Does United Future Dislike the Greens (part 2)
Topic: The Greens
The Centre Under Siege

To summarise my previous entry, I basically said that to talk about “like” and “dislike” is not really relevant in politics. It is of small importance to forming a government: see for example how little love there is between Winston Peters and the Labour-Jim coalition. The important thing is whether parties can reasonably cooperate.
Nonetheless it is still clear that both United Future and New Zealand First did dislike the Greens and wrote about them with venom - as much or more than the right did. And both NZFirst and UF insisted they would not support a government with the Greens in the Executive (in coalition with Labour). So why? Why so unbending?

Who are the Centre?
I am not a political scientist, and so can’t claim to speak with any authority other than my own feelings as a person who would claim to be centrist. On that (perhaps flimsy) basis I will express my opinion. I feel there are three aspects of centrism.

The Pragmatic
I believe is that the political centre reflects people who often don’t have strong political ideologies but are simply pragmatic - and focussed on things that work. By contrast the left and right always have an ideology to fall back on (saves thinking!). The left always err on the side of bigger government – get the government to do it for you – with as much emphasis on government control as it does on the genial face of supporting the have-nots (the so-called nanny state). A typical example of nanny state is that Labour would only give child-care support to those working mothers who have their children in publicly-owned (to a large extent state-controlled) centres, rather than the support being based on the needs of the family or indeed the availability of resources. On the other hand the right always err on the side of private enterprise and competition – no matter how inefficient and socially destructive that might be. The nonsense of forcing hospitals, schools and universities to adopt a competitive business model (“survival of the fittest”, also known as “red in tooth and claw”) is a classic example.

Slow the pendulum
Both left and right want to change society and remake it in the image of their ideology. And given enough time in government they would just keep going, and going, and going, and they would never know when to stop except that the voters eventually put the brakes on. With our previous first-past-the-post system and unicameral parliament the Prime Minister had almost unfettered power. So we had massive swings of the political pendulum. The centre, on the other hand, says that both sides of parliament are sometimes right(!)– but also both sides are sometimes nuts when they let ideology overcome common sense. With MMP, centre parties have the opportunity to damp the pendulum swings and keep either party from dragging the country too far to left or right.

The Socially Conservative
“If it isn’t broken don’t fix it!” As well as wanting solutions that work (not ideological) the centre voters understand how things are, how they used to be, and want only incremental improvement for the future. They don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. In terms of social policy they are very happy with traditional kiwi family values – supporting the structure of mum, dad and the kids. They see no need to try to force mothers back into the workforce (as feminists would have it), but support them caring for their own children rather than farming them out to others. For those outside the traditional kiwi lifestyle – greenies, socialists, Maori radicals, feminists, prostitutes, gays and lesbians, solo mums, those who lead non-traditional lives – they generally have a “live and let live” philosophy: you don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. I don’t know any United Future people who attack gays or prostitutes or solo mums or people of other race – though there may be some in NZ First who verbally attack the latter. Certainly there are nutters out there, but they are not representative of any party. All the centrist voters I know are content to let people get on with their lives, and live with their own choices.

Rebuffing the Seige
However greenies, Maori radicals, and those with non-traditional sexual lifestyles, are no longer prepared to accept ‘live and let live’ as a response. They demand positive affirmation and may attack anyone who does not take them seriously. The Greens in particular not only promote their views but are determined to enforce their views if possible – and it is this that gets up the nose of the centre. The centre feel their own lives and attitudes are under siege from idealists who refuse to leave them alone.
* The Greens not only want to encourage the use of public transport and bicycles (good), but push it by restricting the road network and generally making life hellish for the motorist (bad). The centre promotes choice.
* The Greens not only speak in support of Maori (good), but in the name of ‘partnership’ want to force (bad) Maori authority and Maori language onto non-Maori. The centre is not willing to surrender authority over to idealists.
* The Greens want to restrict human access to natural resources and parks – I am not sure for whose benefit!? The centre keep practical human needs as the focus.
* The Greens want to raise the taxes working New Zealanders pay in order to support more people who choose a non-working lifestyle. The centre supports help for those who truly need it, but expect others to support themselves.
* The Greens want to decriminalise Cannabis and promote failed ‘harm minimisation’ policies with regard to other drugs – policies that have failed elsewhere. They are not concerned enough to protect society from the risks.
* The actual wording in Sue Bradford’s bill will make criminals of any parent who smacks a child as part of their discipline strategy – despite the fact that she keeps saying over and over that the bill will not do that. What she appears to mean is that most parents will not actually be convicted and sent to jail, but to the centre that is not good enough. To people with a strong sense of ethics it is not acceptable to be labelled a criminal and a child-abuser at all, just because they have different child-rearing philosophies to the Greens.
* The centre want people to be able to decide for themselves what they think of various sexual practices, and not have other people’s views and practices thrust in front of their faces and taught to their children, young and old.
* The Greens believe in restricting the rights of New Zealanders to trade and travel to overseas countries whenever it disagrees with Green philosophy. The recent attempt by NZ Greens to actually encourage Australia to continue their ban on NZ apples, to the hurt of New Zealanders and in the total absence of any scientific evidence of risk to Australia, is an example.