{"id":55339,"date":"2020-10-16T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55339"},"modified":"2020-10-16T07:11:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T12:11:00","slug":"analysis-shows-how-the-greens-have-changed-the-language-of-economic-debate-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55339","title":{"rendered":"Analysis shows how the Greens have changed the language of economic debate in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Analysis shows how the Greens have changed the language of economic debate in New Zealand<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n
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When Health Minister Chris Hipkins recently quipped that the Green Party is \u201cto some extent the\u00a0conscience of the Labour Party<\/a>\u201d he was not simply referring to polls suggesting Labour may\u00a0need the Greens\u2019 support<\/a>\u00a0to form a government.<\/p>\n

Hipkins was also suggesting Green policies help keep Labour honest on environmental and social issues. So, what difference has the Green Party really made to New Zealand\u2019s political debate?<\/p>\n

Drawing on a study of 57 million words spoken in parliament between 2003 and 2016, our\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0shows the presence of a Green party has changed the political conversation on economics and environment.<\/p>\n

In the recent\u00a0Newshub leaders\u2019 debate<\/a>, both Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins agreed that \u201cgrowing the economy\u201d was the best way to respond to the economic crisis driven by COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Their responses varied only on traditional left-right lines. Ardern argued that raising incomes and investing in training would\u00a0grow the economy<\/a>. Collins suggested economic growth should be advanced by increasing consumer spending through\u00a0temporary tax cuts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Green parties in New Zealand and elsewhere have long questioned the impact of relentless growth on the natural resources of a finite planet. Green thinking is informed by\u00a0ecological economics<\/a>, which aims to achieve more sustainable forms of collective prosperity that meet social needs within the planet\u2019s limits.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Labour\u2019s conscience\u2019: Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw sign the confidence and supply agreement that brought the Greens into coalition in 2017.<\/span>\u00a0GettyImages<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The language of economic growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

The impact of this radically different view can be observed in New Zealand parliamentary debates. When MPs from National and Labour used the word \u201ceconomy\u201d they commonly talked about it in the context of \u201cgrowth\u201d (\u201cgrow\u201d\/\u201cgrowing\u201d\/\u201cgrowth\u201d).<\/p>\n

On average, National MPs said \u201cgrowth\u201d once every four mentions of \u201ceconomy\u201d. Labour MPs said \u201cgrowth\u201d once every six mentions.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Analysis shows how the Greens have changed the language of economic debate in New Zealand When Health Minister Chris Hipkins recently quipped that the Green Party is \u201cto some extent the\u00a0conscience of the Labour Party\u201d he was not simply referring to polls suggesting Labour may\u00a0need the Greens\u2019 support\u00a0to form a government. Hipkins was also suggesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[30464,30462,27257,391,30463,5327,4002,769,8487],"class_list":["post-55339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-bronwyn-hayward","tag-geoffrey-ford","tag-green-party","tag-growth","tag-kevin-watson","tag-language","tag-new-zealand","tag-sustainability","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55340,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55339\/revisions\/55340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}