What the politicians think: Jeanette Fitzsimons

Jeanette Fitzsimmons

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says discussion of "the biggest threat facing New Zealand" - climate change - has been the forgotten topic this election.

"Hardly anyone has been talking about it in this campaign," she says, "and only in order to condemn the Kyoto protocol and carbon tax [anti global-warming measures] which is the only way anyone is trying to deal with climate change. That's far more important to our future than tax cuts."

Still, she is glad the campaign is nearly over: "The public are sick of it and just want to know the answer. We started early enough that we've done what we needed to do."

For Ms Fitzsimons, the turning point of the campaign was not just the discovery that Exclusive Brethren church members were behind anti-Green pamphlets, but that National leader Don Brash "misled people by saying he knew nothing. It cast doubt on his honesty and his integrity".

Her own most embarrassing moment came on Tuesday during a radio debate when she was asked about Green economic policy. "I simply couldn't remember the detail ... it just deserted me!"