Do as I Say, Not As I Do

Closed Down Conference

Hah.  The NZ Green Party has apparently become a secret society.  We wonder how many secret signs, passwords, genuflections and mantras now govern its proceedings.  

Naturally, the Green Party still espouses transparency and openness for other parties and politicians.  But for sure behind the Green garden fence, the Party has decided that openness and transparency is a mantra for other political parties to follow.  That sauce is very much for the goose, not the gander.  As for itself, the Green Party is holier than all, and need not submit to the duties and obligations and standards it demands of others.
 

The Greens head into their AGM in Dunedin this weekend with the focus on the 2020 general election; the message to MPs, says Mr Shaw, is they want the government to go "further and faster".  But a hyper-sensitivity about their media image has led to them holding the most closed-down annual conference in recent memory - for any political party. Only two speeches will be open to the media, along with a 'World Cafe' - 'speed dating but for ideas' according to James Shaw.

Even then reporters have been told this is an 'off-the-record' event with no cameras or photos, and any members having to give explicit permission before being interviewed.  Mr Shaw defends the shut down nature of this AGM, and previous ones, due to "a bit of a caricature" of the party and some media looking for "hooks and angles to reinforce that stereotype" and so the reaction was to allow media into big set piece events but keep "private" conversations, private.  [Jane Patterson/Radio NZ]

The Greens only remain a political force only at the pleasure of the Labour Party.  If the Labour Party is losing popular support, Labour voters transfer their vote to the Greens.  But in this case  Jacindamania continues; consequently the Green's support has tanked. 

The defections and the criticisms have led to it closing down their annual party conference to scrutiny. It is beginning to operate more like a secret society.  Flaky.  Better get those secret signs embedded into the Party's DNA.  The real message, however, is that the Green Party is split between those who are concerned through and through with the environment.  And then there are the radical lefties who want a command-and-control society. 

Together they are such happy campers that the proceedings of  their annual party conference must be held in secret.