I’m interviewing Green MP Catherine Delahunty, today at 12 noon as part of University of Otago Vote Chat. What would you like me to ask her? Delahunty is widely viewed as one of the most radical Greens, so it’s be especially interesting to explore with her the recent evolution of her Green Party from the margins where it’s been perceived as a watermelon-style party (green on the outside, but politically red on the inside), to a much more moderate, centrist party that is now open to forming a government coalition with the rightwing National Party. So how would Delahunty feel about the Greens propping up a National Government? To what extent is she happy with the shift of the party towards the mainstream and moderate middle of the political spectrum? [Read more below]
Green MP Catherine Delahunty grew up as a ‘red-diaper baby’ (i.e. in a communist household), and has been deeply involved in all manner of leftist and social movement politics her whole life. From going on a protest march when she was two-years-old, to living on a commune, is she now part of the Establishment? Certainly her party has become more integrated in the parliamentary political system and is no longer an ‘outsider’ minnow party pushing for all sorts of unfashionable and supposedly-extreme politics. Instead the party has over time gained a sense of respectability and an image of responsibility, maturity, and mainstream success.
The Green Party is now more hungry for power and in particular has objectives of getting over 10% of the party vote in 2011 and maybe a role in Government. Indeed, the online political futures market, iPredict, has just launched a new stock which attempts to measure the likelihood of the Greens being part of the next Government – see: ‘At least one Green Party MP to be a Minister in next government’ (http://bit.ly/pRwjY8). Currently the money says that there is a 19% chance of the Greens entering government, which seems at variance with the party saying that it is ‘highly unlikely’ to form a coalition with National.
Ranked at number 4 on the Green Party list, Delahunty appears to be the rising star of the Greens. She will obviously have a strong influence over the future direction of the party. So it’d be interesting to explore more about her own personal politics and ideology, and what we can expect from the Green Party after November 26.
As well as that, I’ll be asking some of the usual questions that I’ve been asking other MPs – about gay marriage, inequality, issues of ethnicity, drug reform, and alcohol use.
If anyone has additional topics and specific questions that they want put to Catherine Delahunty, please let me know – or participate on the Twittersphere in realtime (using the hashtag #OUVoteChat2011). Of course, I may not be able to use all the questions you suggest, but it’s helpful to get ideas from others and it’s useful to know what topics you find particularly interesting.
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The University of Otago Vote Chat takes place every week until the general election. The interviews occur in front of a public audience at the University of Otago Media Production studios, where the conversation is filmed for livestreaming on the internet and as a podcast for iTunes.
The intention is to make these political meetings rather different from the usual stage-managed and bland affairs that can happen during election campaigns. So there’ll be lots of challenging and quirky questions, and the MP won’t be allowed to revert to simply giving the usual well-rehearsed campaigning speech. The audience can help by heckling, cheering, or merely tweeting their reaction and questions to the Twitter feed – using the hashtag #OUVoteChat2011 – which will be projected up on the lecture theatre screen.
If you’re in Dunedin there is still the ability to come along and participate and/or watch – but seating is limited to about 45 or so – so turn up early. The Media Production Studio is on the 2nd floor of the Owheo Building, 133 Union Street East (Cnr of Union Street East and Forth Streets). You can see a map here.
If you want to watch the live-stream of the interviews, go here at 12pm.
Eventually all the interviews will be available as podcasts to download from iTunes, but in the meantime you can also watch them on YouTube here.
Some weeks there will be more than one politician. Future politicians include Bill English, Tau Henare, and Grant Robertson. To keep up with all the detail, there’s a Facebook “Vote Chat 2011” page here.
