Green party praises togetherness

Green MPs Sue Bradford, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Rod Donald and Sue Kedgley at the campaign launch. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

The Green Party used its campaign launch yesterday to hammer the message that a vote for them will help keep National out of power and won't be wasted.

Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons told about 150 party faithful at the launch in Auckland she regretted the fallout with Labour in the 2002 election campaign over the release of GM into the environment, which with Corngate, blackened the relationship.

But she said that in the past three years she, fellow co-leader Rod Donald and Prime Minister Helen Clark had "worked hard to build bridges".

She listed areas where the two agreed and disagreed but she said they had now "developed processes for handling differences".

"We are now ready to go to the country and say together, we can govern New Zealand and make it a better place for all Kiwis."

To emphasise the point, last Friday she joined Helen Clark on the campaign trail in Auckland in two carefully orchestrated photo-opportunities.

Yesterday Ms Fitzsimons contrasted the better working relationship between Labour and the Greens with the parties of the right.

She pointed out NZ First leader Winston Peters kept saying he did not believe National leader Don Brash was prime ministerial material while National and Act had been engaged in a legal dispute over billboards.

She also repeated the message that Green-leaning voters should give it their party vote, saying that she had lost count of the number of Green voters she had met in the past two weeks who planned to vote Labour to keep Dr Brash out.

That could explain why some recent polls have showed support down for the Greens.

Mr Donald used his speech to the launch as a call to arms after the poor polling.

Some, like the Herald on Sunday-DigiPoll survey out yesterday, have it slipping below the vital 5 per cent party vote threshold.

With no backup electoral seat, the Greens would disappear from Parliament if the party failed to make the threshold.

Mr Donald warned that the party must do better.

"Our rolling average of 5 per cent gets us back in but with only seven MPs. We've got to do better than that. And we have less than five weeks to do it."

Behind the scenes the Greens are conceding Labour's recent king-hit on tertiary loans by promising to remove interest has eaten into their student support.

The party is vowing to run an issues-oriented campaign focusing on increasing its share of the party vote. Ms Fitzsimons said it would be running on four platforms - energy, the environment, a fairer society and safe foods.