Thought for the Day: Green positioning and Public Equity

Tuesday, 3 February 2015, 8:26 am
Column: Keith Rankin

It's sad to see Russel Norman go. He did engage with many of the wider economic issues such as monetary policy, and was willing to think strategically about how the Greens could actually make a difference.

Nevertheless, the Greens fell short on his watch, ever holding out for the election of a Labour-led government that would facilitate substantial Green influence over policy-making. The reality of a Labour New Zealand First Green government this year would however have been continued marginalisation for the Greens. So long as it was New Zealand First which showed a willingness to 'go elsewhere' if it couldn't strike the right deal with Labour, then it would have been Winston Peters rather than Russel Norman who, with Labour, set the economic agenda of such a Government.

The Maori Party have shown the way, by making it clear that they would like to be a part of any Government. Their position has been misunderstood, especially by the mainstream media, as 'propping up' National. The Maori Party have never propped up National. Rather they saw the electoral reality of a National-led government, and participated in those governments (only on confidence and supply) in order to provide a more balanced policy mix than we would have got from a simple National-Act combo. Thus they did their best for their constituents, and for the New Zealand middle, in the context of the reality of the National-Act alternative. The Maori Party never had the 'balance of power'.

Over the coming decade, the Greens can position themselves strategically into a position on the electoral spectrum that could make them King-makers. But they should also reassure their voters that, if a Labour-Green government is a possible outcome of a given election, then that's the way the Greens would prefer to go. Thus Green voters would be, in the first instance, voting for a Labour-Green government. They should also be voting, in the second instance, for substantial Green contribution to whatever government emerges.

What needs to change is how the Greens engage with government when a Labour-Green government is not sufficiently supported by voters. There are many ways that Green principles can align with the more centrist pragmatic side of a centre-right government. Certainly they can focus on the environment itself, as Gareth Morgan has pointed out.

The other area in which the Greens can make a difference in any government that they may be contributing to, is in the area of 'public equity' accounting. In one way or another, and under whatever name, this fiscal concept has to become integral to twenty-first century political economy. The alternative to policy informed by public equity principles is the collapse of the global economy, as it grinds to a halt through ever-increasing wealth concentration.

The concept of public equity needs to be promoted from the centre of the political spectrum as a pragmatic way forward. It is first and foremost an accounting idea. Good public accounting informs good fiscal policy. 'Public equity' should not be perceived as a fringe left wing idea. The Greens need to move to the political centre, and to apply the principle of public equity to our understanding of tax and welfare policy.

A good article of mine to refer to about public equity is still Everybody Owns Water (NZ Herald, 5 March 2013). The article was written with a centre-right audience in mind. For the Greens we may note the following sentence from that article: "Less obvious is public equity in our water, forests, infrastructure, institutions and even our culture(s)."

ENDS

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Keith Rankin

Political Economist, Scoop Columnist

Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s.

Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like.

Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.

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