Budget blunder gives Greens 'party package'

By AUDREY YOUNG political reporter

The Government has apparently given the Greens control over the spending of millions of budget dollars to appease the party for a ministerial oversight.

The move is understood to have caused considerable resentment.

The Herald understands the initiative, finalised only on Wednesday last week, was to rectify an oversight by Associate Finance Minister Trevor Mallard which saw the Greens' Budget wish list lying neglected for weeks.

The solution will see the Greens trumpet their own initiatives in a package valued between $10 million and $20 million in Thursday's Budget.

The Greens' Budget proposals across a range of portfolios were sent to Prime Minister Helen Clark before Easter.

It is understood Mr Mallard was delegated to consider them all but mistakenly addressed only those in his own education portfolio.

The oversight was discovered when the Greens followed up their package - but many of the key decisions had already been made.

Discussions continued over several weeks in an effort to remedy the situation.

On Wednesday last week, Finance Minister Michael Cullen nominated a dollar limit - not surprisingly, it was less than the initial bid - and the party was given the freedom to order its own priorities in the form of a Green package.

Immediately after last November's general election, the Green Party - with its seven MPs - pledged to support the Labour-Alliance minority Government on confidence measures such as the Budget.

A rumour that it had threatened to vote against the Budget unless some of its proposals were included was denied last night by co-leader Rod Donald.

"We've always indicated we would like to know what was in the Budget before we supported it, but we were never explicit about that.

"In the last few months we have been more explicit as ... we needed to see what the Budget was in key portfolios so we knew that what we were promoting wasn't already being covered.

"It's a reasonable expectation that we see what we're voting for. I don't see that there is an implied threat in that.

"We've been able to find out everything we need, which I think is a mature way to work. In spite of what [Alliance leader] Jim Anderton suggests, we haven't breathed a peep of it."

Mr Anderton questioned this week whether the Greens, formerly of the Alliance, could be trusted with cabinet documents.

Mr Donald said the Greens had never "directly or indirectly" threatened to vote against the Budget.