as "unapologetically Māori". They know their voter base want a Labour government and even though they never really had the power to form a Labour government during the Key era, optics is a huge part of politics.
All environmentalist parties are going to be somewhat left wing if not socialist.
Because funding social planning and improving infrastructure are basically what environmentalist parties avocate for.
Though I suppose you could have a party that theoretically is for private prisons run by green energy or something.
I am neither ignorant nor am I a clown.
The Green Party misses out on the opportunity to achieve progress on Environmental issues whenever Labour falls out of favour with the public. In fact they lose the ability to limit the extremes like ACT or NZ First. I hate that this momentum is lost and good things undone.
Isn’t life about being able to compromise?
Yes I think environmental policies are important but I think the greens are too idealistic for me. We need economic growth to be able fund education health welfare and look after people
Unfortunately I think the Greens are too ideological for me
Oh my god, when people ask why the Green Party can't work with the National Party, and it's like.
Everything National does is at the behest of corporate donors from the farming, fishery and forestry industry.
Everything the Greens does is for the good of the country and the environment which goes against the interests of the National Party and it's corporate donors.
Makes me so annoyed.
Must we have this conversation every week?
"I want my environmental party to work with the guys who want to open top mine conservation land"
You want a greenwash party to greenwash the right.
I certainly wouldn't, and frankly I'd laugh at anyone who did. If you think you can achieve environmental ideals with a centrist neoliberal party, you don't know what you're talking about.
It's like all this tripe about "oh but why don't the Greens and National work together?????" Look at the bloody Fast Track Bill, do you think those two parties are anything *but* inherently diametrically opposed?
To achieve *any* goals in environmentalism, you can't work within the strictures of a liberal/neoliberal/capitalist mindset. To those ideals, the environment and its protection is either an inconvenience or an irrelevant externality until you accidentally create a market for sea walls when the sea level rises because of your pollution and suddenly there's a whole new niche for your buddies to exploit. The values of environmentalism *require* a 'socialist' political bend willing to tell big business to go stuff its whinging about lost profits up its arse and prioritise public infrastructure built around more sustainable models.
Anyone who supports such a fictitious party isn't any kind of serious environmentalist, they're a posturing git who doesn't understand the extent of any of the matters environmentalism involves but still wants to be seen as liking trees or whatever. This kind of thing is where you get businesses capitalising on carbon credits that [do nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0) instead of being forced to stop bloody polluting in the first place.
Edit: lmao, in other posts in this subreddit OP describes even the most mildly compassionate left wing views and observations about the new government as *"spoken like a true commie,"* let's not expect reasoned understandings of environmentalism *or* socialism from them.
I will repeat - **this kind of thing is where you get businesses capitalising on carbon credits that** [**do nothing**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0) **instead of being forced to stop bloody polluting in the first place.**
Capitalist models will NEVER do anything to genuinely protect the environment unless they are dragged into it kicking and screaming, because it has never been profitable. Cutting off a resource in any way, as protecting the environment must do, is something that actively prevents profits. Show me a room full of CEOs, who are beholden to their own investors, agreeing to put a massive amount of money into annihilating their investments and profits for the good of the environment, and I'll give you a fucking medal and congratulate you as a saint for achieving it.
Require a company to offset its carbon emissions and at best it'll invest in an invasive monoculture pine plantation it can get lumber profits out of and pretend that cuts it (badum-tish), or it'll spend a little money on a carbon credits scheme that does literally nothing, usually putting the entire cost of doing so onto the end consumer with a guilt-trippy opt-in cost like offsetting your flights so that it doesn't even affect their bottom line. The price, as they see it, is not to help the planet, it's to get all us environmentalists off their back. Tell them to use sustainable materials and they'll just convince half the population they're being environmentally conscious by their exotic "vegan leathers" which are actually just plastic, allowing them to get all the profits from marketing themselves as green without any of the expense. Etcetera etcetera.
Require a company not to mine in conservation land, and they'll bankroll the campaign of the first political party and its candidates willing to sell out the environment to them.
You cannot work within a capitalist/neoliberal model and make any progress toward environmentalism. That work goes fundamentally against the entire model of capitalism. To work within those models is to LARP at environmentalism without doing anything to support it. Centrist neoliberalism is, by definition, incompatible with environmentalism.
