Surely Not! Can it be possible that at least two of the Green Party's core principles - "Social Responsibility" and "Appropriate Decision-making" - could push it out of the Red and into the Blue? The Greens' long-standing opposition to so-called "waka-jumping" legislation aligns them more with National's belief in individualism than it does with Labour's historical commitment to caucus collective responsibility. It's a strange and contradictory position - especially for the party that fought so hard for proportional representation.
IS IT POSSIBLE to reconcile the Green Party’s long-standing opposition to “waka-jumping” legislation, with its constitutional commitment to
“appropriate decision-making”? No other political party has a more consistent record
of support for proportional representation. It is, therefore, perplexing to
hear Greens argue for the right of individual MPs to undermine their own
party’s decision-making power in the House. In an electoral system which
allocates parliamentary seats according to a party’s share of the popular vote,
how can compromising the proportionality principle ever be considered
“appropriate”? Surely, under MMP, it must rank as the cardinal political sin?
That the Greens do not consider voting against the wishes of
their own party to be a sin leads us back ineluctably to that wonderfully
weaselish word “appropriate”. Why does the word even feature in the party’s
four core constitutional principles? (Ecological Wisdom. Social Responsibility.
Appropriate Decision-making. Nonviolence.) Surely, the party’s third core value
should read Democratic
decision-making?
The explanatory sentence accompanying the Green’s third core
value only makes its meaning murkier. It reads: “For the implementation of
ecological wisdom and social responsibility, decisions will be made directly at
the appropriate level by those affected.”
Now, as I understand the rules of philosophical discourse,
it is unacceptable to define a thing simply by referring to the thing itself.
As in: a cat is an entity possessing cat-like qualities. Accordingly, it is
extremely cheeky of the Greens to define “appropriate decision-making” as, in
effect, decision-making which is made appropriately. Officially, this form of
rhetorical evasion is known as “tautology”.
What, then, are the Greens seeking to evade by using the
word “appropriate”?
Well, for a start, they’re evading the ideological
obligations imposed upon the international Green movement by the Global Green
Charter. The Global Green Charter lists the core Green values as: Ecological
Wisdom. Social Justice. Participatory Democracy. Nonviolence. Sustainability.
Respect for Diversity. These core values differ significantly from those listed
in the New Zealand Green Party’s charter.
Participatory Democracy, for example, is a concept with a
long and illustrious political pedigree extending all the way back to the “Port
Huron Statement” issued in 1962 by the radical American youth organisation
called Students for a Democratic Society. The substitution of the bland verbal
formulation “appropriate decision-making” speaks volumes about the willingness
of the New Zealand Greens to put their money where their mouths are. (Their
craven substitution of “social responsibility” for “social justice” speaks a
whole additional library of volumes!)
That the NZ Greens are unwilling to commit themselves to the
principle of participatory democracy is highly significant in relation to at least some of their MPs openly equivocal stance on the Waka-Jumping Bill currently before the House. It signifies what can only be
described as an ultra-individualistic approach to the vexed question of when,
if ever, it is permissible to step away from decisions arrived-at collectively.
To hear some Greens tell it, the answer
appears to be: “Whenever an individual Green MP feels like it.”
Some of these critics have justified their stance by citing the
former Green MP, Sue Bradford’s, scathing denunciation of previous waka-jumping
legislation. Unfortunately, this merely draws attention to Ms Bradford’s
propensity to set a much higher value upon her personal political judgement
than upon the collective judgements of her comrades. An old-fashioned
Marxist-Leninist might condemn such behaviour as “petit-bourgeois
individualism”; the Greens, bless them, are considerably less censorious.
This Green tolerance of dissent may, however, come back to
bite them. The present, Labour-led government’s political survival is entirely
dependent on the preparedness of the Green Party caucus to remain true to the
undertakings given to Jacinda Ardern and her team of negotiators following last
year’s general election. Among those undertakings was Green Party leader, James
Shaw’s, commitment to facilitate the passage of the waka-jumping legislation
demanded by NZ First. The slightest suggestion that Shaw may no longer be in a
position to deliver on the deal will arouse serious misgivings not only in NZ
First, but also in Labour. The mutual trust upon which the Labour-NZF-Green
Government depends will be severely tested.
For the National Party, the Greens apparent willingness to
put the rights of the individual ahead of the expectations of the group will be
good news indeed. Simon Bridges can draw considerable comfort from the clear
evidence that, in spite of the widely held view that they are more socialist
than environmentalist, the New Zealand Greens are actually well to the right of
their overseas counterparts.
Far from exhorting members to become “Social Justice
Warriors”, the Green Party constitution calls upon them to demonstrate “social
responsibility”. The New Left doctrine of “participatory democracy” is,
likewise, deemed inappropriate. What’s more, in the finest National Party
tradition, Green MPs are insisting that if their conscience requires it, then
they must have the right to both abandon their party’s waka – and remain in
Parliament.
A version of this essay was published in The Press of Tuesday,
13 March 2018.
