Guyon Espiner: Greens' private battle for public acceptance

The Greens probably don't get the media attention they deserve.

As Parliament's third largest party, and the only minor party consistently polling above the 5% threshold, they are serious, long term political players.

Perhaps too serious for the media at times, to be honest.

The struggle for control of the Act party or the fight between the Maori and Mana parties has the drama and tension news editors understandably look for when putting together appealing newspapers and news bulletins.


The Greens almost never fight among themselves - at least, not in public - they rarely rort their expenses or say outrageously provocative things, which tends to limit their media coverage somewhat.

So it was good to spend 15 minutes on live television with Russel Norman on Q A on Sunday discussing Green policy and Green politics.

Norman is finding his feet as a serious party leader and beginning to fill the big shoes left by the late Rod Donald.

He summed up his pragmatism by talking about the Green Party moving "into the suburbs" - a neat way of saying the party needs to move from the fringes and into the mainstream, if it is to wield the influence necessary to implement Green policies.

But the Greens face a barrier along the road to suburban acceptance: that constituency still regards some of their social and security policy as a little bit nutty.

Green defence policy includes the assertion that: "The New Zealand armed forces should dispense with capabilities gained to enable New Zealand to operate as a subordinate part in a combat task force led by the United States, Britain or Australia."

So, what would those capabilities be? Er, like, guns?

The policy that Norman himself appeared embarrassed about is the Green Party pledge to make cannabis legal for people aged over 18.

The policy is attractive to some Green supporters and quite possibly a source of thousands of votes. The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (ALCP) got 34,398 votes at the 1996 election. But when the Greens came into Parliament and, with Nandor Tanczos in its ranks, became identified with cannabis law reform, the ALCP vote fell away to just 12,987 in 2002 and 9515 at the 2008 election.

What is harder to judge is how many people are frightened off by the policy.

Contrary to popular myth, the Greens have many middle and upper income supporters.

In fact their three highest polling electorates for the party vote are Wellington Central (where they scored more than 20% of the party vote), Rongotai and Auckland Central. All three are higher income electorates.

I can't prove it but I imagine a significant proportion of those voters would be attracted to the environmental and economic policies of the Greens Party but be turned off by its drugs policy.

The Legalise Cannabis policy best illustrates the tension the Greens face between being serious mainstream players and remaining fringe activists.

The Greens must be tempted to quietly jettison this policy for the coming election.

After all, if you want to move into the suburbs where the families live, you might have to leave the bong in the city at the student flat.