Opportunity’s five bottom lines

On Monday, the same day as National released PREFU, the Opportunity Party announced their five bottom lines for coalition or confidence and supply after the election.

These five bottom lines speak to our values. They are lines we will not cross.

The five bottom lines,

1. Bring down food prices, by intervening in the supermarket duopoly, with cross-party consensus.
2. Clean up politics and rebuild public trust in politicians with a mandatory register and code of conduct for lobbyists, donation caps, and registered voter only donations.
3. Fix the health system via a 10 year cross-party plan that includes wage increases for workers, and investment in primary and preventative care.
4. Revive ocean health, an immediate ban on bottom trawling in at risk areas then phasing out. Working with fishes, quote owners and communities to build a sustainable blue economy long term.
5. Restore climate credibility, recommitment of government to the Paris Agreement and protection of the Climate Commission.

As with the Greens, it’s worth listening to OP in their own words. Here’s Qiulae Wong’s announcement

It’s smart politics. There’s been criticism that the bottom lines are a lot of nothing. But OP can’t get the big, ballsy UBI/land value tax as a bottom line at this time, so they’ve drawn a line in the sand around values, while also making the bottom lines pragmatic and easy for coalition partners to say yes to.

This is Opportunity Party practicing what they preach: rebuilding public trust in politics. It looks odd because we are so used to Peters’ centrist grandiosity, power-mongering, and manipulating MMP while actively undermining other parties. Now Qiulae Wong arrives saying we are progressive centrists, will work with everyone, and we want to build long term stability. Finally some adults in the room. It reminds me of James Shaw (who did this from a left position).

The bottom lines are appropriate for a small party that’s never been in parliament let alone government. They’re not weak lines though, and in three years time OP will be able to say, this is what we achieved. If they form government with National, those five things are significant and important gains. If they form government with Labour and the Greens, they have a good basis for both negotiations (bottom lines aren’t the only lines) as well as working on common ground in the coming three years.

So why should OP be in parliament? I’m still voting Green, and still have serious critiques of core OP policy. But Qiulae Wong brings social intelligence to the centrist position, she would be an asset in parliament simply on those grounds.

The five bottom lines are designed to be said yes to by either Labour or National, but it’s an easier yes for Labour. The Te Tiriti position alone, a sixth bottom line, puts the hard word on National: you either push back against the excesses of your racist coalition partners, or you don’t get to govern again. OP have also said they won’t be in a government that has Peters as Foreign Minister. As someone who has long believed Peters monkey-wrenched the potential of MMP and better representative democracy, I have to admit to a certain amount of pre-emptory schadenfreude at the thought of Opportunity’s calm, steady, pro-social approach to politics putting Peters in his place.

OP will negotiate with the party that gets the biggest vote on election night. I didn’t listen to all the mainstream media Q&A, but I assume that means they will go first to the biggest vote party, and then to the second biggest vote party if the first one doesn’t work out. This is another reason to be talking up Labour if we want a centre left government.