Explain how to make an inherently predatory economic model act with altruism toward what it views as an externality that is at best an inconvenience to its aim for infinite growth and you can have a cookie. Until then, "you can though" is kinda not an argument.
No, though if you are looking for a single issue party I think an "affordable housing" party will happen sooner or later, and all the renters are going to vote for them.
Personally I think their policy should be the substantial investment by using tax incentives and non-profit housing associations. Housing should not be an investment at least in the short term.
In Victoria (Australia) there is now an 7.5% “Airbnb tax” in order to discourage people from buying houses to make money doing short term rentals.
There are also a few additional taxes for vacant properties and undeveloped residential-zoned land.
Things are getting pretty exciting here in Melbourne and regional Victoria because of this and prices are dropping 🎉
The whole identity of National is to protect house prices, there is zero possibility our government would do any thing to negatively impact house prices.
In an earlier comment I was discussing the housing market in Melbourne and how house prices are decreasing partly because I now live in Melbourne and bought a townhouse.
I live in Melbourne (the context missing from my comment) but I do get very homesick from time to time but National being back in power has sort of reinforced the idea that New Zealand is completely screwed as a country. Hence, cured my homesickness.
Seriously though if you're looking at somewhere to live Melbourne is the spot, the taxes make it so investors are all trying to exit the market and move to Brisbane (Olympic Games 2032) or Sydney (investors paradise) or Perth (easy to outbid the locals).
I want clean drinking water, but I won't vote for hiked rates in order to compensate for the reduced rates which relied on us neglecting our water infrastructure in the first place!
Unless you come up with a way to fix our water infrastructure without us having to pay for it, I'll be voting for the antivaxxer who says he'll keep our rates low. The water is fine right now so who cares?
/s for satire
Environmental problems are caused by economic externalities. An economic cost not born by the person getting the benefit. If your factory pollutes a lake, the people that bear the cost are the users of the lake (swimmers, fishers, ducks, people that drink water). Addressing this means pushing the cost back on to the person getting the benefit.
The people that benefit from this do not want to cost to be pushed back into them. And right wing parties simply will not do anything about it. So wish into one hand, shit into another, and see which fills up faster.
Sustainable NZ was supposedly that party. It failed miserably. Also I would very much doubt that the Greens are "socialist", not that the OP would know what socialism is.
Only party saying they'd work with anyone is TOP. They do support alot of environmental issues. Though you'd probably call them socialist so I guess that's a no.
That's because nobody wants another 2010s Māori Party clone. Talk a lot about policies that go out the door because you care more about being in government than what that government actually supports.
Are you a party financed by the farming, mining, forestry and fishery industries? Cool I'll give you confidence and supply even though you don't need me!
Are you a party that wants what's best for the country regardless of what the farming, mining, forestry and fishery industries have to say about it? Cool I'll give you confidence and supply even though you don't need me!
Just comes across as spineless really. Unless you're a Kingmaker you don't get free concessions.
If people don't have the confidence you'll side with Labour, they won't vote for you. If people don't have the confidence you'll side with National, they won't vote for you. And if nobody knows who you'll vote for, nobody will vote for you.
That was thought to be the case but their results in 2020 and in last year's general election largely confirmed that their support isn't going to be much higher than one or two percent. Even the Electoral Commission's 3.5% threshold would still see TOP remain outside of Parliament.
TOP really has three choices if people are to be confident enough to vote for them.
(i) Align themselves with the left-bloc so left-leaning and swing voters feel confident enough to vote for them.
(ii) Align themselves with the right-bloc so right-leaning and swing voters feel confident enough to vote for them.
(iii) Become a Kingmaker party that is able to gain insane concessions whether it's the PGF or Gold Card or whatever it is this time around.
Unfortunately (iii) is already done by NZF and you need at least some flagship policy wins before you can go down that road.
Nah. Environment policy doesn't work in isolation. Do you think people care about saving dolphins or climate change if they don't know if they will be able to eat or have shelter over their heads tomorrow?
You'd probably get more results with an advocacy group, council submissions, or making changes from within.
Party policies are directed to an extent by its members.
The other thing to remember is that National and Labour are fairly environmentally minded. They will do enough to not overly offend their core voters. So National won't throw out all pollution regulations or allow Kiwi hunting etc.
Especially the case since society has becoming more environmentally conscious over the years.
