David Cormack
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The Greens got schooled
🕑 Added 2020-09-06 01:23:50 +0000 UTC
I've been holding off writing on the Green School debacle, largely because I wanted to see how it played out.
When it first broke, an advisor for a political party messaged me with a doom and gloom forecast. I looked at the story and didn't think it was a huge deal. Shows what I know huh?
Without wishing to re-canvass everything, because god knows there's enough already written, I want to cover off a few points.
Firstly, I've spoken to James since this went down and he feels sick about it. He is genuinely remorseful. The man fucked up. He owns that. He has said sorry repeatedly and to many people.
I think it's fairly obvious what went down. When the Government announced its big infrastructure package pre-Covid, one of the major criticisms levelled at the Greens was that they "didn't get anything" out of it. All the major projects were roads or variations of. These are considered pretty shitty projects in the world of climate activists. And James' focus - almost myopically - over the last three years has been to do as much about climate change as he can.
And to be fair, he's done a lot more than any other climate change Minister has.
He's developed a framework to get Ag into the ETS. He negotiated getting bipartisan consensus on the Zero Carbon Bill - which is hugely important as it enshrines the legislation regardless of who's in power. There was the oil and gas ban, and The Green investment fund.
The Green Party - and especially James - has done a lot for climate change. Yes, there is an awful lot more that needs to be done, but it's still an impressive list.
So, if we look at James' actions through this lens, I think we can see what happened.
The list of potential projects was circulated, James saw one that was carbon zero and for a "Green school". He didn't stop to think about how this might intersect with the Green's policy of not providing public money to private schools, he just wanted a climate friendly infrastructure project. So, he lobbied for that one.
The rubbish that he held to ransom billions of dollars of other projects is just bullshit. It suggests that James, as a Minister outside of Cabinet, in a party who is only confidence and supply, somehow wields more power than any other Minister involved in this process. It was clearly a negotiating situation where consensus decision making was sought after.
The stuff that is being leaked to the media is so obviously coming from the party in parliament who is polling the worst. They should be embarrassed, but I don't think they have shame.
Then the scandal erupts, and the members are furious; rightly so. James and Marama front up on a Zoom call to the members. I cannot think of a single other party in NZ politics for which that would happen. They spoke to the membership about what had happened and apologised. Then James calls a press conference and apologies more broadly.
The bullshit hypocrisy emanating from National makes me sick. On the one hand National was the party who stealthed in Charter Schools under the guise of it being a coalition agreement with ACT (despite *nobody* having campaigned on it), and secondly National is forever wanting to build new roads that have a terrible return on investment, and yet do not face anywhere near this level of scrutiny.
If Private Schools is your make-or-break policy for voting, then the Greens are still the most anti-Private School. Labour has allowed those Charter Schools to continue. If hypocrisy is what's turning you away from the Greens then mate, this is pretty much the only Green example of it you'll find in three years of Government, whereas other parties make it an artform.
If anything, we should be applauding James' response. He owned he'd made a mistake. He said he'd like to change it if he could, and he fronted up to apologise. I can't recall another leader doing that. If we are going to attack leaders that do this then we'll see fewer apologies, and fewer leaders actually owning their mistakes. Do we not want accountability?
It's pretty simple really. For the last three years the Greens have been focused on climate change. NZ First has spent three years impeding progress, and National has spent three years undermining whichever poor chump is the leader.
If you want a climate focused government, and you want a party to drag Labour to the left then party voting Green is easily the most sensible option.
Comments
Rory McCarthy
Whomever is leaking in the Greens is a dodo. And should be like the dodo, extinct.
Rory McCarthy
Thanks for the more personal insights on James. I’m probably one of his biggest critics, but the absolute amount of BS and attention on him has actually counterintuitively made me more defensive and I like him more. This is pretty unforgivable but the context helps.
