Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

The Green party is trying to buy a referendum. Stuff reports, a couple of days after Keeping Stock broke the story that they are as sanctimonious as ever in justifying spending taxpayers money on buying a referendum:

The Green Party is spending $50,000 paying people to collect signatures for a citizens-initiated referendum on asset sales.

The equivalent of 10 fulltime staff have been hired for the next six to eight weeks in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

The Greens also have a volunteer army of about 2000 Auckland-based “issues assistants” helping with the campaign and have budgeted a further $28,000 for related sundries.

The bid for a citizens-initiated referendum was launched last month and is sponsored by a coalition of Grey Power, the Council of Trade Unions, Greenpeace, the Union of Student Associations, Labour and the Greens.

Dana Levy left out three words…”of taxpayers money”. But Russel Norman confirms the pick pocketing:

Greens co-leader Russel Norman said the funding was coming out of the party’s $1.3million annual leader’s fund.

`It’s very important to us to stop the asset sales and it’s very important to us that New Zealanders are given a voice because they currently don’t have one,” he said.

Yet another reason Parliamentary Services spending should be opened up tot he Official InformationAct

Eric Thompson writes in the Herald about the Greens and Len Brown’s loony rail ideas:

The Green Party drives me mad. Usually I let what they’re ranting on about wash over me like white noise. No one is likely to pay much attention to a party that wants to tell people the size of the shower-head they’re allowed and what lightbulbs to use.

However, the imported Aussie who is one half of the party’s head has gone a little too far in my book by saying that he wants to take money from roading and pour it into the black hole that will be an Auckland inner-city rail loop.

Here’s me thinking that it was only despotic dictators and communists who did stuff to please the few while telling everyone else it’s for the betterment of the nation.

I’ll bet that Russel Norman never takes the train, he believes that trains are for “other people”. The Greens aren;t alone in the madness, Labour too has promised to abandon roads so the liberal elite in Auckland central can feel good about making other people take trains.

“A metropolitan area needs a population density of 8000 people a square mile to make rail viable. Hong Kong has a population of 6.5 million at a density of 76,200 a square mile. Auckland has 1.26 million at a density of 5500 a square mile. That’s why we can’t have a rail system like that of Hong Kong.”

So, Russel Norman, just do what the Greens are supposed to do – save whales, snails, or whatever – and keep your nose out of stuff you know nothing about.

I like the sound of saving whales.

It’s blatantly obvious that rail is dead in the water. Billions and billions of dollars have been thrown at it over the years in this country and it’s still on he slippery slope to oblivion.

If it were up to the people who have to drive north from the bridge they would go for improved roading every time. And ask the people north of Puhoi what they would rather have – a gateway to open up the Far North, or an inner-city rail loop that goes nowhere?

Labour has lost almost every vote north of the bridge with their slandering of State Highway One as the “holiday highway”.

It has been reported that the Greens want a compact central city built on efficient transport, and cited Auckland Transport’s estimate that the CBD capacity for employees and residents could triple if the rail link were built.

Are they mad? By adding a couple of hundred thousand rugby supporters to the Auckland mix at the start of the World Cup, the place ground to a halt and fans couldn’t use the rail system to even get to Eden Park.

Len Brown, Labour and the Greens want to spend billions on a rail track that goes round in circles. It is madness.

In the news yesterday was the details of an ongoing attack against a Kiwi company that makes toilet paper by Greenpeace and WWF:

Greenpeace New Zealand and Cottonsoft are continuing to dispute claims the toilet paper company is damaging the environment.

Earlier this week Greenpeace launched a several pronged attack on Cottonsoft, claiming independent testing carried out by the environmental organisation had found mixed tropical hardwood in the toilet paper, a product associated with deforestation in Indonesia.

Yesterday spokesman Nathan Argent revealed Greenpeace sent four samples away for analysis. The samples consisted of 10 sheets of toilet paper across the range of Cottonsoft products, brought from the same shop.

“We sent samples of Cottonsoft toilet paper off to the United States,” says Mr Argent, “They were samples taken from loo rolls so basically it was Cottonsoft products taken off shelves in supermarkets from New Zealand and then they were packaged up and sent for forensic testing.

“The samples that were tested were Cottonsoft brands and two of those samples of the four samples that were sent tested positive for mixed tropical hardwood,” he says.

In its release Greenpeace says an Integrated Paper Services (IPS) expert carried out testing. IPS is an independent tester which uses the TAPPI method of testing, a method which requires the analyst to ‘become thoroughly familiar with the appearance of the different fibres and their behaviour when treated with the various stains’.