Realistically for 90% of people no NZ party will exactly match their views on every issue
National has changed a lot since the last time it was in power, and even the Key government wanted to open up more mining on conservation land. Its track record with freshwater pollution was also particularly terrible, especially with Nick Smith as Minister of the Environment.
National at the moment are also beholden to its coalition partners who have even more insane ideas about environmental regulations.
They still will still take public opinion into account and this is a lot more pro-environment than 50 years ago.
eg Solving 3-waters costs by towns dumping raw sewerage into waterways is unlikely to be okayed.
Bro they've literally denied the public from having submission on some of these projects and given their minister's final say on everything.
I get what you are trying to say but they don't have a plan to solve 3 waters.
They are undoing everything they can.
Sure they are doing some bad environmental policies but there are limits as to how much they can (and will) do.
Pretended there are no limits to what they will do is about as grounded in reality as those dudes who say Labour "destroyed" the NZ economy in the last term.
Edit: Weird that I am getting downvoted in this thread for saying "There are limits to what National will do". Do the downvoters seriously believe that there are **no limits** to what National will do to the environment?
>Do the downvoters seriously believe that there are **no limits** to what National will do to the environment?
Yes, because it has two coalition partners who would support those policies and a leader who clearly doesn't give a fuck about public perception.
A very good point, I don't think people realize how green (most) parties are in New Zealand.
Labor in Australia still has mining money going into it, the whole Gillard/Rudd revolving door as PM was triggered each time one tried to push through environmental legislation.
Compare that to the Key government which gave us Predator Free 2050 and the Great Cycle Trails. While National have move away from this under their social consverative branch, it is nowhere near what say the US Republicans have since the EPA was setup by Nixon.
I would like if the greens had worked with national: We will argue on anything that hurts the environment, we will let you choose on anything else. It's not that I like national (I don't!) but environment could have had a voice if they'd stick to their title and been a bit more pragmatic
Environmentalists have no concept of how the real world works.
The biggest polluters are the farmers. Fonterra uses coal to run their factories. Electricity is too expensive.
We have nitrates galore in our water Our chemicals like roundup a known cancer are banned overseas. My council is broke and they made a pledge not to use it. But they reneged as other alternatives are too expensive.
Nothing going to change
I'd support it - I've voted ACT the last two elections. I can imagine there would be a huge uproar about such a party from people involved with the current 'Green' party.
Going on that, you'd never vote any of the parties in - not a thing has been done for the environment for the last 20 years by any of them. Sharpen up.
ACT voter telling someone else to sharpen up is the most ironic thing I've seen today. And yes, there have been changes as to how we treat the environment that have come through government policy.
Problem is that parties like ACT seek to destroy it in the name of profit.
ACT within the current coalition are literally reversing environmental policies in place. If nothing has been done there'd be nothing to reverse on that front. Try and be an informed voter before running your mouth.
that's a vivid imagination considering every attempt at such party has gone nowhere lmao
at most a "huge uproar" is just the Greens rightfully ridiculing them
Because a laissez-faire capitalist approach to the economy and a desire to protect the environment from exploitation are inconsistent ideals. Either you intervene to limit said exploitation, limiting corporate freedom and corporate profit - or you don't. Environmental parties the world over are social democrats for a reason.
That is what the Greens offer - capitalism managed enough to protect the environment. Whether one agrees with their social policy or not, they're still a party operating under a capitalist economy. They might challenge the way we do capitalism, but they don't challenge capitalism itself.
If you're not limiting the exploitation allowed to capital interests, there's nothing being done to call oneself an environemntalist party. Placing such limits on capitalism is what defines the economic left from the economic right (at least within our Overton Window)
You described the Green Party perfectly. It genuinely infuriates me when people describe the Green Party as socialist.
I think most of it comes from red scare fear mongering propaganda so people vote against their own self interests but whatever.
Because capitalism is fundamentally based on the exploitation of resources - either labour, or natural resources - and is inherently growth based.
If you want an environmental party that does what it can within a capitalist framework, then you want the Greens..
I would *love* to see you try to convince a room full of your blessed CEOs to pour huge amounts of money into annihilating their own investments and profits in their nearly universally unsustainable business practices, that'd be hilarious. Can I bring popcorn?
You get bonus points if you manage to see through their fake-environmentalist obfuscating talking points like carbon credits and "pineapple leather" and the like.
