Going Green

On my way to work this morning I witnessed something which has made my stomach turn in disgust.

Right across Wellington, the National Party have had their little goblins out overnight stapling up expensive hoardings on the basis that if you repeat something often enough, people will think it's true. What is appalling about this is not that they have done it - we all know that a party like National think they can buy the election, and anyone with half a brain can see that this is what they're trying to do. What I find absolutely unforgivable is that the goblins have hit every available surface - including other party billboards.

Now, I don't like the hoardings anymore than the next guy, but every party has the right to go to the expense of getting their message out there if they so choose. For National to come along in the middle of the night and post their own advertising over the top of other parties' is not only rude, it's plain undemocratic.

This is what this country is likely to see if we are foolish enough to allow National to form a majority after tomorrow's vote: A right-wing party willing to run roughshod over everyone else to push their agenda through. This has been a lacklustre election campaign as a whole, overshadowed by the global credit crunch and the US elections, but the rhetoric that we continue to hear from the Right is all about greed: Gutting the Resource Management Act to favour business over community; Canning the Emissions Trading Scheme because it will cost money (in the short term - another sign that financially driven policy is fatally short-sighted); Scrapping the Greens' billion dollar home insulation fund; and pushing economic growth at the expense of all else.

Economic Growth is synonymous with consumption, and a hundred years of massive growth and consumption have brought this planet to the brink of collapse. Everything that National plans to do if they take the election tomorrow will only push us further towards complete ecological ruin.

The only way to stop this is by getting out there and voting tomorrow. And that vote should be Green, if you care for the planet, or for your children, or for your own health and wellbeing in the future. Don't let all the hard work that the Greens have done over the past 9 years go to waste.

Get out there. Vote Green.