John Armstrong: Dark days for the Greens

Very bad news for Labour - and no better for the Greens.

Yesterday's National Business Review-Phillips Fox poll showing National with a narrow lead over Labour will have sent shockwaves through the entire centre-left.

In a matter of weeks, the polls have shifted from indicating Labour could comfortably form a coalition with the Greens to suggesting United Future might have to be part of that equation. Now, all three parties might not have enough seats combined to get a majority in the next Parliament.

One poll does not necessarily make a trend, but Labour has taken a huge hit for its derisory nod towards tax cuts. That appears to have been the hay-bale that broke the camel's back after the party had appeared immune from a string of ministerial mishaps and bureaucratic botch-ups.

It is difficult to see an easy route back. Does Labour u-turn and now cut taxes and make its Minister of Finance even more of a laughing stock? Or does it plug on and risk watching National cement in the gains from its pending package of tax cuts?

The latest poll is a double-blow to the Greens. They are hitched to Labour. However, the slump in the latter party's support and the Greens' failure to pick some of it up has correspondingly reduced their likely leverage in post-election coalition negotiations.

That has consequences for the election campaign. If the Greens are seen as marginalised afterwards, they will be deemed irrelevant beforehand. Already struggling for profile, they could find themselves sidelined during the campaign, more so if it becomes a neck-and-neck race between Labour and National for the pleasures of haggling with Winston Peters.

If such a worst-case scenario was not enough to make things gloomy at the Greens' annual conference this weekend, the slow slippage in the party's support is starting to raise questions about them making it back into Parliament. For every poll placing them above the 5 per cent threshold, there is one which has them sliding below.

But the running average of all polls has them hovering above 5 per cent - enough to hold off the notion that the Greens could be gone from Parliament. For obvious reasons, the Greens' leadership will want to keep it that way. The party will want the media to focus on the conference's more positive message: that the Greens will be a responsible partner in a Labour-led coalition. The money must still be on them getting back into Parliament.

Lacking the insurance policy of a constituency stronghold, their "back-us or sack-us" challenge will force left-leaning voters to contemplate what they might lose.

The party should also be bolstered by voters who cannot abide Labour dealing with Peters and who will want to strengthen the Greens' hand.

However, the Greens are vulnerable if the gap between the two major parties remains narrow. In a tight race, left-leaning voters will be under pressure to back Labour to increase Labour's leverage if it looks like the two major parties will be forced to negotiate with Peters.

The Greens counter by stressing that only a vote for them can guarantee a Labour-Greens government because a vote for Labour risks being a vote for a coalition between Labour and New Zealand First or Labour and United Future, That message will be reinforced this weekend as the Greens refine their strategy for an election campaign that was already looking like hard yakker.

In 1999, the Greens were deemed "sexy" because they were new kids on the block. No longer. That mantle goes to the Maori Party this election. In 2002, the issue which dominated the campaign - genetic modification - was the Greens' issue.

Stoking fears

No longer. They are struggling to come up with a replacement. GM was the perfect issue, which reached right into people's lives by stoking fears about food safety.

The Greens have hoped for similar impact from warnings about "peak oil" - the point at which world oil supplies "peak" and then start falling.

It is another doomsday scenario, but the issue lacks a vital "us versus them" component that pitted the Greens against the Government over GM.

Everyone agrees running out of oil is bad news. But there is much argument about when supplies will actually peak. The solutions are more complicated and more expensive. GM was simple - you either accepted it or you didn't.

Lacking such a potent environmental issue has forced the Greens to give more emphasis to its "social justice" strand.

Pushing policies to help those missing out on the current prosperity, the Greens are out to fill the niche on Labour's left vacated by the Alliance. They are using the symbolism of former Alliance firebrand Laila Harre speaking to the conference to build a stronger attachment with the target markets of the low-paid and debt-afflicted students.

The intention is to paint Labour's policies as unnecessarily timid in the help they give to those people. But attacks on Labour will be tempered this time by the knowledge that the bitterness over GM in 2002 cost both parties votes.

While there will not be a non-aggression pact, both parties have agreed to keep communication open to avoid any campaign arguments flaring out of control.

But striking the right balance will be tricky. The Greens must persuade sceptical voters they can now work with Labour, while not submerging their identity in the process.

They have the additional handicap of knowing Labour will prefer to stick with United Future if that party's MPs are back in sufficient number, while Peter Dunne will demand fewer policy concessions to keep the Greens out of government.

While they are not going to sell out to pragmatism, the Greens have bowed to the necessity of making it more difficult for Labour to shun them.

In Jeanette Fitzsimons' words, her party "will not be asking for something that Labour cannot give us".

That is a significant statement. While the Greens will still expect concessions from Labour in their policy agreement, there is an equally strong determination that nothing comes between them which might block a deal.

Nothing policy-wise at least.

No one envisaged Winston Peters butting into proceedings. As it did at United Future's conference last week, his stunning resurgence will cast a shadow over the Greens' big weekend.