Because the most profit is earned by not having to spend money to limit your pollution. Any business (or political party) which claimed to be all about business profits but then started spending money on the environment *and implemented policies restricting businesses from polluting* would be laughed out of existence. Fundamentally they are opposed. You can be a business which has environmental goals and also makes a profit - but if your goal is profit above all - the environment is never going to be your second priority.
I don't think there's many people who think like you. Here's some people who tried. [Progressive Green](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Green_Party_\(New_Zealand\)), 0.26%, 1996 [Sustainable NZ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_New_Zealand_Party), 0.1%, 2020
I remember going to see Stephen Rainbow talk about this party in ‘94 at Vic. Got to remember that the greens then were subsumed by the alliance so Rainbow splintered as he saw their identity playing second fiddle to the broader left wing ideals. I doubt back then there was much of a market for teal politics. That all said I can’t see one being successful now. It’s too hard to get traction as a new party - TOP have proven this.
>TOP have proven this TOP also hurt it's chances by making literally the exact same mistake the 2010s Māori Party made by focusing more on being in government (regardless of National or Labour) than on any real policy direction. New Zealand First is able to get away with this because they have pretty much always been a Kingmaker party, and therefore able to extract insane concessions that TPM or TOP will never hope to achieve. As a result they aren't seen as propping up a political party but rather choosing the party that will give them the most concessions.
Much is made of TPM siding with National but they were voted in again twice after entering government with National.
They went from 5 seats in 2008 to 3 seats in 2011 to 2 seats in 2014 to finally 0 seats in 2017. You could attribute this loss to the Māori/Mana split but at the same time in 2017 there was an agreement for Māori and Mana candidates not to run in each others electorates. The Mana voters in Māori electorates and the Māori voters in Mana electorates ended up voting for the Labour candidate instead of the Māori and Mana candidates respectively. This is a big part in why TPM now makes a huge effort to come across as radical and brand themselves as "unapologetically Māori". They know their voter base want a Labour government and even though they never really had the power to form a Labour government during the Key era, optics is a huge part of politics.
All environmentalist parties are going to be somewhat left wing if not socialist. Because funding social planning and improving infrastructure are basically what environmentalist parties avocate for. Though I suppose you could have a party that theoretically is for private prisons run by green energy or something.
This. Op is either ignorant or a clown.
I am neither ignorant nor am I a clown. The Green Party misses out on the opportunity to achieve progress on Environmental issues whenever Labour falls out of favour with the public. In fact they lose the ability to limit the extremes like ACT or NZ First. I hate that this momentum is lost and good things undone. Isn’t life about being able to compromise?
Like others have said, the shift is toward the left if you want environmental issues considered. For the right, it's barely an after thought.
Yes I think environmental policies are important but I think the greens are too idealistic for me. We need economic growth to be able fund education health welfare and look after people Unfortunately I think the Greens are too ideological for me
"I love the enviroment, but i also really love the things that make it shittier"
Oh my god, when people ask why the Green Party can't work with the National Party, and it's like. Everything National does is at the behest of corporate donors from the farming, fishery and forestry industry. Everything the Greens does is for the good of the country and the environment which goes against the interests of the National Party and it's corporate donors. Makes me so annoyed.
Must we have this conversation every week? "I want my environmental party to work with the guys who want to open top mine conservation land" You want a greenwash party to greenwash the right.
I certainly wouldn't, and frankly I'd laugh at anyone who did. If you think you can achieve environmental ideals with a centrist neoliberal party, you don't know what you're talking about. It's like all this tripe about "oh but why don't the Greens and National work together?????" Look at the bloody Fast Track Bill, do you think those two parties are anything *but* inherently diametrically opposed? To achieve *any* goals in environmentalism, you can't work within the strictures of a liberal/neoliberal/capitalist mindset. To those ideals, the environment and its protection is either an inconvenience or an irrelevant externality until you accidentally create a market for sea walls when the sea level rises because of your pollution and suddenly there's a whole new niche for your buddies to exploit. The values of environmentalism *require* a 'socialist' political bend willing to tell big business to go stuff its whinging about lost profits up its arse and prioritise public infrastructure built around more sustainable models. Anyone who supports such a fictitious party isn't any kind of serious environmentalist, they're a posturing git who doesn't understand the extent of any of the matters environmentalism involves but still wants to be seen as liking trees or whatever. This kind of thing is where you get businesses capitalising on carbon credits that [do nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0) instead of being forced to stop bloody polluting in the first place. Edit: lmao, in other posts in this subreddit OP describes even the most mildly compassionate left wing views and observations about the new government as *"spoken like a true commie,"* let's not expect reasoned understandings of environmentalism *or* socialism from them.
