Small Green Party needs to make more noise

Jeanette Fitzsimons

There's an old piano and they play it hot behind the green door, or so the song goes. The Jim Lowe classic is almost a reality in the Wellington parliamentary high-rise of Bowen House.

The Green Party caucus room does have a lovely old piano behind the door, an incongruous import against the grey and chrome makeover recently given to all offices in the building.

It is such a Green touch, not quite daring to be different, just naturally so. Whether or not it is played "hot" after the election in six weeks may be a finely balanced thing.

Being "hot" will mean being returned and being part of the next Government by way of coalition, confidence and supply agreement, or at minimum, co-operation agreement.

Not so hot will mean the status quo, being returned to Parliament and not being being part of the Government.

The cold alternative, of not being there at all, is a possibility that many commentators disregard.

The nine Green MPs are such a strong presence in Parliament, each advocating, lecturing and berating in their self-nominated specialist topics, that their absence is difficult to contemplate.

The Greens comfort themselves on the accepted wisdom that under MMP voting patterns, big parties lose votes in the campaign and smaller parties gain them because they receive much greater attention than between elections.

But there have been only three MMP elections, and the so-called small-party pattern has featured in only two of them - 1999 and 2002.

Six weeks out from the last election, the Greens were on 4.4 per cent (Herald-DigiPoll) and finished on 7.14 per cent of the party vote.

In 1999, they were on 2.9 per cent in the month before and finished on 5.16 per cent.

In the first one, 1996, in which the Greens formed part of the Alliance, a month from the election National was ahead of Labour by nearly 20 points.

Both the Alliance and New Zealand First lost support during the campaign as Labour narrowed the gap on National.

This election, six weeks out, the major parties are far closer than they have been in any of the three other elections.

The Greens polled 3.2 per cent in last week's Herald-DigiPoll survey and have come in below the 5 per cent threshold in half of its six surveys this year.

In the six surveys conducted by Colmar Brunton for One News this year, the Greens polled below the threshold in four of them, though in the July poll they managed 6 points.

An averaged poll table on the Green's own Frogblog website has the party at 5.5 per cent, dangerously close to losing its voice in Parliament.

If the major parties continue to run closely, voters might consider it a luxury to expend a vote on a smaller party.

So how will the Greens counter that? Its message will be it is not the size of the big parties that counts but the size of the centre-left bloc from which a coalition could be formed. Labour would still be in a position to form a strong, clean coalition with the Greens if its vote is less than National.

As the Greens see it, there are three key post-election alternatives: Labour and the Greens; Labour and New Zealand First; or National and New Zealand First.

But it is a finely balanced equation and small movements in support among the smaller parties can have a great effect on the coalition options of the larger parties.

Various scenarios on the Electoral Commission's virtual election seat-calculator show if the Greens don't make the threshold, National's chances of forming a Government are greatly increased.

The Greens are better prepared than they were last election, when the campaign team worked by consensus and was more reactive than proactive.

It has worked hard to improve its relationship with Labour and to push the message that, since admitting defeat on GE, it is willing to work with Labour in coalition or with a confidence and supply agreement.

This time the team is headed by the party's social justice advocate Sue Bradford and is expected to operate more quickly and independently than the leaderless team that worked by consensus last time.

More than six months ago, the party appointed a campaign manager, Russel Norman, No 10 on the party list, and firmly in the social justice camp of the party with Bradford, co-leader Rod Donald and MP Keith Locke and Nandor Tanczos.

The emphasis on social justice issues is an irritation with classic Green environmentalists and conservationists, not least to the retiring Green MP Ian Ewen Street, who said so at the party conference in June.

It irks Labour that the Greens' claim the moral high ground on social justice issues, and that claim will be accentuated in the campaign.

Labour is likely to be especially peeved at the Greens' plans to campaign as the heart, soul "and spine" of a centre-left coalition.

But the smaller party estimates that the relationship is secure enough to withstand such implied criticism. It has to make a lot more racket to have any chance of playing "hot" in six weeks.

GREEN HITS

Jeanette Fitzsimons - Project Aqua, motorway expansion, oil
Rod Donald - Tibet, free trade, Zimbabwe
Sue Kedgley - healthy food, animal welfare
Keith Locke - Ahmed Zaoui, war
Sue Bradford - child abuse, welfare
Metiria Turei - foreshore and treaty
Nandor Tanczos - cannabis