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Metiria Turei - Source: Q+A -
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GUYON ESPINER
The Green Party will now have 13 MPs. Congratulations on your result last night, and thanks for joining us this morning.
METIRIA TUREI - Green Party Co-Leader
Kia ora.
GUYON I guess the central question is what do you do with that power?
METIRIA Right. Well, we've worked in the memorandum of understanding with the National government before, and we've always said that we would be prepared to do something similar if National led the next government. We're in no hurry. We're not necessary for the formation of government. Last time we didn't do it till after the new term of Parliament was resumed, so we'll see how it goes.
GUYON So let's just clarify that - that's a definite no to confidence and supply?
METIRIA Well, we certainly aren't necessary for the formation of government. We said it would be highly unlikely. We said it would be highly unlikely that we would be in a coalition arrangement with National, and I think that that's the case.
GUYON Can you close that door this morning?
METIRIA I don't think it's necessary. I mean, we said it would be highly unlikely that we would be in any kind of coalition-type arrangement with National. We are not in a position where we are necessary for the formation of government, so that is not a decision that we need to present. But I will say we are talking with our executive today. That decision is yet to be made, but we always said it was highly unlikely.
GUYON Sure, and I don't want to press this because time is precious, but we just get a clarification on that? Are you able to close the door completely on that this morning, or is it still highly unlikely?
METIRIA No, it's still a discussion that our executive has to have, and we will do that this afternoon. But I do think that being realistic, we are looking at something like a memorandum of understanding, as we have had before.
GUYON Sorry, do you mean that when you talk to your executive that you'll have a decision on that today, or will it be in time?
METIRIA We will be talking about how we proceed and what our decision is around the next stages. If we were to have any kind of confidence and supply type arrangement, we would have to have an SGM for our party to agree to that kind of agreement.
GUYON That's some sort of collective meeting?
METIRIA That's right. So, we would have a conference to do that. We'll make some of those decisions this afternoon.
GUYON Ok. What is it that you hope to achieve or gain in the memorandum of understanding? What are your priorities?
METIRIA Sure. So, we would very much like to extend the home insulation programme. It was part of our jobs package, our jobs priority, and we certainly think there's some possibility of continuing that. There are other projects like the toxics project, which has proved to be very useful with the issue that's happened in Coromandel in the last week, so we'd like to see some progress on that too. But our priorities were jobs and rivers and kids. We have a programme of solutions. We would like to talk to National at some point about that and see what progress we could get. But, again, we're still at early stages, and we'll have to see how we go.
GUYON Can I just ask you finally, do you see yourselves as completely independent from the Labour Party, or do you see this as-?
METIRIA (LAUGHS) I can answer that and say yes, absolutely.
GUYON Yeah, but here's my question - probably not very well phrased - but are you looking at building a potential coalition for 2014? Is there some room to work with Labour?
METIRIA Well, we do work with Labour. For example, Russel Norman worked with David Cunliffe on the banking inquiry. Sue Kedgley worked with Labour on the aged care inquiry over the last three years. So we have worked with Labour and National, but we are an independent political force in this country. We are cemented as the third political force based on our green principles of sustainability and caring for our people and taking care of a compassionate economy. So we are not in politics to be anybody's mate; we are in politics to get stuff done.
GUYON All right. Thanks, Metiria Turei for joining us.