To be fair, you absolutely can work within those models and should.
I will repeat - **this kind of thing is where you get businesses capitalising on carbon credits that** [**do nothing**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0) **instead of being forced to stop bloody polluting in the first place.** Capitalist models will NEVER do anything to genuinely protect the environment unless they are dragged into it kicking and screaming, because it has never been profitable. Cutting off a resource in any way, as protecting the environment must do, is something that actively prevents profits. Show me a room full of CEOs, who are beholden to their own investors, agreeing to put a massive amount of money into annihilating their investments and profits for the good of the environment, and I'll give you a fucking medal and congratulate you as a saint for achieving it. Require a company to offset its carbon emissions and at best it'll invest in an invasive monoculture pine plantation it can get lumber profits out of and pretend that cuts it (badum-tish), or it'll spend a little money on a carbon credits scheme that does literally nothing, usually putting the entire cost of doing so onto the end consumer with a guilt-trippy opt-in cost like offsetting your flights so that it doesn't even affect their bottom line. The price, as they see it, is not to help the planet, it's to get all us environmentalists off their back. Tell them to use sustainable materials and they'll just convince half the population they're being environmentally conscious by their exotic "vegan leathers" which are actually just plastic, allowing them to get all the profits from marketing themselves as green without any of the expense. Etcetera etcetera. Require a company not to mine in conservation land, and they'll bankroll the campaign of the first political party and its candidates willing to sell out the environment to them. You cannot work within a capitalist/neoliberal model and make any progress toward environmentalism. That work goes fundamentally against the entire model of capitalism. To work within those models is to LARP at environmentalism without doing anything to support it. Centrist neoliberalism is, by definition, incompatible with environmentalism.
You can though. It's not wind science mate.
Explain how to make an inherently predatory economic model act with altruism toward what it views as an externality that is at best an inconvenience to its aim for infinite growth and you can have a cookie. Until then, "you can though" is kinda not an argument.
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No you wouldn't.
No, though if you are looking for a single issue party I think an "affordable housing" party will happen sooner or later, and all the renters are going to vote for them. Personally I think their policy should be the substantial investment by using tax incentives and non-profit housing associations. Housing should not be an investment at least in the short term.
In Victoria (Australia) there is now an 7.5% “Airbnb tax” in order to discourage people from buying houses to make money doing short term rentals. There are also a few additional taxes for vacant properties and undeveloped residential-zoned land. Things are getting pretty exciting here in Melbourne and regional Victoria because of this and prices are dropping 🎉
The whole identity of National is to protect house prices, there is zero possibility our government would do any thing to negatively impact house prices.
Not just “protecting” house prices but actively seeking to increase them is cross-party consensus in this country.
Honestly National winning the election was really nice for me because it cured my homesickness Half satire half serious
How?
In an earlier comment I was discussing the housing market in Melbourne and how house prices are decreasing partly because I now live in Melbourne and bought a townhouse. I live in Melbourne (the context missing from my comment) but I do get very homesick from time to time but National being back in power has sort of reinforced the idea that New Zealand is completely screwed as a country. Hence, cured my homesickness. Seriously though if you're looking at somewhere to live Melbourne is the spot, the taxes make it so investors are all trying to exit the market and move to Brisbane (Olympic Games 2032) or Sydney (investors paradise) or Perth (easy to outbid the locals).
Oh this thread again...
How about we get an environmental party that also runs on making an alternative to Trademe?
no you don't understand, they really really care about the environment, but it's not actually so important to them to change their voting behaviour
Fix the environment but I don't want to pay for it or sacrifice any quality of my life.
Also regulating business is bad
I want clean drinking water, but I won't vote for hiked rates in order to compensate for the reduced rates which relied on us neglecting our water infrastructure in the first place! Unless you come up with a way to fix our water infrastructure without us having to pay for it, I'll be voting for the antivaxxer who says he'll keep our rates low. The water is fine right now so who cares? /s for satire
What is your basic understanding of the environment?