Cottonsoft NZ general manager Kim Calvert says the testing Greenpeace used has a ‘high level of inaccuracy’, and is casting doubt on their claims.

Quite apart from the fact that Greenpeace and WWF are wrong and the company says that their accusations are untrue, I have received evidence that this campaign is being aided by the Green party. Cottonsoft emailed the co-leaders requesting a meeting and were instead passed off to the Greens forestry spokesperson Catherine Delahunty. The meeting request was for a meeting with the Greens only.

Catherine Delahunty emails Cottonsoft with an interesting revelation:

She admits she is working with WWF and Greenpeace and needs their permission for the Green party to meet with Cottonsoft.

I think this email clearly shows the Greens are captured by special interest groups and shows undue influence by outsiders over an MP. I think Meteria Turei and Russel Norman have some explaining to do as to why one of their MPs is having to seek permission from Greenpeace and WWF for a meeting that only involves the Green party.

If this is the Greens idea of helping create jobs then I don’t think voters want a bar of their sneaky special interest group controlled agenda.

Russel Norman is pleading ignorance of the machinations of his EA. Despite the evidence that this was being planned several months ago.

I wonder though if he isn’t being just a wee bit too sanctimonious in his grovelling.

The stickers used has slogans like “Drill It!”, “Mine it!”, Sell it!”.

Eeerily similar to what Meteria Turei tweeted last week:

That's what i read @edmuzik havent seen the NatParty enviro policy bt assume its just one page with "FUCK IT" written on the middle #Votenz

November 9, 2011 6:12 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@metiria

Metiria Turei

Russel Norman is using plausible deniability in his excuse making but I’m not sure I believe him.

The Greens got upset in 2005 when the Exclusive Brethren organised and distributed pamphlets. They authorised their pamphlets though. The Greens activists did no such thing. Back in 2005 Don Brash was asked if he knew anything about the campaign, he denied knowing anything.

Has Russel Norman had his Don Brash moment? Is it really believable that he didn’t know anything about this campaign when his executive assistant was front and centre involved in organising this attack on national’s billboards? There were more than 50 activists involved in this. It was on a scale far larger than the Brethren and the 6 or so men involved in that. It isn’t conceivable that senior Greens didn’t know about his.

I think there are many more questions to be answered by the Green party.

I can’t wait until someone tracks down the printer of the stickers and pulls the invoice.

Gareth Hughes has some useful things to say…sometimes. Yesterday was the resumption of inane comments from the little twerp:

Gareth Hughes, the Green Party’s marine issues spokesman, said the accident should serve as a wake-up call for the government. “They need to put a moratorium on all drilling, including test wells, because what we’re seeing is that Maritime New Zealand is stretched dealing with what would be considered a minor spill compared with what you saw in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, referring the BP disaster last year.

I mean, a ship runs aground, presumably because some fool drove it there and he is prating about oil drilling???

Just when Russel Norman had managed to convince some people that the Greens were at last being sensible, Gareth Hughes goes and destroys that perception in a flash.

One wonders what Gareth Hughes thinks is going t run the coastal ships that the Greens are so keen on promoting?

Catherine Delahunty isn’t the sharpest tack in the box:

Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty has said she will resign if her party entered a coalition deal with the National Party – a call that undermines the credibility of the Green Party’s bid for more mainstream political appeal by leaving open the possibility of such a deal.

Ms Delahunty did not return calls, but Otago University politics lecturer Bryce Edwards confirmed she made the comment when responding to his questions during an interview on Friday.

“I clearly asked her: ‘If there was a Green Party MP that was a minister in a National-led Government, would you resign from parliament?’ She said, ‘Yes I would’.”

A few months ago, the Green Party amended its statement on pre-election positioning to leave open a formal agreement with National, something that had been explicitly ruled out in the past.

Greens co-leader Russel Norman told the Herald he was comfortable with Ms Delahunty’s position.

“Individual MPs and members have strong views and that’s fair enough but the decision [on pre-election positioning] as a whole is made by the party.”

Catherine Delahunty would rather remain ineffectual and irrelevant than work together with a party that looks like giving The Greens far more respect than Labour ever did.

Of course wait for Labour to attack Bryce Edwards, he is clearly only saying this because he is part of the VRWNLLWC (Vast Right Wing and non-Labour Left Wing Conspiracy).