Editorial: Greens always a danger

Bill English would have voters believe that the Greens will not wield undue influence over the next government. Forget, he says, the Greens' threat to bring down a Labour-led administration if the moratorium on the commercial release of genetically modified organisms is lifted in October next year. There would be no danger because the National and Labour Parties agreed on GM and together could defeat the Greens. National's leader offers a comforting vision of stable government. Alas, as much as it suits his party's electioneering purposes, it has little connection with reality.

Mr English wants to persuade those who traditionally vote National not to jump ship to ward off the prospect of the Greens' tail wagging the Labour dog. With a Herald-DigiPoll survey published last Wednesday showing National support at a five-year low of 25.7 per cent, he has obvious reasons for concern. Convince National-leaning voters that the Greens are irrelevant and there will be no cause for them to vote tactically in the interests of an absolute Labour majority.

But even if the Greens became irrelevant on the GM moratorium, that is far from the whole story. What Mr English neglected to say was that the Greens have committed themselves to bring down the next government if it lifts that ban.

That means the Greens would never be irrelevant, before or after their misguided exercise in principle expires. After October next year they would become an Opposition party and would not support the government on issues of confidence and money supply. Effectively, they would be sitting in the shadows waiting to pounce. And with them, equally keen to unseat the government, would be National.

It is not difficult to envisage a scenario post-October next year in which Labour, having failed to gain an absolute majority, governed with a slim majority, thanks to the support of Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition and, perhaps, United Future leader Peter Dunne. If Labour were to part company with Mr Anderton on an issue, it would clearly be vulnerable to an Opposition composed mainly of National and the Greens.

Support for the Greens reached 8.3 per cent in that Herald-DigiPoll survey. That would not translate into a vote of sufficient magnitude to entitle them to impose their view upon the country on an issue of such importance as genetic modification. But it would make them a significant Opposition force. The Greens would thus be a potentially destabilising influence both before and after the moratorium resolution.

The other string to Mr English's soothing bow is that the Greens would not undermine a Labour-led government because the alternative is a National administration. That may appear to contain a kernel of sense. A National government would instinctively pay less heed to Green concerns than a centre-left coalition.

The Greens, however, seem implacably opposed to compromise in any shape or form whenever genetic modification is mentioned. And their MPs are fortified by the knowledge that delegates at the party's annual conference left no doubt the next government should fall if it lifted the moratorium.

The Prime Minister was keen initially to portray the Greens in terms that emphasised their capacity to destabilise. But at Labour's campaign launch she pulled back in deference to concerns that pressing for her party to govern alone would turn off voters on Labour's left flank and help the Greens. That may have been tactically astute. But neither it nor Mr English's canard should be allowed to mask a political reality. The Greens will jeopardise stability, even after the GM moratorium has been lifted.

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