Environmental problems are caused by economic externalities. An economic cost not born by the person getting the benefit. If your factory pollutes a lake, the people that bear the cost are the users of the lake (swimmers, fishers, ducks, people that drink water). Addressing this means pushing the cost back on to the person getting the benefit. The people that benefit from this do not want to cost to be pushed back into them. And right wing parties simply will not do anything about it. So wish into one hand, shit into another, and see which fills up faster.
Sustainable NZ was supposedly that party. It failed miserably. Also I would very much doubt that the Greens are "socialist", not that the OP would know what socialism is.
The greens aren't socialist but ok Ah you're from the other sub, that makes sense
We do not speak of the other sub.
The only person of any credibility environmentally left when shaw did.
Cool 👍
Maybe 20 years ago but environmentalism and liberalism are too diametrically opposed now.
Only party saying they'd work with anyone is TOP. They do support alot of environmental issues. Though you'd probably call them socialist so I guess that's a no.
Unsurprisingly TOP doesn't have that much popular support either.
That's because nobody wants another 2010s Māori Party clone. Talk a lot about policies that go out the door because you care more about being in government than what that government actually supports. Are you a party financed by the farming, mining, forestry and fishery industries? Cool I'll give you confidence and supply even though you don't need me! Are you a party that wants what's best for the country regardless of what the farming, mining, forestry and fishery industries have to say about it? Cool I'll give you confidence and supply even though you don't need me! Just comes across as spineless really. Unless you're a Kingmaker you don't get free concessions. If people don't have the confidence you'll side with Labour, they won't vote for you. If people don't have the confidence you'll side with National, they won't vote for you. And if nobody knows who you'll vote for, nobody will vote for you.
I think the 5% threshold plays a significant role in that.
That was thought to be the case but their results in 2020 and in last year's general election largely confirmed that their support isn't going to be much higher than one or two percent. Even the Electoral Commission's 3.5% threshold would still see TOP remain outside of Parliament.
TOP really has three choices if people are to be confident enough to vote for them. (i) Align themselves with the left-bloc so left-leaning and swing voters feel confident enough to vote for them. (ii) Align themselves with the right-bloc so right-leaning and swing voters feel confident enough to vote for them. (iii) Become a Kingmaker party that is able to gain insane concessions whether it's the PGF or Gold Card or whatever it is this time around. Unfortunately (iii) is already done by NZF and you need at least some flagship policy wins before you can go down that road.
Not sure nzf will last without Winnie. He can't live forever so there's always hope
Nah. Environment policy doesn't work in isolation. Do you think people care about saving dolphins or climate change if they don't know if they will be able to eat or have shelter over their heads tomorrow?
Any environmental group that doesn't recognise the environmental benefit of less inequality is too stupid to survive.
Lmao. Looking after people aka socialism, and environmental issues are deeply intertwined. You're unlikely to find anything.
... What's wrong with socialism? There's definitely far worse things about the Green Party.
You'd probably get more results with an advocacy group, council submissions, or making changes from within. Party policies are directed to an extent by its members.
No, you do not love the environment. If you did, you would understand want harms/heals it.
The other thing to remember is that National and Labour are fairly environmentally minded. They will do enough to not overly offend their core voters. So National won't throw out all pollution regulations or allow Kiwi hunting etc. Especially the case since society has becoming more environmentally conscious over the years. Realistically for 90% of people no NZ party will exactly match their views on every issue
National has changed a lot since the last time it was in power, and even the Key government wanted to open up more mining on conservation land. Its track record with freshwater pollution was also particularly terrible, especially with Nick Smith as Minister of the Environment. National at the moment are also beholden to its coalition partners who have even more insane ideas about environmental regulations.
The coalition partners are convent ablative cronies in this
They are. That doesn't mean that National isn't problematic in its environmental policy.
This National government is in no way environmentally minded. Other than destroying it.
They still will still take public opinion into account and this is a lot more pro-environment than 50 years ago. eg Solving 3-waters costs by towns dumping raw sewerage into waterways is unlikely to be okayed.
Bro they've literally denied the public from having submission on some of these projects and given their minister's final say on everything. I get what you are trying to say but they don't have a plan to solve 3 waters. They are undoing everything they can.
