KEY POINTS:
The Green Party will be a less-appealing political movement with the retirement of Nandor Tanczos from Parliament. He of the dreadlocks and hemp suit, and all that promise upon entering Parliament nine years ago, did not achieve, through the Greens, what he ought to have.
It is fair to say the party itself has not achieved what it ought to have through MMP and is stagnated as the best of an average bunch of minor parties. Although it has made a good showing in the first Herald-DigiPoll survey of the year, more usually it hovers just below or just above the 5 per cent threshold; it has never established itself in double figures.
Mr Tanczos now seems to have run out of steam and will seek, by leaving its caucus, to reignite a radicalism within. Oddly, his sign-off statement observes that the Greens ought to be able to work with all parties and be seen as a safe pair of hands.
Odd, because Mr Tanczos' departure will likely promote the party's co-leader Russel Norman, a non-MP, into Parliament if it occurs before the general election. Dr Norman is a middle-aged, middle-class political junkie who has begun to distinguish himself by a lack of the collaborative gene.
An Australian in a party suspicious elsewhere of foreign influence, he is no Rod Donald, the former Green co-leader who died suddenly in office. The fact that he was several places further down the list than Mr Tanczos on the party rankings selected by the rank and file Greens for the last election hints at his limited appeal. That he subsequently won the co-leadership may give the lie to that placing, but his performance at Parliament, rather than in it, has been patchy.
He revealed himself during the Electoral Finance Bill debates to be a conspiracist, accusing this paper of censorship when we published an opinion piece in his name at the same size and prominence as all other political party leaders.
He tends to make small points, poorly. On the day Sir Edmund Hillary died, Dr Norman expressed dismay that, wait for it, Television New Zealand's news updates will be sponsored by the National Bank. Why? Because the National Bank is a subsidiary of the ANZ Banking Group and the ANZ is, by acting as a banker to a Malaysian company, "involved in financing rainforest destruction in Papua New Guinea".
The Tanczos departure has a wider impact on the Greens than the suitability of his presumptive successor. Despite the wisdom and experience of its other co-leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons, the party has singularly failed to grow its public appeal to the point where it will really matter in Wellington.
The Greens need more points of distinction, not fewer, which is what they will achieve with Mr Tanczos' retirement. No doubt the movement will rally to the threshold again by November, but for what gain? Ms Fitzsimons' speech to Parliament in the adjournment debate before Christmas was a fine litany of mid-level Green achievement, but buying New Zealand made and food labelling are issues on the periphery.
Labour has shown a big sisterly patience with the Greens over the years, but also a familial condescension. Any Green arrangement with National, even if possible, would surely be at arm's length. Unless, of course, the Greens somehow capture the imagination in their own right, putting aside small politicking and conjuring themes of change and hope in a kind of Aotearoa version of the Obama campaign in the United States. Becoming more mainstream, bland or incumbent is unlikely to be the answer when Mr Tanczos takes his radicalism and skateboards off into the distance.
