The Green Party has set itself the target of polling more than 10% at next year’s election, and has chosen 25-year-old Georgina Morrison as its female co-convenor to confirm its shift to a new generation of leadership. The Greens have lifted support in recent polls, because they are picking up those disillusioned with the Key Govt’s plan to open up conservation land for mining. Yet too often the party’s leaders, Metiria Turei and Russel Norman appear to be rebels without a real cause. Neither commands the depth of respect which their predecessors Jeanette Fitzsimons and the late Rod Donald did across the political spectrum.

The difficulty for the party is to mark out the kind of poster issues for the next decade, as genetic modification, climate change, and Parliamentary reform served in the 1990s as platforms on which Fitzsimons and Donald crusaded long before they entered Parliament. Norman called on his party to demonstrate its economic literacy, but the problem here is in pursuit of green objectives the party often appears to be anti-development of any kind. Turei concentrates on “social justice” themes, but these have been the trademark of the Labour Party, and the risk is in adopting extreme positions, she turns off the middle-ground voters the party needs to win. Labour leader Phil Goff says he’d welcome a strong Green vote but thinks 10% is a bit ambitious. He says “the Greens are an obvious coalition partner for Labour and the Green vote, alongside a strong Labour vote, would be sufficient to change the Government.”

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