It's not easy being Green

Otago Daily Times

16-05-2025

Green is the colour of nature, a soothing collection of hues from a pale minty or spring-like tint to a deep mossy one.
Seeing and experiencing things green is said to be restful and restorative, and good for one's blood pressure and wellbeing. For many people, even imagining something green puts a skip in their step.
It is not for nothing, though, that Kermit sang It's Not Easy Being Green. For a start, green is not one of the primary colours but a secondary one made up of yellow and blue. When those are the colours used by Act New Zealand, that is a pretty uncomfortable truth for the Green Party.
Then there are the epithets which can teasingly be used to poke fun at Green Party members or supporters, invoking Cleopatra's "salad days, when I was green in judgement" quote from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, or the more prosaic "not as green as I am cabbage-looking".
New Zealand politicians from other parties are often even less subtle about the Greens. Yesterday, Public Service Minister Judith Collins called them "frankly bonkers".
Harsh words indeed, although there can be little doubt that the Green Party we now see in Parliament is many, many miles away from the party of former leaders Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald, and even from the more recent one co-led by James Shaw.
Kermit knows a thing or two. The Greens are in a difficult position, one which opens them up to criticism whatever they do.
Their tradition is to be a party which first and foremost advocates for the environment and its protection, at the expense of the economy if such a clash of philosophies arises. Yet, it is unlikely that any party will gain major traction in a parliament if it is solely a one-trick pony.
For that reason, the Greens have been forced to expand their offerings to policies running the full gamut of portfolios, from the more obvious close cousins to the environment, such as sustainable transport and housing, to more radical political activism on gender diversity, immigration and the plight of Palestinians. Yet all the time in the background they have to deal with the cry of "shouldn't you be focusing on the environment?".
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson (left) and Chloe Swarbrick. PHOTO: RNZ
This week, the Greens issued their alternative budget ahead of the government's effort due on Thursday. Co-leaders Chloe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson unveiled policies which they said reflected the party's belief in fairness and common sense, and which would make New Zealand a better country to live in by rapidly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, cutting the cost of living and improving the quality of life.
Their cornerstone ideas include free GP visits and nursing services, annual free dental checkups and basic dental care, free prescriptions, 20 hours of free childcare a week for children up to school age, and a guarantee to ensure anyone studying or out of work an income of at least $395 a week.
The intention is to fund the policies by increasing taxes on the country's wealthiest people. Among their proposals to do that are a wealth tax, a rise in income tax for those on more than $120,000 a year, a tax on the use of private jets, stopping interest breaks for landlords, and doubling royalty payments on mineral extraction.
The private jet tax would make the aircraft owner/operator pay $5000 per passenger each time they arrived and departed from New Zealand. At the other end of the emissions spectrum, the Greens want to breathe new life into regional passenger rail services, including where they are desperately needed, in the South and between Dunedin and Christchurch, and eventually electrify them.
The intention of the budget would be to raise almost $89 billion over four years, in order to pay for the free healthcare and other policies.
Predictably, the government and its supporters have leapt on the proposals, calling them left-wing economic madness, "kookiness" and a "clown show". Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was unsurprisingly the most ardent belittler, labelling it a "pink, Marxist plan".
As laudable as the ends are, and who could possibly argue that free healthcare and childcare would be a bad thing, the means of getting there do certainly appear too extreme. But, of course, that still allows room for scaling things back to a more moderate approach.
In the meantime, though, we say bring back passenger rail in the South regardless.