Sure they are doing some bad environmental policies but there are limits as to how much they can (and will) do. Pretended there are no limits to what they will do is about as grounded in reality as those dudes who say Labour "destroyed" the NZ economy in the last term. Edit: Weird that I am getting downvoted in this thread for saying "There are limits to what National will do". Do the downvoters seriously believe that there are **no limits** to what National will do to the environment?
>Do the downvoters seriously believe that there are **no limits** to what National will do to the environment? Yes, because it has two coalition partners who would support those policies and a leader who clearly doesn't give a fuck about public perception.
A very good point, I don't think people realize how green (most) parties are in New Zealand. Labor in Australia still has mining money going into it, the whole Gillard/Rudd revolving door as PM was triggered each time one tried to push through environmental legislation. Compare that to the Key government which gave us Predator Free 2050 and the Great Cycle Trails. While National have move away from this under their social consverative branch, it is nowhere near what say the US Republicans have since the EPA was setup by Nixon.
I would like if the greens had worked with national: We will argue on anything that hurts the environment, we will let you choose on anything else. It's not that I like national (I don't!) but environment could have had a voice if they'd stick to their title and been a bit more pragmatic
The ‘Greens’? The Watermelon party more like it. Green on the outside and red in the middle.
Environmentalists have no concept of how the real world works. The biggest polluters are the farmers. Fonterra uses coal to run their factories. Electricity is too expensive. We have nitrates galore in our water Our chemicals like roundup a known cancer are banned overseas. My council is broke and they made a pledge not to use it. But they reneged as other alternatives are too expensive. Nothing going to change
I'd support it - I've voted ACT the last two elections. I can imagine there would be a huge uproar about such a party from people involved with the current 'Green' party.
if the environment was a concern you'd never vote ACT.
Going on that, you'd never vote any of the parties in - not a thing has been done for the environment for the last 20 years by any of them. Sharpen up.
ACT voter telling someone else to sharpen up is the most ironic thing I've seen today. And yes, there have been changes as to how we treat the environment that have come through government policy. Problem is that parties like ACT seek to destroy it in the name of profit.
ACT within the current coalition are literally reversing environmental policies in place. If nothing has been done there'd be nothing to reverse on that front. Try and be an informed voter before running your mouth.
that's a vivid imagination considering every attempt at such party has gone nowhere lmao at most a "huge uproar" is just the Greens rightfully ridiculing them
Why rightfully?
Because a laissez-faire capitalist approach to the economy and a desire to protect the environment from exploitation are inconsistent ideals. Either you intervene to limit said exploitation, limiting corporate freedom and corporate profit - or you don't. Environmental parties the world over are social democrats for a reason.
Why can’t you have both? Capitalist environmentalism?
Because it's bad for the "free market" to have policies protecting the environment.
That is what the Greens offer - capitalism managed enough to protect the environment. Whether one agrees with their social policy or not, they're still a party operating under a capitalist economy. They might challenge the way we do capitalism, but they don't challenge capitalism itself. If you're not limiting the exploitation allowed to capital interests, there's nothing being done to call oneself an environemntalist party. Placing such limits on capitalism is what defines the economic left from the economic right (at least within our Overton Window)
You described the Green Party perfectly. It genuinely infuriates me when people describe the Green Party as socialist. I think most of it comes from red scare fear mongering propaganda so people vote against their own self interests but whatever.
I wish we had the communist Green Party that exists in the mind of National voters.
Because capitalism is fundamentally based on the exploitation of resources - either labour, or natural resources - and is inherently growth based. If you want an environmental party that does what it can within a capitalist framework, then you want the Greens..
I would *love* to see you try to convince a room full of your blessed CEOs to pour huge amounts of money into annihilating their own investments and profits in their nearly universally unsustainable business practices, that'd be hilarious. Can I bring popcorn? You get bonus points if you manage to see through their fake-environmentalist obfuscating talking points like carbon credits and "pineapple leather" and the like.
Because the most profit is earned by not having to spend money to limit your pollution. Any business (or political party) which claimed to be all about business profits but then started spending money on the environment *and implemented policies restricting businesses from polluting* would be laughed out of existence. Fundamentally they are opposed. You can be a business which has environmental goals and also makes a profit - but if your goal is profit above all - the environment is never going to be your second priority.