Labour announced their new environmental vision at their annual conference in the weekend, which was heralded as ambitious but lacked substance. As the Dominion Post’s Tracey Watkins correctly pointed out, this was ‘clearly a bid to head off National’s own attempts to “green” itself’. National has continued to develop its internal and influential Bluegreens group, especially as MP Nick Smith believes that Green voters are easiest to win from their competitors. In line with this, Ruth Berry has written a good feature on National’s move to the centre, which as with their British Conservative counterparts, involves a significant emphasis on environmentalism. It seems that everyone wants to be green, and environmental politics is probably where the consensus amongst NZ parties is strongest.
Not coincidentally, the Green Party has been moving to the right in recent times, and according to Watkins, they are currently in the process of giving away their leftwing tag and rebranding themselves as a potential ally to either of the main parties.
