Minor parties disrupt two-horse race

breakfast news comment
Minor parties disrupt two-horse race
The election picture is becoming complicated, with a Herald-DigiPoll survey showing the gap between National and Labour narrowing - and the Greens and the Maori Party wielding influence over who will form the next government. National retains a lead in the poll entering election year, registering 47.5 per cent support, down 3.8 per cent from its highest-ever Herald-DigiPoll rating of 51.3 per cent in November. Labour is relatively steady on 38.7 per cent support, meaning the gap between the two major parties has fallen to 8.8 points from 13.2 points in November. But the big mover of the survey is the Green Party, which has rocketed to 9.1 per cent after looking in previous polls as if it might struggle to make the 5 per cent threshold.
Our friends on the right have been braying the victory for the National Party ruling alone for some time, despite the protestations of some of us pointing out that under MMP the odds of one party running the country are close to impossible. The Greens have had a rollercoaster, last August they were on about 8% - then the Urewera 17 nonsense brought the word ‘eco-terrorist’ into the vernacular and the Greens fell to their 4.3% activist base, but with that fact announced, the idea of a Government without the Greens in a post Inconvenient Truth world forced many NZers to get off the fence and support the Greens reminding the Greens that there IS a huge chunk of the electorate who will support politics aimed at global warming, and this is where Dr Invisible and Jeanette Fitzsimons have the chance to shine – the only words that should be coming out of their collective mouths is, “If you care about global warming, you must know that voting Labour or National WILL NOT DO ANYTHING TO SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING BECAUSE their environmental policies don’t go anywhere near where they must” – this mantra must be repeated a thousand times.