Our Non-green Green Party

More than any other political party the Greens have potentially, almost 100% public support for their principal aims.

The very small exception are often perfectly sensible folk who believe global warming is largely a natural phenomenon.

Considering that potential near total support they represent a shocking political failure at the voting booth, given they usually hover about 5%.

There’s a very good reason for that, namely they’re a Green Party in name only.

From the outset, over and above green issues, they’ve pushed an extreme left-wing social and economic agenda, anathema to middle New Zealand.

In coalition they’ve been shoved aside by Winston’s more domineering and wily politically seasoned experience.

With an election approaching the government have thrown them a bone, needless to say at the public expense.

Specifically, the next census is now to include entries for chaps who believe they’re women and women who believe they’re blokes. Both are wrong but it doesn’t matter. In a free society they can believe what they like and dress how they wish.

My only criticism of this list is in missing out lycanthropes, that’s blokes who believe they’re not human but an animal, described in the OED as, “a form of madness”. But trust me, we have our share of them, mostly to be found in asylums.

In the announcement, initiated by Green co-leader, James Shaw and his co-leader, surprise, surprise, ticking all the boxes being a Maori and a woman, Shaw, the Statistics Minister said, “information gathered needed to reflect the diversity Aotearoa was lucky to have.”

So there you have it. The existence of a tiny percentage of the population confused about their gender is a bonus for us. Needless to say Shaw never explained how and why.

More supporting waffle came from a Rachael Milicich, the deputy government statistician.

“Our rainbow communities are a key part of our identity as a country and it’s really important they’re properly represented in the data we gather.”

How they’re a key part of our identity understandably Rachael didn’t explain, nor why it’s really important they’re represented in the data gathered. The fact is that’s a hollow statement she simply made up.

Collating and publishing this nonsense is an unnecessary cost to the tax-payer.

Censuses fill a useful purpose in understanding the composition of society, but for God’s sake, there should be no place for irrelevancies.

Bear in mind we’re not talking about lesbianism or homosexuality, but instead a miniscule percentage of people suffering under the delusion they’re born into the wrong gender. I genuinely feel sorry for them as their lives are hugely handicapped.

But knowing how many there are is about as important as knowing how many people don’t eat carrots. In other words, it’s totally unimportant.

I suspect the Greens will be swept aside in the coming election as the parlous economy will dominate people’s voting intentions.

Should that happen, hopefully a new genuine Green Party will emerge, solely concerned with green issues. The current lot are political fraudsters spawned from the collapse of Jim Anderton’s New Labour living in the past no-hopers.

Although he never said so publicly, I know for a fact Jim saw the light and recognized the merits of the market economy by the time he took office in the Clark government.

How do I know? First by his actions and second because he told me. In particular he saw what the hopeless Bolger government never did, specifically the unbelievable wrongness of our 1990s monetary policy. Jointly with realist Michael Cullen they quietly 100% reversed it leading to a long awaited economic resurgence.

The dregs and flotsam of his abandoned New Labour flocked to join the Greens and albeit a minority and not withstanding the opposition from some occasional quality Green MPs, have dominated the Party’s agenda ever since.

Winston has done an excellent job thwarting their efforts in the coalition, thus they’ve been reduced to silliness such as recording the tiny number of people unhappy with their gender.

What a legacy!