Vernon Tava’s Sustainable New Zealand party kicked off yesterday with a highly groomed launch and a swish blue-green website.
Start-up funding does not seem to be a problem for this much-signaled attempt to create an environmental party positioned to the right of the Greens.
That’s not surprising when the underpinning purpose of its creation is geared to destroying the Green Party by pushing it below the 5% margin needed to retain its presence in Parliament as a vital support partner for Labour.
Most current polling indicates the Greens are hanging on around the 6% mark, and that without them Labour would likely be toast… short of a NZ First resurgence and willingness to stick with Labour, which can never be guaranteed.
If this scenario holds true through to the next election and should the new party cut even 1-2% of voters away from the Greens, National could find itself in a much safer electoral space. With this scenario in mind I suspect there may be healthy backing from some of the same individuals and businesses who support the Nats.
How real the prospect is of Tava achieving even this much support from voters is another question.
The Greens in their current form have moved so far to the centre and right of New Zealand politics that they are very much a party of green business, of corporate social responsibility and of a desire to work within the confines of the same neo-liberal economic settings as any National government, as demonstrated by James Shaw’s promotion of the Budget Responsibility Rules before the last election.
In recent days Mr Shaw’s success in winning almost complete cross-party support for the toothless Zero Carbon Bill is just the sort of thing you’d think Vernon Tava and his friends would be cheering on. Exchange Mr Tava for Mr Shaw and what difference would there be?
Sustainability NZ’s vision is of a ‘clean, green New Zealand’, promoting clean safe water, conservation, and sustainable economic growth.
The Green Party’s headline policy talks about a ‘smarter economy’ and a ‘cleaner environment’, the main difference being that the Greens also seek a ‘fairer society’ (and good on them for that). This is the left-wing piece Tava rejects when he positions Sustainability NZ ‘as neither left nor right, but out in front’.
While in Tava’s eyes the latter statement is a bid to mark out his place to the right of the Greens, I cannot underestimate how many times I heard this very phrase used by some Green Party MPs, candidates and members during my 12 years in the party.
Unless those valiant Green Party members who are hanging on within the party trying to move it back to its earlier economic, social and ecological justice roots make considerable progress over the coming year, it is hard to see quite where the new voters will come from, apart from some who may be cannibalised from National.
Sustainability NZ’s only chance of making it into Parliament is likely to be via an electoral deal with National.
One of the things which both Mr Tava and the National Party must be wondering is whether National voters in Maggie Barry’s North Shore electorate would be willing to transfer their loyalties in order to allow Sustainability NZ through.
The question is whether National voters in places like Devonport, Takapuna and Westlake would happily accede to the same kind of arrangement as the Nats’ deal with ACT in Epsom. It’s not impossible given the demographics of these wealthy seaside suburbs. They are a population that is often comfortable with conservative economic and social policies, but does care passionately about the physical environment.
I’m fascinated by Sustainability NZ’s logo. The first time I saw it on TV it looked like a snake’s head attached to a fish hook, not the most pleasant of images.
I have a feeling that if this party does manage to survive it will do so by the thinnest of margins and beset by a number of rather dangerous fish hooks.